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Berliners Jam Park to Hear, Touch Obama in Concert Atmosphere By Patrick Donahue July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Berlin's city center took on the atmosphere of a rock concert as more than 200,000 people jammed the German capital's Tiergarten park to hear U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama. Spectators chanted ``yes we can,'' Obama's catchphrase, as the 46-year-old senator stressed the shared ``burdens of global citizenship'' that bind the U.S. and Europe. Beer and sausage vendors lining the park provided refreshments. ``He's extremely charismatic -- I've never seen anybody like this,'' said Wolfgang Zuchowsky, a 73-year-old retired police officer from Berlin. ``It's...

BOSTON - Former Clinton Cabinet member Robert Reich on Friday endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. Two other Democratic elder statesmen, former Sens. Sam Nunn of Georgia and David Boren of Oklahoma, also said they were supporting the Illinois senator. Reich, who served as Labor secretary under Bill Clinton, said in a blog post that "although Hillary Clinton has offered solid and sensible policy proposals, Obama's strike me as even more so." Reich also said Obama's plans for reforming Social Security and health care have a better chance of succeeding, and...

This time, Robert Reich: So what’s changed? I asked Reich. “I saw the ads” — the negative man-on-street commercials that the Clinton campaign put up in Pennsylvania in the wake of Obama’s bitter/cling comments a week ago — “and I was appalled, frankly. I thought it represented the nadir of mean-spirited, negative politics. And also of the politics of distraction, of gotcha politics. It’s the worst of all worlds. We have three terrible traditions that we’ve developed in American campaigns. One is outright meanness and negativity. The second is taking out of context something your opponent said, maybe inartfully, and...

If the Democratic presidential race were a poker game, by now you'd have to suspect that Barack Obama's campaign is dealing from the bottom of the deck: Rarely a day goes by when it doesn't slap another ace down on the table. The aces in this (possibly strained) metaphor are endorsements, and it often seems as if the Obama operation has an inexhaustible supply at its disposal. In the past week alone, it has announced the support of congressmen from North Carolina and Indiana; the Utah state party chair; the Oklahoma state party's chief fundraiser; 25 South Dakota state legislators;...

"Papa loved Mama, so they got married and had babies." Thus does my earnest four-year-old summarize the mysteries of marital love. For scientific purposes that statement is terribly incomplete. For philosophical purposes, it hits the bull's eye. With those words Phil Lawler began a Wall Street Journal op-ed in March of 1996. His child's perspective stands in instructive contrast to an article in today's New York Times titled, "Talking With Children About Sex and AIDS: At What Age to Start?" The answer suggested in the lede is "How about, oh, 4?" The reporter tells us this is the subject...

This year's charitable donations are expected to total more than $200 billion, a record. But a big portion of this impressive sum -- especially from the wealthy, who have the most to donate -- is going to culture palaces: to the operas, art museums, symphonies and theaters where the wealthy spend much of their leisure time. It's also being donated to the universities they attended and expect their children to attend, perhaps with the added inducement of knowing that these schools often practice a kind of affirmative action for "legacies." I'm all in favor of supporting the arts and our...

I Guess It’s Not Plagiarism for former Labor Secretary Robert Reich to recycle his old columns, but you’d think the Los Angeles Times would be disturbed to know that the Reich op-ed that it published yesterday, October 1, on the charitable tax deduction repeats word-for-word much of what he said in his American Prospect web article last December 20, which repeats what he said on NPR’s “Marketplace” commentary the same day. At least the American Prospect piece acknowledges that it’s a version of the NPR commentary. American Prospect, Dec. 20: “Not long ago, New York City’s Lincoln Center had a...

July 16, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although few have heard of her outside the movement she helped to shape, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker's contributions to the advance of the homosexual political movement puts her in an historical class with Margaret Sanger, the foundress of Planned Parenthood and institutionalized abortion, and Alfred Kinsey the "father" of the sexual revolution. Hooker, a professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles for 30 years, is credited in the medical and psychological community, and most especially amongst homosexual political activists, with establishing that there is no measurable psychological difference between heterosexual and...

Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu warned foreign ambassadors in Tel Aviv that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is working to create a 1,000-year Islamic Reich. The former prime minister told a gathering of some 60 diplomats on Tuesday that Ahmadinejad is planning to carry out his genocide program using the nuclear weapon it is believed Iranian scientists are now building. Netanyahu said as well that the program could be stopped in 1,000 days – approximately the same amount of time that the Mossad spymaster, Meir Dagan has said it will take for Iran to complete its work on a nuclear weapon. Dagan...

Germans demand compensation from Poland over war losses A German group has filed claims against Poland with a European court over property lost in the aftermath of World War II, a member said today. The Prussian Claims Society, which represents some Germans who were expelled from Poland after the war ended, filed the complaint with the European Court of Human Rights, the society’s deputy leader Gerwald Stanko said. “Twenty-two individual complaints have gone to the European Court of Human Rights,” Stanko said. He said the aim was to secure either compensation or the return of property. The Prussian Claims Society...

