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Christmas Kamikaze
Wednesday, 3 February 2010 11:24 A GMT-05
Janet isn’t the first of Our Rulers to divulge this damaging info. In 2007, the Government Accountability Office reported that the TSA "considers…able-bodied passengers to be an important layer of aviation security" because they will "engage in self-defense actions should an incident occur onboard commercial aircraft." That’s right: taxpayers deprived of all weapons and defenses but fingernails, whom the TSA suspects for terrorists and abuses accordingly, not only comprise one of its often-hyped "layers of security" but an "important" one! Is this complete, jaw-dropping insanity or what? And why are we paying $7 billion a year for these thugs to molest and insult us when, in the end, they count on us to defeat terrorists? Finally, exactly how does the TSA expect us to "engage in self-defense actions" after stealing our knitting needles and pocket-knives? Heck, once a screener finishes robbing us, we can’t even squirt Listerine at a terrorist’s eyes. Shouldn’t these wingdings hand out Saturday Night Specials at the gate instead?
Alas, Janet’s truthfulness didn’t include the No-Fly List. Abdulmutallab wasn’t on it despite the Feds’ catching wind of him after his father, a retired chairman of Nigeria’s First Bank, helpfully reported "his son’s ‘extreme religious views’… to the US embassy and Nigerian security agencies six months ago." That was enough for Leviathan to have "created a record on ... Abdulmutallab last month in the intelligence community's central repository of information for known and suspected international terrorists, but … not enough… to place him on a no-fly list, a US official said."
The Sharp Dressed Man Who Aided Mutallab Onto Flight 253 Was a U.S. Government Agent
Sunday, 31 January 2010 5:30 A GMT-05
Could the SDM have been a U.S. Government official? He dressed in a suit and not a security uniform. Check. He indicated we do this all the time. Could “we” be the U.S. Government? Check. He spoke Enlish with an American accent. Check. Would he need to convice the ticket agent that this was a normal procedure to allow boarding without a passport? Check. Would he have the ability to obtain such clearance? Check. Could he enter this security area even though he wasn’t a passenger? Check. Would the ticket agent likely refer this request to a manager? Check. Would the U.S. Government not want this information public and try to hide it? Check.
Northeast 9/11 Truth Conference
Friday, 29 January 2010 10:49 A GMT-05
Northeast 9/11 Truth Conference
January 31, 2010
10:00 AM – 4:00 PM
Boston, Massachusetts
The Bush-Packed Supreme Court Thinks Corporations Are People Too
Sunday, 24 January 2010 6:21 P GMT-05
If corporations were human, they would acknowledge their dependence on a healthy community for their well-being and contribute financially to the vibrancy of the community through payment of taxes. Fifty years ago, corporate taxes made up nearly 22 percent of the federal treasury receipts; today corporate taxes contribute less than 13 percent to the federal budget. The mindset of many large corporations is that of takers, looking to be supported by society with a stream of tax credits and preferential tax rates. According to a 2008 report by the Government Accounting Office, 25 percent of large U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes in 2005 (the latest year studied) despite reporting collective sales exceeding $1.1 trillion.
If corporations were human, they would recognize that their brains are only one of many vital organs. The brain, which provides the executive function for the body whole, nonetheless consumes a relatively modest share of the body’s nutrition. A brain that swells beyond a normal healthy state is a dire threat to the body and most often requires the dramatic intervention of surgery. An inhuman corporation provides ever-larger amounts of nutrition in the form of money to its executive function. These swollen levels of pay are a cancer that often results in excessive risk, putting both the corporation and society at risk.
If corporations were human, they would be accountable to society when they break the law and would be punished with a loss of their freedoms. When a person steals or murders, they are sent to prison, where they lose their freedom to practice their trade and to participate in the economic and political life of the community. When corporations produce products they know to be deadly, or withhold important information on the safety of their products are they not guilty of murder? When corporations submit fraudulent financial statements to investors, or engage in deceptive marketing practices that cost people their homes or their life savings, are they not guilty of felonious theft? Shouldn’t corporate criminals, particularly repeat offenders, be denied their freedom to practice business and have their license revoked?
If corporations were human, they would one day die. Unlike the finitude of human life, modern corporations can live forever under the law, growing in size and gaining political and economic power generation after generation.
US Security Company Offers to Perform "High Threat Terminations" and to Confront "Worker Unrest" in Haiti
Friday, 22 January 2010 3:46 A GMT-05
We saw this type of Iraq-style disaster profiteering in New Orleans and you can expect to see a lot more of this in Haiti over the coming days, weeks and months. Private security companies are seeing big dollar signs in Haiti thanks in no small part to the media hype about “looters.” After Katrina, the number of private security companies registered (and unregistered) multiplied overnight. Banks, wealthy individuals, the US government all hired private security. I even encountered Israeli mercenaries operating an armed check-point outside of an elite gated community in New Orleans. They worked for a company called Instinctive Shooting International. (That is not a joke).
Now, it is kicking into full gear in Haiti. As we know, the member companies of the Orwellian-named mercenary trade association, the International Peace Operations Association, are offering their services in Haiti. But look for more stories like this one:
Easily Hacked Voting Systems to be Used in MA Special Election for the U.S. Senate
Monday, 18 January 2010 3:51 P GMT-05
The electronic voting systems used in Massachusetts are notoriously plagued with problems and vulnerabilities, and are in violation of federal voting system standards. Moreover, they are sold, programmed, and maintained by a company with a disturbing criminal background.
Obama's Favorite For Supreme Court Justice Sunstein Wants To Ban Guns, Free Speech
Saturday, 16 January 2010 7:59 P GMT-05
Sunstein and Obama go way back from their faculty days at the University of Chicago law school and are firm friends. Sunstein worked as an advisor to Obama during his presidential campaign and was drafted into the White House soon after Obama won the election.
As Obama’s “Information Czar”, Sunstein effectively interprets the law for the Executive. Sunstein operates in a similar, but much more elevated, role to that of former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, who infamously re-interpreted the law to legally sanction torture under the Bush Administration.
As we highlighted in our article yesterday, Sunstein has outlined plans for the government to infiltrate “conspiracy groups”, including the 9/11 Truth Movement, in order to undermine them via postings on chat rooms and social networks, as well as real meetings.
Sunstein has effectively penned the blueprint for a Cointelpro “provocateur” style program to silence what have become the government’s most vociferous and influential critics.
The specifics of the plans must be read in full in order to gauge their extreme nature and the threat Sunstein poses to the freedom in America.
On page 14 of Sunstein’s January 2008 white paper entitled “Conspiracy Theories,” he proposed that “under imaginable conditions” the government “might ban conspiracy theorizing” and could “impose some kind of tax, financial or otherwise, on those who disseminate such theories.”
In effect, Obama’s information czar wants to tax or ban outright, as in make illegal, opinions and ideas that the government doesn’t approve of.
Food security collapses in Haiti as machete-wielding gangs fight in the streets
Saturday, 16 January 2010 6:20 P GMT-05
The people of Haiti are now learning what the people of New Orleans already know: Your government won't save you. In a real crisis, you are on your own.
2009 Hollywood Anti War March Part 2 of 2 - HUGE 9/11 TRUTH PRESENCE
Friday, 15 January 2010 2:31 A GMT-05
Anti-war march held in Los Angeles to mark Iraq war anniversary. The demonstrators marched along the famous Hollywood Boulevard to demand an end to the six-year war in Iraq and Afghanistan. HUGE 9/11 TRUTH PRESENCE.
The Strange Case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
Wednesday, 6 January 2010 4:17 A GMT-05
As security researcher and analyst Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote in New Internationalist in October: “Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues.”
Networks which Ahmed and other analysts such as Michel Chossudovsky, Peter Dale Scott and Richard Labévière have painstakingly documented, enjoy the closest ties with Western intelligence agencies stretching back decades.
That intelligence officers, including those at the highest levels of the secret state’s security apparat, did nothing to hamper an alleged al-Qaeda operative from getting on that plane–in a chilling echo of the 9/11 attacks–calls into question the thin tissue of lies outlined in the official narrative.
Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
Sunday, 3 January 2010 1:32 A GMT-05
Since the CPD took control of the presidential debates in 1988, the debates have been primarily funded by corporate contributions. Multinational corporations with regulatory interests before Congress have donated millions of dollars in contributions to the CPD, and debate sites have become corporate carnivals, where sponsoring companies market their products, services, and political agendas. Tobacco giant Phillip Morris was a major sponsor in 1992 and 1996. The major contributor, Anheuser-Busch, has sponsored presidential debates in its hometown of St. Louis in 1996, 2000, 2004, and 2008.
That the CPD has been able to raise millions of dollars in corporate contributions is not surprising. Frank Fahrenkopf and Paul Kirk, who co-chair and control the CPD, are registered lobbyists for multinational corporations. Kirk has collected $120,000 for lobbying on behalf of Hoechst Marion Roussel, a German pharmaceutical company. Fahrenkopf earns approximately $900,000 a year as the chief lobbyist for the nation’s $54 billion gambling industry. As president of the American Gaming Association, Fahrenkopf directs enormous financial contributions to major party candidates and saturates the media with “expert” testimony extolling gambling’s “many benefits.” “We’re not going to apologize for trying to influence political elections,” said Fahrenkopf.
War and "Peak Oil"
Saturday, 2 January 2010 11:34 P GMT-05
Scientists at the Institute of the Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Ukraine Academy of Sciences began a fundamental inquiry in the late 1940’s: where does oil come from?
In 1956, Prof. Vladimir Porfir’yev announced their conclusions: ‘Crude oil and natural petroleum gas have no intrinsic connection with biological matter originating near the surface of the earth. They are primordial materials which have been erupted from great depths.’ The Soviet geologists had turned Western orthodox geology on its head. They called their theory of oil origin the ‘a-biotic’ theory—non-biological—to distinguish from the Western biological theory of origins.
If they were right, oil supply on earth would be limited only by the amount of organic hydrocarbon constituents present deep in the earth at the time of the earth’s formation. Availability of oil would depend only on technology to drill ultra-deep wells and explore into the earth’s inner regions. They also realized old fields could be revived to continue producing, so called self-replentishing fields. They argued that oil is formed deep in the earth, formed in conditions of very high temperature and very high pressure, like that required for diamonds to form. ‘Oil is a primordial material of deep origin which is transported at high pressure via ‘cold’ eruptive processes into the crust of the earth,’ Porfir’yev stated. His team dismissed the idea that oil is biological residue of plant and animal fossil remains as a hoax designed to perpetuate the myth of limited supply.
