COMMON DREAMS– As same-sex couples in New York prepare this weekend to tie the knot, their brethren in Massachusetts — the first state to legalize gay marriage — have some advice.

Enjoy the wedding because afterward, they will realize that there are 1,000 or so benefits gay couples can’t get because of the federal defense of Marriage Act: Joint federal tax returns, federal health plans for spouses, and access to spouses’ federal pensions.

“Let them enjoy their joy, but they will soon realize that their marriage is not being seen equally at the federal level,” said Dorene Bowe-Shulman, who married her longtime partner, Mary, in 2004 in Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage.

New York’s law takes effect at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday, with the state where the gay rights movement began more than 40 years ago joining five other states and the District of Columbia in legalizing same-sex marriage.

While many married gay couples are hoping for the repeal of the 1996 law, known as DOMA, the measure’s supporters are pushing back, arguing that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and that repeal would violate the views of most Americans.

“That definition of marriage has been the position of the nation for many, many years, with the raising of children and the benefit to those children from a male-female household,” said Carrie Gordon Earll, a spokeswoman at the advocacy group Focus on the Family.

DOMA says that traditional marriage “is something we value as a nation,” she said.

As gay couples prepare for their weddings in New York, the largest state yet to legalize same-sex marriage, their counterparts in Massachusetts are telling them that their push for equal rights doesn’t end with the ability to get married.

Dorene Bowe-Shulman and her partner were among a group of gay couples and widowers who filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of DOMA, which prevents the federal government from recognizing gay marriages.

Read more about Mass. Gay Couples to N.Y.: DOMA Still Denies You Benefits

© 2011 Associated Press

Join Al Franken to repeal DOMA! Sign your name to the petition: http://www.alfranken.com/index.php/splash/doma_0711

Photo by Flickr user Mad Hausfrau

GLOBAL RESEARCH– British Prime Minister David Cameron may well deny he knew TNTW was tapping the phones of members of UK’s Royal household or those of American 9/11 victims. But he can’t claim he doesn’t know his country is a partner in ECHELON, which, according to Washington journalist Bill Blum, is a “network of massive, highly automated interception stations” that is eavesdropping on the entire world.

“Like a mammoth vacuum cleaner in the sky, the National Security Agency (NSA) sucks it all up: home phone, office phone, cellular phone, email, fax, telex…satellite transmissions, fiber-optic communications traffic, microwave links, voice, text images (that are) captured by satellites continuously orbiting the earth and then processed by high-powered computers,” Blum writes in his book “Rogue State” (Common Courage Press).

Calling it the greatest invasion of privacy ever, Blum says the ceaseless, illegal spy system sucks up perhaps billions of messages daily, including those of prime ministers, the Secretary-General of the UN, the pope, embassies, Amnesty International, Christian Aid, and transnational corporations and that “if God has a phone, it’s being monitored.”

Blum also said that during the countdown to its invasion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. listened in on the conversations of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq, “and all the members of the UN Security Council…when they were deliberating about what action to take in Iraq.”

Launched in the 1970s to spy on Soviet satellite communications, the NSA and its junior partners in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand operate ECHELON, which is a network of massive, highly automated interception stations covering the globe at the expense of American taxpayers.

Today, Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour opposition, is blasting PM Cameron on grounds that, according to The New York Times of July 19, “the recent scandals in British life were caused by a lack of accountability among those in high places.” Across Britain, Miliband said, “there is a yearning for a more decent, responsible, principled country.”

What makes the British public recoil is the sort of conduct by former TNTW reporter Clive Goodman, who pleaded guilty in Jan., 2007, to hacking the voice mails of aides to the royal family.

Pardon me, but how does that crime begin to compare with ECHELON, an organ of the U.S. Government, spying on the Secretary-General of the United Nations or the Pope? Or stealing, as it has, confidential business information and passing it along to favored firms?

I’ll say this for Mr. Murdoch: he’s closed down his biggest newspaper; he’s fired top editors and reporters for their part in the scandals. He’s gone before the public and begged forgiveness. By contrast, what have high U.S. officials done about the crimes committed via ECHELON? Zip, and they have no announced plans to do so. They continue to operate ECHELON unashamedly.

Rupert Murdoch’s TNTW was only attempting to do in a small way what the governments of the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are doing big time every day. ECHELON is a criminal operation in violation of international law and terminating it might make America, too, “a more decent, responsible, principled country.”

Read more about ECHELON: The Global Eavesdropping Scheme Dwarfs Murdoch’s “News of the World”

© 2011 Global Research

RELATED: Excellent in depth report about ECHELON released by The Telegraph in 1997.

