By Yaël Ossowski / November 19, 2014 / Watchdog.org NOTHING TO SAY HERE: President Barack Obama listens during a 2009 meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the State Dining Room of the White House. By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org The New York Times and others are reporting that President Obama will sign an executive order Friday to allow some allow some illegal immigrants…
Posts
Net neutrality would boost FCC’s budget by upping fees
By Yaël Ossowski / November 19, 2014 / Watchdog.org With a name like Federal Communications Commission, one would expect the nation’s premier regulator of the public airwaves to be a functioning government bureaucracy with access to the federal coffers. But much like the Federal Reserve, which regulates monetary policy for the United States, the FCC actually is an independent agency, connected to the executive…
The Death of a Journalist
Yesterday I sat down for breakfast with a friend of mine, a fellow journalist, at a posh bakery in Vienna’s 3rd district. It was a chance meeting. We rarely ever have time to catch up. In the 20 months I’ve known him, we’ve arranged to meet only three times. He is very intelligent and a great journalist and writer, albeit in prose I…
Obama issues credit card industry bailout by executive order
By Yaël Ossowski | Watchdog.org The credit card industry got a huge boost from President Obama last month when he signed an executive order requiring a switch to chip-and-pin technology for government vendors and agencies. It dictates the Department of the Treasury “take necessary steps” to guarantee payment terminals authorized by the agency have “enhanced security features” by January 2015. It would require a complete upgrade of…
Motley Crew of Fighters and Heroes Unite at Oslo Freedom Forum
HRF Brings New Level of Professionalism to Unofficial Dissident Capital Yaël Ossowski November 4, 2014 The streets of Oslo during the Oslo Freedom Forum. (PanAm Post) Though the world is strife with conflict, oppression, and the changing of political vanguards, fighters for individual rights and peaceful resistance put time aside last week to share strategies, stories, and learn from one another in one of Scandinavia’s…
Mario Vargas Llosa: “Latin America Has Never Been Freer than Today”
Famed Peruvian Author Imparts Wisdom for Next-Generation of Liberals By Yaël Ossowski October 28, 2014 | PanAm Post Standing tall behind the podium before the Italian crowd, famed Peruvian writer and Nobel laureate author Mario Vargas Llosa spoke with confidence and fervor. He was surrounded by ideological friends. “It is only liberalism which promises the liberty of the individual,” he expressed in smooth Peruvian Spanish. “Faced…
Unplugged: Facebook Exodus
I remember the act of joining Facebook. It was 2007, in the spring of my senior year of high school. I had just been accepted to at least 2 universities and I knew I was bound for a big life on campus. I almost made it a point of principle to not join Facebook before I had some kind of university email address, once required…
A Mind’s Construction of Paros Island
I could see the front of my two feet every few seconds. I would play a game to see how much of my shoe I could actually bring into my field of vision with each step taken. It had been about 10 solid minutes that I was pushing the four-wheeler with my arms while staring straight down. I had deemed the vehicle a victim of…
An Island Hopper’s Manifesto
The careening bow of the ship tilts the top two centimeters of my beer ever so slightly, but the violence is contained within the glass. It’s been at least 40 minutes since we spotted land, but the boat continues to cut through the dark blue waters. Even with such anarchy below, currents ripped up by strong steel propellers powered by mega jet engines, the waiter…
For an Independent Scotland, and a Free One Too
Dispatches from the Battleground in What Could Be a New Nation By Yaël Ossowski | September 12, 2014 | PANAM POST It’s been said we’re all witnesses to history. In just a few days, ordinary Scots have the rare opportunity to be promoted far beyond that, to the level of active participants in a major seismic shift of geopolitics. The decision the majority of the…