Living on Nothing but Food Stamps
Saturday, 2 January 2010 11:27 P GMT-05
About six million Americans receiving food stamps report they have no other income, according to an analysis of state data collected by The New York Times. In declarations that states verify and the federal government audits, they described themselves as unemployed and receiving no cash aid — no welfare, no unemployment insurance, and no pensions, child support or disability pay.
Their numbers were rising before the recession as tougher welfare laws made it harder for poor people to get cash aid, but they have soared by about 50 percent over the past two years. About one in 50 Americans now lives in a household with a reported income that consists of nothing but a food-stamp card.
Monopoly Capitalism Is the Root of All of America's Problems
Saturday, 2 January 2010 10:39 P GMT-05
Judge Gives Blackwater Huge New Year's Gift, Dismisses All Charges In Iraq Massacre
Saturday, 2 January 2010 10:36 P GMT-05
A federal judge in Washington DC has given Erik Prince’s Blackwater mercenaries a huge New Year’s gift. Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007. Judge Urbina’s order, issued late in the afternoon on New Year's Eve is a stunning blow for the Iraqi victims’ families and sends a clear message that US-funded mercenaries are above all systems of law -- US and international.
In a memo defending his opinion, Urbina cited a similar rationale used in the dismissal of charges against Iran-Contra figure Oliver North -- namely that the government violated the rights of the Blackwater men by using statements they made to investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to build a case against the guards, which Urbina said qualified for "derivative use immunity." Urbina wrote that he agreed that "the government violated [the Blackwater guards'] constitutional rights by utilizing statements they made to Department of State investigators, which were compelled under a threat of job loss.” He added that the "government is prohibited from using such compelled statements or any evidence obtained as a result of those statements" to bring indictments.
Mega Giant Corporations Are Very Bad for America
Saturday, 2 January 2010 10:05 P GMT-05
I know that this last point -- that the U.S. consumer faces fewer and fewer options -- is, on the face of it, hard to believe. The world we shop in every day appears to be full of choices. Yet in real life, our political economy is filled with hidden monopolies almost everywhere, and these monopolies increasingly control, restrict, and determine what we buy, with little or no regard for any real market forces.
Just ask Diane Cochrane. As much as she wanted to cut Wal-Mart out of her life, she quickly found that she could not. Although Diane was eventually able to find a new -- much more expensive -- source of pet food for her surviving cat and dog, there are certain items she just can’t find in Prescott outside Wal-Mart, which now runs two Supercenters in this community of forty-one thousand people.
“It’s getting to where for a lot of things you have to go to Wal-Mart,” Diane says. This is true even when she knows that the quality is bad. There is, she tells me, “no other choice.”
Has Swine Flu Been Blown Out Of Proportion?
Saturday, 2 January 2010 6:57 P GMT-05
A new analysis, using H1N1 deaths in the United States in the spring and projecting likely outcomes for this fall, shows that a typical -- or possibly even a milder flu season than average -- should have been expected.
One Day We'll All Be Terrorists
Saturday, 2 January 2010 5:00 P GMT-05
The case against Hashmi revolves around the testimony of Junaid Babar, also an American citizen. Babar, in early 2004, stayed with Hashmi at his London apartment for two weeks. In his luggage, the government alleges, Babar had raincoats, ponchos and waterproof socks, which Babar later delivered to a member of al-Qaida in south Waziristan, Pakistan. It was alleged that Hashmi allowed Babar to use his cell phone to call conspirators in other terror plots.
Goldman Sachs: Record of $23 billion in bonuses for 2009; explaining their economic parasitism
Saturday, 2 January 2010 4:34 P GMT-05
Goldman Sachs is among the most visible financial parasites. Their executives have a revolving door through the US Treasury Department. They profit through “trading,” much like Enron did; including selling investments represented as AAA while simultaneously betting the value of those investments tank. Their CEO says they’re “doing God’s work,” as Enron’s CEO said, “We are on the side of angels.” A US Senate report puts the parasitic cost to Americans at $2 to $4 trillion every year. To put that figure into perspective, that’s an almost unbelievable $20,000 to $40,000 added cost per US household every year. Goldman Sachs is so happy with their “trading,” they’ll pay out a record of $23 billion in bonuses to their top employees for their 2009 work.
Mayo Clinic in Arizona to Stop Treating Some Medicare Patients
Saturday, 2 January 2010 4:24 P GMT-05
The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of tomorrow at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.
The Northwest Flight 253 intelligence failure: Negligence or conspiracy?
Saturday, 2 January 2010 4:20 P GMT-05
“We are at war, and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” said Cheney. The former vice president and de facto leader of the “war on terror” in the Bush administration condemned Obama for proposing to close down the Guantánamo prison camp and try some of those held there in normal federal courts. He also denounced the US president for jettisoning the words “war on terror” in describing Washington’s continuing wars abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.
The statements from Cheney—who was at the center of a secret government for eight years, has the closest ties to the military-intelligence apparatus, and is a ruthless advocate of torture, assassinations and a sweeping curtailment of democratic rights—shed light on the political calculations that may have encouraged elements within the CIA and related agencies to keep the “dots” separated and, thereby, facilitate a terrorist action.
Increasingly, the failure to identify Abdulmutallab and alert other government agencies to the threat revealed in Nigeria and Yemen has been attributed to the CIA. How many of the key figures in this agency had close connections to Cheney?
The key to this event may well lie in bitter struggles over policy taking place within the ruling establishment and the state. Despite all that Obama has done to continue the policies of the Bush administration, both in terms of aggressive war abroad and the buildup of police state powers at home, there are elements who want to go much further.
I Think It Is Time We Learned from the Banks To Big To Fail
Saturday, 2 January 2010 3:56 P GMT-05
So I propose that effective Monday, all outstanding TARP and stimulus funds to the BTBTF immediately move to 29.9% annually. They have proven to be bad credit risks. I have no problem with them receiving the money they need. But the taxpayers should receive the higher interest rate for providing funds to these less than credit worthy institutions.
Unlike the BTBTF, however, I have a loophole that helps these institutions out.
Instead of my initial draconian suggestion, let me suggest that their interest rate should be no higher than the .05% lower than the highest rate they charge on credit cards. They can make a little profit. I can support that as a taxpayer.
I know, they haven't had any warning. But neither did our family and neighbors when their rates increased.
So Monday, let's work on the Federal Deficit while learning from the hard working, highly paid financial leaders who are doing God's work. Let's choose to play the game they way they do.
Happy New Year.
'Underwear Bomber's' Alarming Last Phone Call
Saturday, 2 January 2010 2:16 P GMT-05
It has previously been reported that the man’s father, prominent Nigerian banker Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, went to Nigerian and American officials Nov. 19 to warn them that his son had been radicalized by Islamic militants in Yemen.
Details have emerged about Abdulmutallab’s final phone call that highlight President Obama’s statement that there were “systemic failures” of the country’s security system.
TSA lapse helps gain not guilty verdicts
Saturday, 2 January 2010 12:47 A GMT-05
Defense attorneys for two Oahu farm managers charged with employment fraud asked how their clients are supposed to spot counterfeit ID cards for illegal immigrants when Transportation Security Authority workers could not.
A federal court jury apparently agreed with them.
Hal Turner is a "National Security Intelligence" Asset
Saturday, 2 January 2010 12:26 A GMT-05
“A second trial is scheduled for March 1,” for Turner, who stands accused of threatening government officials, concludes the Family of Hal Turner blog. “In the meantime, it might be nice to hear from Hal’s most ardent critics. What do they have to say about Hal now that it turns out what he was doing on the air was an FBI operation designed to protect America?”
The FBI and its post-modern COINTELPRO are not designed to protect America. The FBI has long served as a secret political police. Hollywood and the corporate media like to pretend the FBI’s task is to go after bank robbers, kidnappers, and other non-political criminals when in fact its primary role is to destroy any credible and effective political opposition to the government and the global ruling elite.
Hal Turner, betrayed by his paymaster, was part of this authoritarian effort to silence all opposition.
DFW Security Checkpoint Left Unattended for 90 Minutes | NBC Dallas-Fort Worth
Friday, 1 January 2010 8:41 P GMT-05
The Transportation Security Administration has launched an internal investigation after a security checkpoint at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport was left unattended and unsecured for 90 minutes earlier this month.
Three agents have been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation.
The agency said the agents left the checkpoint at Gate E8 from 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Dec. 16. Personnel from the airport's Department of Public Safety discovered the gate was not secure during a routine patrol, the TSA said.
Freed Iraq hostage Peter Moore denies Iranian involvement in kidnapping
Friday, 1 January 2010 6:21 P GMT-05
One reason for scepticism over claims that Iran masterminded the kidnap was that at no time during any of the negotiations leading up to Mr Moore’s release did the AAH ask for the return of five Iranians seized by US forces in Iraq in January 2007 and released in July last year. Officials also point out that there was little need to take the hostages to Iran since there was no shortage of hideouts in Iraq. They acknowledge, however, that they cannot be sure.
“The AAH is like a stick of rock — it’s an Iraqi organisation, made up of Iraqis operating, in the main, in Iraq but yes, there is an element of Iran running right through it,” a senior official said.
In Tehran, reports of the country’s involvement in the kidnap and murder of British citizens were dismissed as “part of a psychological war against Iran”.
“They emanate from the British anger towards the rallies in which millions of Iranians took part to condemn British interference in [Iran’s] internal affairs,” a foreign ministry spokesmanwas quoted as saying by the state-controlled news channel al-Alam.
Hackable Drones, Crumbling Empire
Friday, 1 January 2010 5:34 P GMT-05
But as the Journal reported "the stolen video feeds also indicate that U.S. adversaries continue to find simple ways of counteracting sophisticated American military technologies." (emphasis added)
Contemplate and savor that phrase, dear readers. While wags in the Pentagon Borg hive may believe "resistance is futile," insurgent hackers using off-the-shelf software and cheap, easy to rig antennas were able to determine, in real-time no less, tactical information transmitted to U.S. troops on the ground. As the Journal noted, unencrypted video feeds from drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan also "appear to have been compromised."