History Undercover’s Documentary on ECHELON Spy Satellites Part 1/2

History Undercover’s Documentary on ECHELON Spy Satellites Part 2/2

Photo by Flickr user zackaholic

IWATCH– Interpol’s primary purpose is to help police hunt down murderers and war criminals, child sex offenders and wildlife poachers.  But a five-month investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows a little-known side to Interpol’s work:  In cases from countries such as Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Tunisia, Interpol Red Notices are not only being used for legitimate law enforcement purposes, but to round up political opponents of notorious regimes.

For countries that want to abuse Interpol, “it’s a way to extend their arm to harass opponents – political or economic,” said Kyle Parker , policy director of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, a human rights body of the U.S. Congress.

ICIJ analyzed a snapshot of Interpol’s Red Notices, published on December 10, 2010. It includes 7,622 Red Notices issued at the request of 145 countries. About a quarter of those were from countries with severe restrictions on political rights and civil liberties. About half were from nations deemed corrupt by international transparency observers.

The Islamic regime of Iran’s use of Interpol stands out not just because of the Mazrae episode, but also because of people like Shahram Homayoun.

He fled Iran in 1992 after the mullahs took over. After he settled in Los Angeles, Homayoun started a satellite TV station to beam a message of civil resistance into the homes of Iranians.

His audience has scribbled his slogan in Farsi, Ma Hastim – “We Exist” – on walls and bridges around the country. In 2009, he called on Iranians to gather at the tomb of the ancient Persian ruler Cyrus the Great. That’s all. Just show up at his tomb, like a flash mob. That fall, he prompted Iranians to show up at their local bakery every Thursday and ask for bread.

He’s definitely a troublemaker.

 “Apparently, the Interpol thinks so too,” Homayoun said, laughing at a reporter’s quip.

In December 2009, Iran charged him with inciting “terrorism against the Islamic regime such as writing slogans [on walls] and resisting the security forces,” and, at Iran’s request, Interpol issued a Red Notice and put Homayoun on its global most-wanted list.

Now officially an Interpol fugitive because of the Red Notice, Homayoun can’t leave the United States. He’ll probably never again see his parents in Iran. Fortunately for Homayoun, the U.S. won’t arrest him, let alone send him to Iran.

Read more about Interpol’s Red Notices Used By Some To Pursue Political Dissenters, Opponents

© 2011 Center for Public Integrity

Photo by Flickr user billigwein

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ROLLING STONE– Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and, as you consider the career and future presidential prospects of an incredible American phenomenon named Michele Bachmann, do one more thing. Don’t laugh.

It may be the hardest thing you ever do, for Michele Bachmann is almost certainly the funniest thing that has ever happened to American presidential politics. Fans of obscure 1970s television may remember a short-lived children’s show called Far Out Space Nuts, in which a pair of dimwitted NASA repairmen, one of whom is played by Bob (Gilligan) Denver, accidentally send themselves into space by pressing “launch” instead of “lunch” inside a capsule they were fixing at Cape Canaveral. This plot device roughly approximates the political and cultural mechanism that is sending Michele Bachmann hurtling in the direction of the Oval Office.

Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions. She believes that the Chinese are plotting to replace the dollar bill, that light bulbs are killing our dogs and cats, and that God personally chose her to become both an IRS attorney who would spend years hounding taxpayers and a raging anti-tax Tea Party crusader against big government. She kicked off her unofficial presidential campaign in New Hampshire, by mistakenly declaring it the birthplace of the American Revolution. “It’s your state that fired the shot that was heard around the world!” she gushed. “You are the state of Lexington and Concord, you started the battle for liberty right here in your backyard.”

Read full article about Michele Bachmann’s Holy War.

© 2011 Rolling Stone Magazine

Photo by Flickr user Gage Skidmore

TRUTHOUT– It’s not enough that Michigan’s Republican Gov. Rick Snyder took away basic democratic rights of cities and towns by imposing a “financial martial law” that can virtually abolish a local government in favor of an unelected Snyder appointee.

Now, extremists in the state are pushing for passage of a so-called right to work law that would limit the ability of the workers to maintain or attain the middle class. A new study by University of Michigan research scientist Roland Zullo illustrates how such a law would be bad economics for working families. Despite supporters’ claims, “right to work” (RTW) is a misnomer—”it has nothing to do with the right of a person to seek and accept gainful employment,” writes Zullo. Further, the law would not fix Michigan’s economic woes.

“Like Michigan, nearly every state in the union has lost manufacturing jobs over the last six to eight years… Our economic problems in Michigan are due primarily to the woes in the auto industry, which RTW would not fix. When making location decisions businesses rate factors such as the quality of the regional workforce, the regulatory environment, and tax incentives before ever considering RTW laws.”

Read the full article about Michigan Attacks Workers After Gutting Democracy.

© 2011 Truthout

Photo by Flickr user Rochelle