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, September 12, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - High school girls in Manitoba may soon be reading detailed instructions on lesbian sex acts as part of their normal sex education curriculum, after the Ministry of Education accepted a manual emphasizing homosexuality as an optional resource for high school educators. The Little Black Book--A Book on Healthy Sexuality Written by Grrrls [sic] for Grrrls claims to be a youth-friendly guide to teenage sexuality, offering girls advice and information. In reality it reads like a guide to lesbian pornography, with section titles such as “My First Time F***ing a Girl” and “How...

(AgapePress) - She stands with her arms folded resolutely across her chest. In the background of the photo, you can see playground equipment. She is the mom protecting our children in this lead magazine article about the dangers of pest control spraying in the nation's schools.On the Internet, a website tracks reports of school pesticide exposure incidents. In 1995, Case #94415050501 records parents' complaints that their children had been exposed to pesticides on the school playground. One child in fifth grade broke out in hives. However, medical reports did not substantiate any claim that the child's hives were due...

Weekend Talk Show Preview - Analysis for August 12th and 13th, 2006On the shows this weekend I'm most interested by Vali Nasr, on CNN, and Ken Mehlman, on Meet The Press.  I think we'll learn more about the events in the Middle East from Nasr and more about the coming campaign from Mehlman than all of the other guests, combined.  Nasr is an expert, from Iran, on the issues of conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.  I actually view this as our best hope of winning the coming world war.  Just as Communists and Nazis joined forces to start World...

TRURO - Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration, really knows how to draw a crowd.     So many turned out Sunday at Truro Central School for his talk on what is at stake in the upcoming state and national elections, that Bill Worthington, co-chair of the Truro Democratic Town Committee, said, "We'd love to get him to come to the Truro Town Meeting, since we could be assured of a big turnout then."     More than 250 people attended the talk, sponsored by the committee, and Reich said the big turnout "appalled" him, considering what a great beach...

THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, Charles Reich's book The Greening of America arrived like a tidal wave in the already roiled waters of American public debate. Published as a 25,000-word essay in the September 26, 1970, New Yorker, it elicited from the magazine's 463,000 readers more mail than any single article before it ever had. The issue quickly sold out, while copies of the much longer book were scarce, though it eventually went through over 20 printings. The New York Times alone published about a dozen articles on the subject, two of them by Reich himself, a few more commenting on the...

The United States does not want to remove Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf from power as Washington fears that the South Asian country would fall into the hands of extremists, according to a former consultant to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. "If Musharraf falls, mullahs will take over," the ex-FBI consultant, Paul L Williams, said at a seminar in New York, adding, "However, he will be gone by next year." The half-day seminar was organised by Indian American Intellectuals Forum headed by Hindu leader Narain Kataria. According to Dr Williams, Muslim extremism presented a huge threat to humanity. "The threat...

The European Union is accumulating a vast range of powers that pose, as human rights organisations such as Statewatch and Liberty have consistently argued, a threat to civil liberties across the continent of Europe. This month, the Democracy Movement has teamed up with Labour for Civil Liberties, Youth for a Free Europe and The Ecologist magazine to highlight this threat of the developing EU Police State. A new range of literature has been published for distribution nation-wide by supporters of the participating groups. Leaflets emblazoned 'Human rights do not apply' expose five recent EU-inspired steps which are building towards this...

Rise of the Fourth Reich - The European Union Posted on Monday, June 27, 2005 by richard The Nazi’s are nearly winning. Don’t believe me? One parliament, flag, anthem, court, all for a single Federal State of Europe. That is what the Nazi state was, a Federal State of individual german states. So as a citizen of the UK, I am very happy I live here in the US, but still worried for my fellow Englishmen. The European Union’s laws mean that any state joining it must give their sovereignty up, betraying their citizens, deceiving them, to become a member...

BERKELEY, Calif. - Former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich is joining the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley. Reich taught at Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy during the spring semester and in 2004. That post will become permanent as of Jan. 1, according to a statement Friday from the university. Reich said he's taking the job to participate in an intellectual community "that supports a full discussion of all views." Reich, who has written ten books concerning politics and the economy, served as labor secretary in the Clinton administration, as an assistant to the solicitor general in the...

  Thursday, July 14, 2005 10:48 p.m. EDTJohn Kerry Outed Undercover CIA Agent Sen. John Kerry, who called for Karl Rove to be fired over allegations that he revealed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, outed a genuine undercover CIA agent just this past April - even after the agency asked that his identity be kept secret. Kerry blew the cover of CIA secret operative Fulton Armstrong during confirmation hearings for U.N. ambassador nominee John Bolton. Questioning Bolton, Kerry asked: "Did Otto Reich share his belief that Fulton Armstrong should be removed for his position?" - according to...