Another surveillance drone deployed both in Iraq and Afghanistan, the ScanEagle manufactured by Boeing subsidiary Insitu, is plagued by similar problems.
In a follow-up piece, the Journal reported that the ScanEagle "can stay aloft for 24 hours and carries electro-optical and infrared cameras up to an altitude of 16,000 feet."
But as with the Predator and Reaper attack drones, the ScanEagle's "video feed hasn't been encrypted," primarily "because military officials have long assumed no one would make the effort to try to intercept it."
An Insitu spokesperson told the Journal that the firm was in the "advanced stages of development of a technical solution for video data encryption for ScanEagle."
Writing in Wired For War, analyst P.W. Singer describes the "next generation of the Predator," the MQ-9 Reaper as "four times bigger and nine times more powerful" than its predecessor. Claiming that the attack drone comes "close to flying itself," Singer touts the ability of the aircraft to "recognize and categorize human and human-made objects. It can even make sense of the changes in the target it is watching, such as being able to interpret and retrace footprints or even lawn mover tracks."
"As of 2008," Singer informs us, "two Reaper prototypes were already deployed to Afghanistan" and we can presume Pakistan as well. Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill revealed last month in The Nation that the mercenary firm Blackwater is working on the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command's "drone bombing program in Pakistan."
According to Scahill's military intelligence source, while CIA operations are subject to congressional oversight, "parallel JSOC bombing are not." The source told Scahill, "Contractors and especially JSOC personnel working under a classified mandate are not [overseen by Congress], so they just don't care. If there's one person they're going after and there's thirty-four people in the building, thirty-five people are going to die. That's the mentality."
What other "mentality" is operative here, particularly amongst journalists wowed by the technology but indifferent to the death and destruction they inflict on defenseless civilians? Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman told Singer when queried about Reaper deployments in the "Afpak" theater: "It may not be unreasonable to assume they are standing alert somewhere in case a certain high-priority target pops his head out of his cave."
Leaving aside Sweetman's dubious stab at humor, in light of last week's revelations one must ask, why bother to pop your head out of a cave, when a small, commercially-available satellite dish and a cheap laptop will do the trick? But what make these reports so telling is that "the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it." Where have we heard that before? Dien Bien Phu? The Bay of Pigs? The "cakewalk" In Iraq, perhaps?
How Goldman Sachs Made Tens Of Billions Of Dollars From The Economic Collapse Of America In Four Easy Steps
Friday, 1 January 2010 5:09 P GMT-05
So Goldman Sachs proceeded to sell approxmiately $39 billion of its own mortgage securities in 2006 and 2007 and they sold at least $17 billion more mortgage securities for others, but they never told the buyers of those securities that Goldman was secretly betting that a significant drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those mortgage securities plummeting.
Update on Our Brave New Slavery: Yes, It Applies to American Citizens, Too
Wednesday, 30 December 2009 4:36 P GMT-05
I noted the grim irony that this principle of non-personhood had now been reintroduced into the law of the land by our first African-American president. (But this is only to be expected, given the law of opposites that so often governs American politics: only a lifelong Red-baiter like Nixon could make an opening to Communist China; only a supposed liberal like Bill Clinton could gut the federal welfare system. And only an African-American president could reintroduce the principle of slavery and get away with it. No doubt it will be a woman president who finally re-imposes a total ban on abortion.)
My piece was picked up by a few other sites, where it attracted some criticism for being too "extreme," too shrill, too panicky and exaggerated. After all, some critics said, this case involves foreigners rounded up in the context of a military conflict. (An undeclared, open-ended, borderless, lawless conflict, but still.) And while one might consider the captives treatment a bit too rough or unjust, it is still a far leap to conclude that the Supreme Court ruling implies some kind of general attack on the liberties of real, honest-to-god American citizens!
Ah, what bliss it must be, to dwell in such sweet ignorance. The many decisions by the Supreme Court and lower courts upholding the federal government's authoritarian power to strip Terror War captives of inherent and inalienable legal rights are part of a larger framework that applies both in theory and in practice to everyone -- American citizens included. What we are seeing is the construction of a new "social contract," the open codification of a new relationship between the individual and the state, in which all powers and rights reside solely in the latter, which can bestow them or withhold them at will, arbitrarily, unaccountabl. In contrast, it is the individual who must be totally accountable to the state. The state is bound by no law, but the individual is subject to them all -- including "secret laws" and decrees and executive orders of which he or she has no knowledge.
Having a job, or more, is far from enough
Wednesday, 30 December 2009 4:18 P GMT-05
More than 24 million, or 16 percent, of US workers, including more than 400,000, or 13 percent, in Massachusetts, are counted as unemployed or working part time because they can’t find full-time employment. The official unemployment rate is 10 percent nationally, 8.8 percent in Massachusetts.
Two dead after string of arsons in Northampton
Sunday, 27 December 2009 6:38 P GMT-05
A state official with direct knowledge of the investigations, speaking anonymously because the preliminary investigation is ongoing, said this one of the worst cases of arson officials have seen in recent memory in the state.
"How Does Somebody Have a Baby in Jail Without Anybody Noticing?" The Awful Plight of Pregnant Prisoners
Friday, 18 December 2009 3:24 A GMT-05
The lack of common sense and compassion with which imprisoned pregnant women are treated is chilling. Three stories illustrate the dangers women face when they cannot get anyone to take their medical needs seriously.
First, some women are not taken to the hospital until after they have already given birth, despite having informed staff members that they are in labor. Women wind up giving birth in their cells with the assistance of a nurse, corrections officer or cellmates. Others give birth in their cells with nobody to help. Both situations endanger the woman and her baby. Nineteen-year-old Terra K. screamed, pounded on the door and asked for the nurse in the Dubuque County Jail in Iowa, only to give birth alone in her cell. Afterward she asked, "How does somebody have a baby in jail without anybody noticing?"
Man accused of raping 2d child while free on bail
Tuesday, 15 December 2009 2:36 A GMT-05
A man accused of sexually assaulting a 3-year-old girl in Kingston this weekend had been charged this summer with raping another child. But Joseph Gardner, 26, had been released on $10,000 cash bail and was free when he allegedly attacked the second victim on Friday, according to police and court records.
Nobel Prize could be albatross for bruised, battered Obama
Thursday, 10 December 2009 11:15 A GMT-05
After Obama was declared a recipient of the Nobel Prize, the president acknowledged that he did not believe he was worthy of being in the same company as prior winners. The problem is that most Americans - and even most Norwegians - agree with him.
$10 an hour with 2 kids? IRS pounces
Wednesday, 9 December 2009 4:05 A GMT-05
Rachel Porcaro knows she's hardly rich. When you're a single mom making 10 bucks an hour, you don't need government experts to tell you how broke you are.
But that's what happened. The government not only told Porcaro she was poor. They said she was too poor to make it in Seattle.
It all started a year ago, when Porcaro, a 32-year-old mom with two boys, was summoned to the Seattle office of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). She had been flagged for an audit.
She couldn't believe it. She made $18,992 the previous year cutting hair at Supercuts. A few hundred of that she spent to have her taxes prepared by H&R Block.
"I asked the IRS lady straight upfront — 'I don't have anything, why are you auditing me?' " Porcaro recalled. "I said, 'Why me, when I don't own a home, a business, a car?' "
The answer stunned both Porcaro and the private tax specialist her dad had gotten to help her.
"They showed us a spreadsheet of incomes in the Seattle area," says Dante Driver, an accountant at Seattle's G.A. Michael and Co. "The auditor said, 'You made eighteen thousand, and our data show a family of three needs at least thirty-six thousand to get by in Seattle."
"They thought she must have unreported income. That she was hiding something. Basically they were auditing her for not making enough money."
EPA's "endangerment finding" allows Big Government to regulate carbon emissions
Wednesday, 9 December 2009 3:51 A GMT-05
Carbon dioxide is a threat to human life, says the EPA under the direction of the Obama Administration. With this declaration, the agency has bypassed Congress and can now begin to regulate CO2 as a toxic substance.
The timing of this declaration was obviously planned to coincide with the Copenhagen climate summit: With the EPA now operating with some fangs, Obama can wheel and deal in Denmark with the credibility of some political weight behind his words. But is the sudden declaration warranted? Is it backed by real science?
The Secret to Legal Marijuana? Women
Sunday, 6 December 2009 4:18 A GMT-05
The acceptance of pot has led to discussion of how marijuana reform might positively impact families and children. This may change the debate because family values have long been employed by drug warriors as reasoning for why weed ought remain criminalized.
Enter Jessica Corry, a pro-life Republican from Denver. A mother of girls aged two and four, this 30-year-old newly-minted lawyer is widely hailed as a rising star in Colorado politics. She is currently working on her first book, which she described to me as an "analysis of how race consciousness and political correctness are silencing America's students and our entrepreneurial spirit."
A real conservative. Yet she is also one of the most outspoken proponents of marijuana legalization.
In 2006, she started a group called Guarding Our Children Against Marijuana Prohibition, which supported a statewide initiative to legalize marijuana.
5 Reasons that Corporate Media Coverage is Pro-War
Sunday, 6 December 2009 3:21 A GMT-05
We cannot just leave governance to our “leaders”, as “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” (Jefferson). Similarly, we cannot leave news to the corporate media. We need to “be the media” ourselves.
Bankruptcy Filings up 100 Percent from 2007: Americans Financially Unable to Meet Current Debt Payments. 85 Percent of Chapter 7 Filings are Classified as No-Assets.
Sunday, 6 December 2009 3:03 A GMT-05
I know some think that people that file for bankruptcy at times are trying to game the system. This is just another myth perpetuated by the corporate welfare banking system. In fact, according to the ABA over 85 percent of Chapter 7 filings are “no-asset filings” meaning there are no assets for creditors to go after to recover the debt. Average Americans are still struggling with the real problems of the real economy.
So it should come as no surprise that bankruptcy filings are still trending up. Without employers hiring and unemployment still high, we can expect more and more Americans to reach the end of their rope. But also, with $3 trillion in commercial real estate coming due in the next five years starting in 2010 we will expect many businesses to also file for bankruptcy protection. The real economy is telling us something very different from the stock ticker.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial will convict us all
Tuesday, 1 December 2009 6:04 P GMT-05
In other words, Stuart Taylor and the National Journal endorse Mohammed’s trial as a show trial that will prove both America’s honorable respect for fair trials and Muslim guilt for 9/11.
If, as Taylor writes, “the government’s evidence is so strong,” why wasn’t Mohammed tried years ago? Why was he held for years and tortured--apparently water boarded 183 times--in violation of US law and the Geneva Conventions? How can the US government put a defendant on trial when its treatment of him violates US statutory law, international law, and every precept of the US legal code? Mohammed has been treated as if he were a captive of Hitler’s Gestapo or Stalin’s KGB. And now we are going to finish him off in a show trial.
If the barbaric treatment Mohammed has received during his captivity hasn’t driven him insane, how do we know he hasn’t decided to confess in order to obtain for himself for evermore the glory of the deed? How many people can claim to have outwitted the CIA, the National Security Agency and all 16 US intelligence agencies, NORAD, the Pentagon, the National Security Council, airport security (four times on one morning), US air traffic control, the US Air Force, the military Joint Chiefs of Staff, all the neocons, Mossad, and even the supposedly formidable Dick Cheney?
Considering that some Muslims will blow themselves up in order to take out a handful of Israelis or US and NATO occupation troops, the payoff that Mohammed will get out of a guilty verdict is enormous. Are we really sure we want to create a Muslim Superhero of such stature?
Originally, according to the US government, Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11. To get bin Laden is the excuse given for the US invasion of Afghanistan, which set up the invasion of Iraq. But after eight years of total failure to catch Osama bin Laden, it became absolutely necessary to convict some culprit.
Unfortunately, there will be no such sensible outcome. David Feige has told us what the outcome will be (Slate, Nov. 19). The prosecution doesn’t need any evidence, because no judge and no jury is going to let the demonized “mastermind of 9/11” off. No judge or juror wants to be forever damned by the brainwashed American public or assassinated by right-wing crazies. Keep in mind that the kid, John Walker Lindh, termed “the American Taliban” by an ignorant and propagandistic US media, was guilty of nothing except being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the complete trampling of his every right, he got 20 years on a coerced plea bargain.
LA Times: "Death penalty in 9/11 trials may be difficult"
Tuesday, 1 December 2009 5:56 P GMT-05
Reporting from Washington - After Zacarias Moussaoui -- the accused "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 attacks -- was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 because one juror in Virginia refused to agree to the death penalty, Moussaoui clapped his hands and called out, "America, you lost and I won." Now the Obama administration plans to seek a death sentence for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind.
Some legal experts say President Obama was overly confident when he predicted that critics of trying Mohammed in a federal courtroom in Manhattan would be silenced "when the death penalty is applied to him." The only modern-day terrorist sentenced to death in federal court was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.
"It will be an uphill battle to get a death penalty in these cases," said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in New York. He helped win convictions for four acolytes of Osama bin Laden who plotted the 1998 simultaneous bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people. Jurors in 2001 found the men guilty, but they were divided on the punishment. As a result, all four were sentenced to life in prison.
The Associated Press: Report: FBI paid controversial NJ blogger for help
Tuesday, 1 December 2009 5:34 P GMT-05
The newspaper reviewed numerous government documents, e-mails, court records and almost 20 hours of jailhouse interviews with Turner.
He goes on trial Tuesday in New York, accused of making death threats against three Chicago-based federal appeals judges after saying in Internet postings in June the judges "deserve to be killed" because they had refused to overturn handgun bans in Chicago and suburban Oak Park.
The postings included the photos and work addresses of the judges — Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook, and William Bauer — along with a picture of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago and notations indicating the placement of "anti-truck bomb barriers."
Do We Still Have the Sons of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
Sunday, 15 November 2009 1:34 A GMT-05
If he is, indeed, the 9-11 mastermind, I surely would like to ask him a question or two. The first would be how on earth he was able to persuade Osama and the boys that the plan would have any chance at all to succeed. From the beginning, it depended upon complete ineptitude on the part of America’s air defenses. Even though Tom Clancy, a man who seems to be on the best of terms with the Pentagon crowd, had already written two novels in which terrorists hijack airliners, Debt of Honor, and Executive Orders, with the intent of crashing them into important buildings, the very notion that someone would actually do it was beyond our leaders’ wildest imagination, we have been told. Though the top U.S. bulb might be an exceptionally dim one, how does one make grandiose plans that depend utterly upon such unimaginably low wattage up and down the chain of command? Wouldn’t Mohammed have to be more than a mastermind, but a master mindreader?
More than that, wouldn’t it even have required a degree of clairvoyance that would surely have made the plan very hard to sell to superiors? The hijackers would all have to be able to get through security without their weapons being detected and those weapons would have to be perceived as lethal enough to allow them to control the far larger numbers of passengers and crew of the airplanes. What are the chances, really, of so many people behaving so much like sheep?
“Sorry, Khalid,” I can hear Osama saying, “Go back to the drawing board and come up with something a bit simpler that has a greater likelihood of success,” and we haven’t even mentioned the need for virtuoso piloting and navigating performances by novice pilots on harrowing suicide missions.
Fort Hood shooter used as excuse to scapegoat Muslims, Arabs
Saturday, 7 November 2009 2:39 P GMT-05
As soon as the name of the shooter at Fort Hood who killed 13 people and wounded 38—Nidal Malik Hasan—was known, reporters and bloggers began jumping to conclusions about his heritage and his motive.
Fox News Channel’s Shepard Smith said “the name tells us a lot,” and an op-ed column on FoxNews.com suggested the shooting spree was “the largest terror act since 9/11.” Later, Fox and Friends hosts suggested that the military should conduct "special debriefings" for all Muslim officers.
Commentators at the Jihad Watch blog immediately labeled Hasan a “jihadi” and called for a “war on Islam.”
World Net Daily’s headline trumpeted “Fort Hood triggerman: Muslim, shrink, officer,” implying that Hasan’s religion was his most relevant attribute.
CBSNews.com decried an immediate “anti-Muslim backlash” that included at least one threatening call to the Arab-American Institute. However, the news website then poured fuel on the fire itself with its title for a videotaped interview with Ft. Hood Base Commander Lt. Gen Bob Cone: although Cone repeatedly emphasized the bravery and rapid response of the soldiers at the scene and made only a passing reference to “unconfirmed reports” that Hasan said “Allah Akbar” while shooting, CBS titled the video “Fort Hood Suspect: ‘Allahu Akbar’.”
16-Year Old Got Life Without Parole for Killing Her Abusive Pimp -- Should Teens Be Condemned to Die in Jail?
Monday, 2 November 2009 11:44 A GMT-05
Sara Kruzan was 11 years old, a middle school student from Riverside, Calif., when she met a man -- he called himself GG -- who was almost three times her age. GG took her under his wing; he would buy her gifts, take her and her friends rollerskating. "He was like a father figure," she recalls.
Despite suffering severe bouts of depression as a child, until then, Kruzan was a good student, an "overachiever" in her words. But her mother was abusive and addicted to drugs; as for her father, she had only met him a couple of times. So, more and more, GG filled in.
"GG was there -- sometimes," she said. "He would talk to me and take me out and give me all these lavish gifts and do all these things for me …" Before long, he started talking to her about sex, giving her his expert advice on what men were really like and telling her that she didn't "need to give it up for free."
Unbeknownst to her, GG was grooming Kruzan to be a prostitute. When she was 13, he raped her. "He uses his manhood to hurt," Kruzan recalls, "Like, break you in. I guess."
Kruzan worked for GG as a prostitute for three years. The hours were 6 p.m. until 5:30 or 6 in the morning. She and "the other girls" would come back and hand over their earnings to him. "He was, like, married to all of us I guess," she says. " … Everything was his."
After years of prostitution and sexual abuse, when she was 16, Kruzan snapped: She killed GG, was arrested and convicted of first-degree murder. Despite attempts by her lawyer to have her sentenced as a juvenile, the judge described her crime as "well thought-out" and sentenced her to life without parole.
"My judge told me that I lacked moral scruples," she recalls, a term she did not know the meaning of.
The Collapse of Detroit: Ground Zero for the Globalist019s Deindustrialization Agenda
Sunday, 1 November 2009 7:17 P GMT-05
Today, Detroit looks like a war zone. The slowly rotting corpse of what had been America’s backbone, the leading city in the industrial “Rust Belt.” Today, those cities are on the decline and scheduled to be bulldozed, shrunk and returned to nature. Detroit, Flint, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Memphis. These centers of production and high-wage working class jobs are now collapsing in every sense. Their city governments are broke. Foreclosures range around 1 in 5 in the worst areas. Neighbors are in decline. The last jobs are about to go.
US Workers Starved Into Service
Saturday, 31 October 2009 6:45 P GMT-05
It’s hard not to wonder what would happen if, instead of dutifully reading from the Pentagon’s script on October 13, the media had done their job and informed the public about the real nature of the ‘service’ that potential enlistees were signing up for. Maybe if they had, those recruitment officers would not have been quite so busy recruiting – and stealing the lives of – unsuspecting young people in desperate need of employment.
Maybe those eager masses of young men and women wouldn’t have been so hot to sign up if, for instance, they understood that anyone enlisting in the military right now – whatever branch – is required to sign a document that states: "Laws and regulations that govern military personnel may change without notice to me. Such changes may affect my status, pay allowances, benefits and responsibilities as a member of the Armed Forces REGARDLESS of the provisions of this enlistment/re-enlistment document.” (DD Form4/1, 1998, Sec.9.5b).
In their book Army of None, published in 2007, Aimee Allison and David Solnit advise those who expect the military to pay for their college to “read the fine print.” The authors point out that only a fraction of recruits who signed up for the Montgomery GI Bill received a dime, and that 65 percent “received no money at all for college.” If you receive a less than honorable discharge (as one in four do), leave the military early (as one in three do), or later decide not to go to college, “the military will keep your deposit and give you nothing.”
Using Cash Sign Of Terrorist, According To FBI
Saturday, 31 October 2009 5:08 P GMT-05
In Philadelphia, the FBI has instructed tattoo shops to rat out their customers if they demand privacy, insist on paying with cash, engage in “suspicious behavior,” make “anti-US” comments, or request tattoos that are “extremist symbols.”
Obama Every Bit as Bad as Bush/Cheney on Patriot Act
Sunday, 25 October 2009 11:06 P GMT-05
Feingold, Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and new Democrat Arlen Specter (Pa.) had the constitutional courage to oppose the Judiciary Committee bill eventually going to the floor that with few exceptions, leaves the Patriot Act intact. I'll be reporting on the crucial fight to bring the Bill of Rights back into the Patriot Act as Senate and House versions merge into a law to be signed by Obama as he continues the Bush-Cheney legacy.
It was Feingold who, in October 2001, was the only member of the Senate to vote against the original Patriot Act as, on the floor, he accurately predicted our greatly weakened privacy, due process and other rights since then.
Obama's H1N1 Emergency Declaration: Is Martial Law Unfolding?
Sunday, 25 October 2009 9:41 P GMT-05
Millions of people are refusing to take the H1N1 vaccine. In the weeks ahead — if Obama’s emergency declaration falls under the above directives — we may witness a move toward martial law, forced vaccination, and internment of those who refuse.
At best, Obama’s declaration is a flimsy attempt to scare people into taking the toxic soft kill vaccination. Let’s hope this is the case.
President Obama declares national emergency over swine flu pandemic; but why?
Sunday, 25 October 2009 2:31 P GMT-05
The declaration of this national emergency seems suspicious from the start. Where's the emergency? The number of people killed by swine flu in the United States is far smaller than the number of people killed each year from seasonal flu, according to CDC statistics. People obviously aren't dropping dead by the millions from H1N1 influenza. Most people are just getting mild flu symptoms and a few days later they're fine.
So where's the emergency?
The only emergency I can see is the emergency fabricated by Big Pharma to sell more vaccines. By declaring a national emergency over the H1N1 pandemic, Obama is playing right into their hands.
I find the timing of all this curious. Two days ago, New York gave up on its efforts to require mandatory vaccinations of health care workers. This was designed to defuse a large number of planned protests from health freedom-conscious people who don't want government-mandated chemicals pumped into their veins.
Obama declares swine flu a national emergency
Saturday, 24 October 2009 4:41 P GMT-05
The White House on Saturday said Obama signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements. Officials described the move as similar to a declaration ahead of a hurricane making landfall.
Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition? The Heartlessness of the Health Insurance Industry Exposed
Thursday, 22 October 2009 10:55 A GMT-05
By taking anti-AIDS medicine after a rape, Christina Turner discovered that she had made herself all but uninsurable.
Swine Flu Brings Big Business for Doctors and Drug Companies
Monday, 19 October 2009 1:21 A GMT-05
Even companies outside of the medical industry are benefiting: the UPS division that delivers vaccines in specially designed containers, for example, has seen a bump in business.
Deaths of 9/11 front-liners renew talk of aid bill NY DAILY NEWS Oct.13th
Saturday, 17 October 2009 9:42 P GMT-05
The deaths of three 9/11 first responders in the past week is enough proof for Mayor Bloomberg that people are getting sick from working at Ground Zero.
"Probably - nobody's sure - but probably contracted during breathing the air down at the World Trade Center site," the mayor said yesterday after the Daily News reported that two cops and a firefighter recently died of cancer.
NYPD Officer Robert Grossman died of cancer Friday at the age of 44. The next day, Firefighter Richard Mannetta, 44, died of cancer. And last Wednesday, 37-year-old Police Officer Cory Diaz also died of cancer. Firefighter John McNamara, 44, died of cancer last month.
TSA Agents Took My Son
Saturday, 17 October 2009 6:34 P GMT-05
Jackson was still gone. My guess is that all of this took place within a period of 10 minutes or less. It felt like hours… days even. My son was gone.
Bought and Paid For
Monday, 12 October 2009 1:36 P GMT-05
Note: A friend on the Hill made an important point to me by email. Maxine Waters and Ron Paul get almost nothing [from the financial lobby. Sherman, Kucinich, Grayson and Kaptur are some other congress members who have not been bought and paid for]. The story isn’t just that a lot of members are bought and paid for, it’s that some aren’t.
"I Love My Country" by Larken Rose
Sunday, 11 October 2009 2:37 A GMT-05
Occasionally someone tells me I'm a "true patriot." I assume they mean it to be nice, but I'm not fond of "patriotism" at all. What I'm loyal to, and what I love, is not about an imaginary line around a piece of dirt, or about people who live inside such a line. It's not about any flag, or any republic "for which it stands." What I care about is humanity, which requires free will, which in turn requires liberty. I don't much care WHERE it happens, or to whom it happens. I don't want freedom any less for the guy in Alberta than I do for the guy in New Mexico, nor do I feel any special connection or bond to one over the other.
The trouble is, what most people call "patriotism" is nothing but mindless pack mentality. They "love" what they call their country based purely on the ACCIDENT of where they were born. So, it follows, if they were born in Germany in 1900, they would have ended up as "patriotic" Nazis. What would be good about that?
Reviewing Project Censored's Latest Top 25 Censored Stories
Sunday, 11 October 2009 1:02 A GMT-05
From 1998 - 2007, financial and banking companies "spent $1.7 billion on federal campaign contributions and another $3.4 billion on lobbyists." In 1999, Glass-Steagall was repealed, the landmark 1933 law that curbed speculation and separated commercial from investment banks and insurance companies. In January 2000, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act legitimized swap agreements and other hybrid instruments, at the core of today's problems by preventing regulatory oversight of derivatives and leveraging, thus letting Wall Street legally pillage and speculate, so they did. The result was a financial coup d'etat "cement(ing) the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders" who choose candidates, control elections, weaken financial regulations, and run the country for their own self-interest. As a result, Washington today is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wall Street financial giants. What they want, they get, no questions asked.
US child deaths from swine flu "shoot up": official
Sunday, 11 October 2009 12:33 A GMT-05
Child deaths from swine flu were ’shooting up” in the United States, with 19 deaths from influenza reported in recent days, a US health official said Friday.
“Nineteen more pediatric deaths for influenza were reported to us this week. We’re now up to 76 children having died from the 2009 H1N1 virus,” said Anne Schuchat, a senior official at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Criminalizing everyone
Saturday, 10 October 2009 7:32 P GMT-05
By March 2004, federal prosecutors were well on their way to turning 66-year-old retiree George Norris into an inmate in a federal penitentiary - based on his home-based business of cultivating, importing and selling orchids.
Mrs. Norris testified before the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime this summer. The hearing's topic: the rapid and dangerous expansion of federal criminal law, an expansion that is often unprincipled and highly partisan.
Chairman Robert C. Scott, Virginia Democrat, and ranking member Louie Gohmert, Texas Republican, conducted a truly bipartisan hearing (a D.C. rarity this year).
These two leaders have begun giving voice to the increasing number of experts who worry about "overcriminalization." Astronomical numbers of federal criminal laws lack specifics, can apply to almost anyone and fail to protect innocents by requiring substantial proof that an accused person acted with actual criminal intent.
Family Says 911 Tape Caught Cops Planning Cover-Up After Shooting
Saturday, 10 October 2009 7:25 P GMT-05
In their complaint in Maricopa County Court, Anthony and Lesley Arambula say an armed intruder "crashed through the front window" of their home on Sept. 17, 2008 and ran into one of their son's bedrooms.
Anthony, worried about his son who was still in his bedroom, says he "held the intruder calmly at gunpoint" and called 911.
Phoenix Police officers already in the neighborhood heard the crash of the Arambulas' window. When they approached the house, Lesley says, she told Sgt. Sean Coutts that her husband was inside holding the intruder at gunpoint. Lesley says Coutts failed to pass on that information to the two other officers.
Inside the house, the Arambulas say, Officer Brian Lilly shot Anthony six times in the back while he was still on the phone with the 911 operator - twice when he was on the ground.
The officers ran into the bedroom after Anthony told them, "You just killed ... you just killed the homeowner. The bad guy is in there."
The complaint states that Officer Lilly "admitted that it was only after Tony was laying, bullet-ridden, on the ground that he assessed the situation. The 911 tape continued to record what happened even after Officer Lilly unloaded his weapon into Tony, including Officer Lilly's post-shooting, one-word 'assessment': 'Fuck.'
"Tony believed he was going to die; the 911 tape records his plaintive goodbye to his family: '... I love you ... I love you.' Then Tony made what he believed was a dying request to the officers; he did not want his young family to see him shot and bloodied. Officers callously ignored his request and painfully dragged Tony by his injured leg, through the home and out to his backyard patio, where they left him bloodied and shot right in front of Lesley, Matthew and Zachary."
High Cost of Death Row
Tuesday, 29 September 2009 2:15 A GMT-05
To the many excellent reasons to abolish the death penalty — it’s immoral, does not deter murder and affects minorities disproportionately — we can add one more. It’s an economic drain on governments with already badly depleted budgets.
Yet another 9/11 widow calls for new investigation
Saturday, 26 September 2009 7:15 P GMT-05
No Hoax: G20 Officials Admit Protester Kidnapping
Saturday, 26 September 2009 3:39 P GMT-05
G20 security officials took responsibility Friday afternoon for a video that seemed to depict US troops ‘kidnapping’ a protester. The military was not involved in the incident, but G20 security did acknowledge that “law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team” had detained a protester they said was believed to be vandalizing a store. Video posted at YouTube shows onlookers calling out “what the fuck” and “what the fuck is wrong with you?” as people in camo uniforms haul a protester along by his collar, shove him into the back seat of a car, and rapidly drive off.
The March for Answers
Thursday, 24 September 2009 2:44 A GMT-05
On a larger scale, I hope the March For Answers generates a referendum for America in the next voting cycle. 9/11 occurred first in New York City, but it obviously was, or made to appear to be, an attack on America. So let New York direct America into the awareness it deserves as to what really happened on that day, first by a new investigation in New York City, which could lead to a new, impartial, commission -- one whose members are not all directly connected to George Bush, his administration, the military, oil interests, and the usual band of bandits.
Report: Top anti-drug official was 'secret ally of drug lords'
Sunday, 20 September 2009 3:16 P GMT-05
Richard Padilla Cramer, a 26-year veteran anti-drug official, is behind bars, arrested after officials accused him of directing a massive cocaine shipment to Spain via the United States, and selling important information in law enforcement databases to a vicious Mexican drug cartel. In other words, Cramer, a key Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent who worked in Guadalajara and Nogales, Arizona, was allegedly “a secret ally of drug lords,” reported The Los Angeles Times.
Change: Obama Extends Bush 9/11 National Emergency
Saturday, 12 September 2009 1:11 P GMT-05
Because the terrorist threat continues, the national emergency declared on September 14, 2001, and the powers and authorities adopted to deal with that emergency, must continue in effect beyond September 14, 2009. Therefore, I am continuing in effect for an additional year the national emergency the former President declared on September 14, 2001, with respect to the terrorist threat. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress. BARACK OBAMA THE WHITE HOUSE, September 10, 2009.
Time to rescue our 9/11 heroes ill from Ground Zero cleanup
Saturday, 12 September 2009 12:35 P GMT-05
"I knew right away they'd need ironworkers to cut through those collapsed beams," he recalled. Picurro joined thousands of hardhats who showed up at Ground Zero that first night. They helped retrieve bodies, battle flames and clear debris. Along with the cops, firefighters and other emergency responders, they were lauded as heroes then. Their selfless actions gave us solace and hope amid all that grief. They did not know then about the toxic soup of chemicals in the dust and in the air. Federal and city health officials downplayed any danger at the time. They even dared tell the public the air was safe to breathe. Now, Joe Picurro, 42, is dying. His family is destitute and his faith in our country's leaders has been shattered. The list of ailments ravaging his body is stunning. To begin with, his lungs are inflamed and scarred from a disease called sarcoidosis, so inflamed from all the tiny particles of glass and even human bone fragments lodged in them that every breath produces excruciating pain. His doctor has told him he has the lungs of a 95-year-old.
Eight Years After 9/11, Ground Zero Volunteer Dying of Lung Disease is One of Many Still Fighting for Justice
Saturday, 12 September 2009 12:23 P GMT-05
JOE PICURRO: Well, right now I’m hooked up to my oxygen machine. You know, my lungs are—I went to the doctor yesterday, and it was—we didn’t get good news. Basically, the doctor said, you know, if he could get me another year or two, you know, he would—you know, he’d be surprised. And so, I’m on thirty-seven medications—well, actually thirty-nine; he put me on two more, you know, when I went to see him yesterday. And, you know, most of my problems come from my lungs, but my whole body is racked with pain, all my joints. It’s just like a laundry list of problems. If it’s not one thing, it’s another, you know? Breathing, like I said, is the hardest. Like I said, I’m hooked up to oxygen now. My lungs have concrete and glass and human bone fragments in them. And, you know, so what happens is your lungs are the only organ that rejuvenate themselves, and mine, instead of growing viable lung tissue, they’re growing—it’s growing scar tissue. So it’s making my lungs get bigger and bigger. And when I take a deep breath, my lungs actually rub against my ribs, and it hurts.
Testimony of Spc. Brandon Neely
Saturday, 12 September 2009 2:53 A GMT-05
On December 4, 2008, Specialist Brandon Neely approached CSHRA with testimony he wished to contribute to the Guantánamo Testimonials Project. He believed that insufficient attention had been paid to "the hell that went on at Camp X-Ray." He would be in a position to know, as he arrived in Guantánamo while the cages of Camp X-Ray were still being welded, and escorted the second detainee to hit the prison grounds. In this interview, Specialist Neely provides testimony of the arrival of the detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, possible isolation regime of the first six children in GTMO, utter lack of preparation for guarding individuals detained during the War on Terror, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed.
Priceless: How The Federal Reserve Bought The Economics Profession
Friday, 11 September 2009 1:14 A GMT-05
The Federal Reserve, through its extensive network of consultants, visiting scholars, alumni and staff economists, so thoroughly dominates the field of economics that real criticism of the central bank has become a career liability for members of the profession, an investigation by the Huffington Post has found.
Big banks grow more powerful under Obama
Thursday, 10 September 2009 12:50 A GMT-05
The Washington Post carried an article last week outlining the immense consolidation that has taken place in the US banking system as a result of the policies of the Bush and Obama administrations in response to the financial crisis. The article, entitled “Banks ‘Too Big to Fail’ Have Grown Even Bigger,” reports how the largest banks have consolidated control over a greater share of financial markets and are using their monopolistic position to increase their profits by raising fees and interest on consumers and small businesses. “The oligopoly has tightened,” said Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, who is quoted in the Post article. “There’s been a significant consolidation among the big banks, and it’s kind of hollowing out the banking system,” he added.
Meet the Press's Idea of a 'Debate'
Wednesday, 9 September 2009 2:24 A GMT-05
On Sunday, Meet the Press hosted a panel discussion to debate two primary issues: (1) foreign policy -- specifically, the war in Afghanistan, and (2) health care. The panel: Rudy Giuliani, Tom Friedman, Harold Ford, Jr., and Tom Brokaw (as Jay Rosen often notes, Meet the Press is doing a fantastic job of fulfilling its pledge to present "fresh voices" in its discussions). With regard to Afghanistan, there is a major debate currently taking place about whether we should stay in that country. A majority of Americans now opposes the war. But there was not a single participant there who shares that view. All of them believe that it is imperative we remain, and put on their little General hats to exchange deeply Serious analyses of how we need to adjust our strategy and tactics for greater mission success. Of course, all of three of those whose views were known about Iraq -- Friedman, Ford and Giuliani -- were vehement supporters of the invasion. As always, not only does support for that war not produce shame or even impair one's credibility and Seriousness, but the opposite is true: having supported it is a prerequisite for being considered credible and Serious, which is why those are the only people -- still -- from whom we hear when it's time to convene Serious discussions of foreign policy. What an odd filtering standard for The Liberal Media to use.
AP Photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard
Sunday, 6 September 2009 3:10 P GMT-05
The picture created by AP photographer Julie Jacobson, showed Lance Cpl. Joshua “Bernie” Bernard, 21, lying on the ground with severe leg injuries after being struck by a grenade in an ambush on Aug. 14, his fellow Marines tending to him. Bernard later died of his wounds. To AP President and CEO Tom Curley, Gates wrote a strongly worded letter on Thursday, saying it was a matter of “judgment and common decency” not to use the photo. A Pentagon spokesman said Gates followed up with a phone call “begging” Curley not to use it.
9/11 FEMA VIDEOGRAPHER BLOWS THE WHISTLE
Sunday, 6 September 2009 2:25 P GMT-05
Kurt Sonnenfeld: There were many things, in hindsight, that were disturbing at Ground Zero. It was odd to me that I was dispatched to go to New York even before the second plane hit the South Tower, while the media was still reporting only that a “small plane” had collided with the North Tower~ far too small of a catastrophe at that point to involve FEMA . FEMA was mobilized within minutes, whereas it took ten days for it to deploy to New Orleans to respond to Hurricane Katrina, even with abundant advance warning! It was odd to me that all cameras were so fiercely prohibited within the secured perimeter of Ground Zero, that the entire area was declared a crime scene and yet the “evidence” within that crime scene was so rapidly removed and destroyed. And then it was very odd to me when I learned that FEMA and several other federal agencies had already moved into position at their command center at Pier 92 on September 10th, one day before the attacks!!
Cameron Todd Willingham, Texas, and the death penalty
Saturday, 5 September 2009 2:30 A GMT-05
Did Texas execute an innocent man?
A Delta Manhunt, With Booze and Guns
Saturday, 5 September 2009 2:27 A GMT-05
Federal authorities are investigating an Aug. 20 incident in which armed white citizens, using a military vehicle, helped search for an unarmed black burglary suspect in the Delta. U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, of Mississippi's second congressional district, confirmed to the Jackson Free Press Monday that the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice are investigating the manhunt, which took place outside Sumner in Tallahatchie County.
9/11 1st Responder Benefit Show
Saturday, 5 September 2009 2:22 A GMT-05
Saturday September 12th, 2009
5pm-Midnight
The Great Hall of Copper Union
7 E 7th St, New York
Tickets $15
Bush's Third Term: You're Living It
Thursday, 3 September 2009 12:58 A GMT-05
If Bush were in his third term, some of his first and second term secrets might, by now, have been forced out into the open by lawsuits, but what Americans actually read wouldn't be significantly worse than what we'd already known. What documents saw the light of day would surely have had large portions of their pages redacted, and the vast bulk of documentation that might prove threatening would remain hidden from the public eye. Bush's lawyers would be fighting in court, with ever grander claims of executive power, to keep his wrongdoing out of sight.
Now, here's the funny part. This dark fantasy of a third Bush term is also an accurate portrait of Obama's first term to date. In following Bush, Obama was given the opportunity either to restore the rule of law and the balance of powers or to firmly establish in place what were otherwise aberrant abuses of power. Thus far, President Obama has, in all the areas mentioned above, chosen the latter course. Everything described, from the continuation of crimes to the efforts to hide them away, from the corruption of corporate power to the assertion of the executive power to legislate, is Obama's presidency in its first seven months.
Circumcision for All; Free Choice for None by Stephanie R. Murphy
Thursday, 3 September 2009 12:55 A GMT-05
OK, you’ve caught me in a rare moment of sarcasm. Maybe I wasn't really that surprised. After all, government bureaucrats attempt to control what types of substances you put into your body, what kind of work you do with your body, and even how you can legally dispose of your body after death; it makes perfect sense that they would also scramble for power over what parts of your body should remain attached. Yes, that’s right. The CDC is now considering a campaign for universal circumcision in the US.
Exclusive Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
Sunday, 23 August 2009 9:32 P GMT-05
K.M.—The most recent example of the deafening silence of the mainstream media was your deposition during the Schmidt vs. Krikorian case on Aug. 8. There, you spoke, under oath, about how the Turkish government and a network of lobby groups and high-ranking U.S. officials and Congressmen have engaged in treason and blackmail. A big story by any standards, it was only covered by Armenian newspapers and a few blogs. How do you explain this silence?
S.E.—I know field reporters who are so excited and want to chase the story. But when they went to their papers—and I’m talking about mainstream media and very good investigative journalists—their editors are refusing to touch it. When you watch the video or read the transcript, you will see how explosive the deposition was. And remember, I was speaking under oath. If by any standard, if I were to lie or be untruthful in any way, I would go to jail. I am answering these questions under oath, and yet, the mainstream media is refusing to touch it. And this is very similar to what we saw with the AIPAC/Larry Franklin case.
I have emphasized the fact that the American Turkish Council [ATC], the Turkish lobby, and these Turkish networks, they work together, in partnership with AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] and JINSA [Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs]. So not only is there pressure on media outlets from the Turkish lobby and the corrupt U.S. persons involved, but they also have this pressure placed on the media via their partners from the Israel lobby—and the latter’s influence on the mainstream media in the U.S. is undeniable.
The irony is that my deposition has made it to the front page of Turkish newspapers—and Turkey doesn’t even pride itself with freedom of the media—yet the mainstream media has not written a single word about it.
Sicko
Sunday, 23 August 2009 8:44 P GMT-05
Michael Moore's documentary film on the state of the US healthcare. A must-see in this author's humble opinion.
What Soviet Medicine Teaches Us
Saturday, 22 August 2009 2:28 P GMT-05
The system had many decades to work, but widespread apathy and low quality of work paralyzed the healthcare system. In the depths of the socialist experiment, healthcare institutions in Russia were at least a hundred years behind the average US level. Moreover, the filth, odors, cats roaming the halls, drunken medical personnel, and absence of soap and cleaning supplies added to an overall impression of hopelessness and frustration that paralyzed the system. According to official Russian estimates, 78 percent of all AIDS victims in Russia contracted the virus through dirty needles or HIV-tainted blood in the state-run hospitals.
Report Reveals CIA Conducted Mock Executions
Saturday, 22 August 2009 2:11 P GMT-05
According to two sources—one who has read a draft of the paper and one who was briefed on it—the report describes how one detainee, suspected USS Cole bomber Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a gun and a power drill during the course of CIA interrogation. According to the sources, who like others quoted in this article asked not to be named while discussing sensitive information, Nashiri's interrogators brandished the gun in an effort to convince him that he was going to be shot. Interrogators also turned on a power drill and held it near him. "The purpose was to scare him into giving [information] up," said one of the sources. A federal law banning the use of torture expressly forbids threatening a detainee with "imminent death."
Man Jailed Three Months for Breath Mint Possession
Thursday, 20 August 2009 11:05 P GMT-05
A man is suing the Kissimmee Police Department for an arrest over mints. When officers pulled Donald May over for an expired tag, they thought the mints he was chewing were crack and arrested him. May told Eyewitness News they wouldn't let him out of jail for three months until tests proved the so-called drugs were candy.
College-Entrance Test Scores Flagging
Thursday, 20 August 2009 10:25 P GMT-05
Only about a quarter of the 2009 high school graduates taking the ACT admissions test have the skills to succeed in college, according to a report on the exam that shows little improvement over results from the 2008 graduating class. The Iowa City, Iowa-based ACT said 23% of this year's high school graduates had scores that indicated they were ready for college in all four ACT subject areas, or had at least a 75% chance of earning a grade of C or better in entry-level courses. Last year, a similar ACT analysis found that 22% of the class of 2008 was college-ready.
Why Are Cops Tasering Grandmothers, Pregnant Women and Kids?
Monday, 17 August 2009 11:02 P GMT-05
Technology is a double-edged sword, the cliche goes. It can save and even extend your life, but it can also kill you in new and unpredictable ways. In the several years since the Arizona-based Taser International has deployed its terminologically challenging Electronic Control Devices (ECDs), colloquially known as stun guns or simply tasers, what started out as a midrange law enforcement weapon has turned into a surreal nightmare that has gone viral from streets to screens. It's now to the point that only a hyperreal comedian like Stephen Colbert can make sense of it.
Concentration of wealth in hands of rich greatest on record
Monday, 17 August 2009 10:54 P GMT-05
“After decades of stability in the post-war period, the top decile share has increased dramatically over the last twenty-five years and has now regained its pre-war level,” Saez writes. “Indeed, the top decile share in 2007 is equal to 49.7 percent, a level higher than any other year since [records began in] 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the ‘roaring’ 1920s.”
By comparison, during most of the 1970s the top 10 percent earned around 33 percent of all the income earned in the United States.
The contrast is even starker for the super-rich. The top 0.01 percent of earners in the US are now taking home six percent of all the income, higher than the 1920s peak of five percent, and a whopping six-fold increase since the start of the Reagan administration, when the top 0.01 percent earned one percent of all the income.
"Incestuous" relationships between Blackwater and U.S. government
Saturday, 15 August 2009 5:44 P GMT-05
“What we have here is an individual who received billions of dollars in US contracts, and still was under contract with the U.S. government, and fancied himself someone who wanted to wipe out Islam and kill Arabs and Muslims,” Madsen said.
Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?
Monday, 10 August 2009 12:04 A GMT-05
In Los Angeles, the fine for truancy is $250; in Dallas, it can be as much as $500 — crushing amounts for people living near the poverty level. According to the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group, 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008. Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school. The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing.
Elderly crippled cane-dependent knife-wielding menace stopped by heroic police!
Sunday, 9 August 2009 7:43 P GMT-05
Or should the title of this post say police used excessive force by slamming her against the ground resulting in a puddle of blood? What about the flexibility of an elderly HUMAN BEING's joints? I'll bet the wrist lock or whatever was used to flip her did those joints some good. I mean just 'cause she can barely walk with the aid of a cane and seems to have a hip issue - why would one think her skeleton would be frail? Ah who cares just slam her on the ground - she has a knife! Watch both vids below and make up your own mind.
In economic tough times, cybercrime still paying
Sunday, 9 August 2009 7:04 P GMT-05
US authorities say Americans - the easiest prey, according to Nigerian scammers - lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year to cybercrimes, including a scheme known as the Nigerian 419 fraud, named for a section of the Nigerian criminal code. Now financially squeezed, Americans succumb even more easily to offers of riches, experts say. Though statistics are fuzzy, the FBI-backed Internet Crime Complaint Center says that scam reports by Americans grew 33 percent last year, and that after the United States and Britain, Nigeria housed the most perpetrators. Ultrascan, a Dutch research firm that investigates complaints of 419 fraud, says online scam offers from Nigerians in and outside their homeland have mushroomed this year.
War with Iran: oil, lies and evil
Sunday, 9 August 2009 3:57 P GMT-05
If another attack occurs against the US, false-flag or real, President Obama has the legal authority to declare himself the sole authority of US government, bypassing any authority of Congress and the Federal Court System. Under National Security Presidential Directive 51[8] (NSPD-51), issued May 9, 2007, if the President declares a “national emergency,” all government authority is “coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches.” This means that the President is the legal dictator of the United States, with only his discretion allowing influence by Congress and/or the Courts. Details of this plan are secret for “national security,” even to the members in Congress on the Committee for Homeland Security.[9] Just after passing the MCA, Congress also repealed the Posse Comitatus Act, and gave the President legal authority to command the state’s National Guard without consulting with state governors for the purpose of “suppressing public disorder.”[10] If the President invoked NSPD-51 and the states’ National Guards to suppress public protest, Americans would have to be arrested and detained in large facilities. For the past several years, FEMA has been constructing and renovating such “camps” with Congressional funding.[11] The existence of detention camps for Americans was originally disclosed to the public in Congressional Hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal in 1987 under the name REX-84.[12] Information Operations Roadmap is a program approved by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in 2003, and surprisingly released to George Washington University’s National Security Archive in a Freedom of Information Act request.[13] Wikipedia acknowledges its existence, but fails to inform of its content for government influence of American public opinion for support of US military operations. The existence of this document confirms governmental planning to replace fact with spin for the American public’s consumption.[14] In 2000, CNN reluctantly acknowledged that they employ military PSYOPS (Psychological Operations Group) personnel at their news station.[15] The express purpose of US military PSYOPS is propaganda; to manipulate public opinion in favor of government military policy.
A French Revelation, or The Burning Bush
Sunday, 9 August 2009 2:40 P GMT-05
Incredibly, President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse. Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.
War on Terror: Foreign Policy
Saturday, 8 August 2009 9:50 P GMT-05
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (PDF)
Saturday, 8 August 2009 9:29 P GMT-05
The new healthcare bill currently before Congress - BE
Bringing the (Bio) War Home
Saturday, 8 August 2009 7:38 P GMT-05
The 2001 anthrax attacks underscore the dangers posed to our health and safety by the Bioweapons-Industrial Complex. The killer(s) employed a military-grade version of the deadly pathogen, a four-mutation blend of anthrax prepared at the government's test site at the remote Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Based on available evidence it's a near certainty that the weapon came from stockpiles at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Ft. Detrick, Maryland.
Hunger hits Detroit
Saturday, 8 August 2009 6:20 P GMT-05
As the area's economy worsens --unemployment was over 16% in July -- food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged. Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased. But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients.
New Ground Zero Photos from FEMA Photographer Kurt Sonnenfeld
Saturday, 8 August 2009 6:11 P GMT-05
FEMA photographer Kurt Sonnenfeld (recently interviewed by Voltairenet) has released a new set of World Trade Center disaster site images. Some were previously available, but the majority are new and high quality.
"Well what if there is no tomorrow"
Saturday, 8 August 2009 6:07 P GMT-05
Well then, if we have these essential elements of truth and suffering, why is there still no large, forceful, coherent, and well organized body of popular grassroots resistance in the US? The main reason is simply that the requisite deep suffering and penetrating hard truths are not yet sufficiently widespread. Another reason is the extensive dumbing down of our society, along with the non-stop lies and propaganda spoon fed us daily by mainstream corporate media. Also there’s the ever present fear created by our government, using both rhetoric and legislation designed to consistently reinforce the clear threat so plainly put to us in the wake of 9-11 by George W. Bush: “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists.”
In any case, with our Bush initiated upward spiraling national debt, exploding unemployment, and massive war related economic hemorrhaging, all continuing unabated under Obama and our wholly owned Congress, the furtherance of expanded suffering is a foregone conclusion. It will be left to the small but growing numbers of would-be resisters and truth-tellers (citizens Big Brother will vilify as home-grown terrorists) to advance the spread of truth.
FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Subpoenaed, Set to "Break" Gag Order Unless DoJ Intercedes
Saturday, 8 August 2009 5:40 P GMT-05
Ms. Edmonds is prepared to testify this Saturday in an open to the media deposition in Washington DC that during the time she was employed by the FBI she obtained evidence that: 1. The Government of Turkey had illegally infiltrated and influenced various U.S. government institutions and officials, including the Department of State, the Department of Defense and individual members of the United States Congress.
You're Not The Boss of Me
Friday, 7 August 2009 2:20 A GMT-05
This speech by Larken Rose was delivered on July 4th, 2009, in front of Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence was signed).
Glenn Beck: Government Website Takes Over Your Computer Forever
Friday, 7 August 2009 2:15 A GMT-05
Hillary Clinton demands accountability for war crimes
Friday, 7 August 2009 2:05 A GMT-05
We need to teach those Kenyans that if they don't prosecute their criminals in high office, then they'll perpetuate their "culture of impunity," and that would be awful. Those Kenyans apparently fail to understand that if you immunize high political officials when they commit crimes, that creates a "culture of impunity" -- I love that phrase -- which ensures future rampant criminality in the political class. How can those Kenyans not realize this? Clinton's sentiments echoed what Obama told Africans when he spoke in Ghana last month, when he demanded that they apply "the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice" and vowed that "we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable" -- meaning African war criminals. As we send murderous, crusading civilian units around the world to accompany our invading armies -- while ushering a regime of torture wherever we go -- and then announce we will only Look to the Future, Not the Past, when their crimes are exposed (despite our best efforts to keep them concealed), do we actually expect anyone to take these sermons seriously?
Polls show broad skepticism among Americans of official 9/11 narrative
Thursday, 6 August 2009 10:33 A GMT-05
Below is a summary of opinion polls querying the American public on the viability of the official government narrative for 9/11. Polls have been conducted by such pollsters as Zogby, Scripps Howard, Reuters and Angus Reid and cable news channels such as CNN and MSNBC. Apparently, the official conspiracy theory isn't doing very well. In fact, the numbers are scaring the bejesus out of some of the pollsters, who are left looking for ways to trivialize such large numbers of their fellow citizens as "fringe elements". Tactics include suggesting the respondents are misguided because of ethnocentric bias, inability to cope with events of large magnitude, lack of intelligence, factual ignorance, one-sidedness, the internet or deeply embedded distrust of government. The last suggestion appears to have a chicken-or-egg problem.
Keith Olbermann On Blackwater
Thursday, 6 August 2009 1:26 A GMT-05
U.S. Incomes Fall 1.3%, Biggest Drop in Four Years (Update3)
Thursday, 6 August 2009 1:19 A GMT-05
U.S. personal incomes tumbled 1.3 percent in June, more than forecast and the biggest drop in four years, signaling that consumer spending will take time to recover. The decline partly reflected the unwinding of one-time transfer payments from the Obama administration’s stimulus plan, which boosted incomes 1.3 percent in May, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Spending rose 0.4 percent in June as prices climbed. Adjusted for inflation, purchases fell 0.1 percent, the report showed.
Window washers rescued from 37th floor of Boston high-rise
Thursday, 6 August 2009 1:16 A GMT-05
Two window washers spent 20 minutes clinging to a dangling platform 37 stories above State Street this morning before firefighters smashed windows and pulled the men to safety, according to fire officials and witnesses.
Taboo News and Corporate Media
Sunday, 2 August 2009 4:29 P GMT-05
The corporate media in the United States are ignoring valid news stories, based on university quality research. It appears that certain topics are simply forbidden inside the mainstream corporate media today. To openly cover these news stories would stir up questions regarding “inconvenient truths” that many in the US power structure want to avoid. For example, current research indicates that public schools in the United States are more segregated today than they have been in more than four decades. According to a new Civil Rights report, published at the University of California, Los Angeles, schools in the US are 44 percent non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students in the US. Latinos and blacks, the two largest minority groups, attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement forty years ago. Millions of non-white students are locked into “dropout factory” high schools, where huge percentages do not graduate. The most severe segregation in public schools occurs in the Western states, including California—not in the South, as many people believe. Most non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. Schools in low-income communities remain highly unequal in terms of funding, qualified teachers, and curriculum.
Wife of accused N.C. terrorist leader tells harrowing tale, denies plot
Friday, 31 July 2009 2:31 A GMT-05
Sabrina Boyd, a 41-year-old mother of five and U.S.-born convert to Islam, said she was outraged that the agents pretended that her husband and three sons had been in a serious car crash, and that a North Carolina Highway Patrol would take her to the hospital where they were being treated. But when they arrived at Duke Hospital, 30 agents surrounded her and handcuffs were slapped on her wrists, Sabrina Boyd said. On Wednesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the subterfuge as unconstitutional and an unjust trick," and called on the Justice Department to investigate the incident.
9/11 FAMILIES, FIRST RESPONDERS AND SURVIVORS TO TAKE NEW YORK CITY TO COURT OVER NYC CAN PETITION
Wednesday, 29 July 2009 12:12 A GMT-05
SEVENTY THOUSAND New Yorkers signed the NYC CAN petition, raising their voices in support of NYC CAN’s demand for accountability. They have chosen to place the decision to create a new 9/11 investigation – a REAL 9/11 investigation – exactly where it belongs: before the voters of New York City this November. The voices of SEVENTY THOUSAND Americans who believe in democracy and believe that government exists to serve the people – and not the other way around – have been GAGGED by ONE so-called “PUBLIC SERVANT” – The New York City Clerk – who denied the petition and the voice of the people.
9-11 Blueprint for Truth to Debut on Colorado Public Television
Sunday, 26 July 2009 10:03 P GMT-05
Still reeling from the success of the recent historic broadcast of 9-11 Press for Truth, the state of Colorado is about to get another strong dose of 9-11 truth. Making an appearance on Visibility 9-11 with Michael Wolsey, Executive Producer at KBDI Shari Bernson made the major announcement that KBDI will be again making history with the PBS world premier of Richard Gage's excellent documentary, 9-11 Blueprint for Truth on August 15, 2009 from 7:00 - 9:00 pm mountain time.
Idaho man sodomized by police Taser plans to sue
Sunday, 26 July 2009 8:55 P GMT-05
A Boise, Idaho, police officer who pushed a Taser inside a man’s buttocks and threatened to “Taser his balls” violated use-of-force policy, but didn’t break the law, an ombudsman has found.
More Mexicans Are Sending Money to Help Out Relatives in the U.S.
Sunday, 26 July 2009 8:03 P GMT-05
For decades, money sent home by Mexicans working in the United States has been a key pillar of the Mexican economy. Now, scattered reports are surfacing of Mexicans sending money to support relatives in the United States hard hit by the economic crisis north of the border. Latinos, especially immigrants, are suffering a disproportionate share of the joblessness that is officially rising to engulf close to 10 percent of the overall U.S. population.
The Commercial Real Estate Bust: Gearing up for a $3 Trillion Headache
Sunday, 26 July 2009 7:59 P GMT-05
Industrial production is still heading lower. So why would businesses need so much office space? Do some people still believe in that service sector mantra? The one in which we basically offshore any goods-making jobs and basically sell homes and financial products to one another while not manufacturing anything? As this recession is now showing, that assumption was wrong.
Mass Layoffs: The Continuing Devastation
Sunday, 26 July 2009 7:50 P GMT-05
Stock market investors shrug off a disaster in our midst: mass layoffs. Investors act as though it will soon be business as usual. Companies cut costs by firing employees that have been with them for decades. Then the companies can report higher earnings from cost-cutting measures. The media then proclaim an increase in earnings. But how will these increases be sustained? How will an unemployment rate of 11% help get the economy back on its feet?
3,000 Low Temp Records Set This July!
Sunday, 26 July 2009 7:48 P GMT-05
Here are some stats and maps regarding the unusually cold July that is happening over a large portion of the U.S., especially the Northeast quadrant (yes, it's been unusually hot in the SW, see below).
3 New Jersey Mayors and 5 Rabbis Among Those Arrested in Federal Inquiry
Sunday, 26 July 2009 7:46 P GMT-05
A two-year corruption and international money-laundering investigation stretching from the Jersey Shore to Brooklyn to Israel and Switzerland culminated in charges against 44 people on Thursday, including three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, the authorities said.
Spitzer: Federal Reserve is "a Ponzi scheme, an inside job"
Sunday, 26 July 2009 7:33 P GMT-05
The Federal Reserve — the quasi-autonomous body that controls the US’s money supply — is a “Ponzi scheme” that created “bubble after bubble” in the US economy and needs to be held accountable for its actions, says Eliot Spitzer, the former governor and attorney-general of New York. In a wide-ranging discussion of the bank bailouts on MSNBC’s Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan described the process by which the Federal Reserve exchanged $13.9 trillion of bad bank debt for cash that it gave to the struggling banks.
Man, 74, Shoots Carjacker, 18
Saturday, 25 July 2009 2:06 A GMT-05
The punk brought a knife to a gun fight, quite literally.
Lt. Col. Bob Bowman Speaks at Brave New Books 7/8/2009
Thursday, 23 July 2009 9:30 A GMT-05
Dr. Bob Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, retired. 101 combat missions in Vietnam as fighter pilot. PhD in Aeronautics & Nuclear Engineering, Caltech. Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter. Former Head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering and Assistant Dean at the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology.
American Embassies Urged to Stockpile Local Currencies
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 2:17 A GMT-05
Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. Inside the State Dept., there is a sense of sadness and foreboding that 'something' is about to happen ... within 180 days, but could be 120-150 days.
Treasury: We Can't Tell You Where Bailout Money Went, Because "Money Given to a Bank is Like Water Poured into an Ocean"
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 2:10 A GMT-05
But just like dye is frequently added to streams by scientists in order to trace the flow of water, Treasury could easily track the flow of bailout funds. Indeed, the government has very sophisticated software which tracks funds, which it uses in terrorism investigations. But that is all moot. The truth of the matter is that Treasury never even asked the banks to keep track of where the bailout money was going. If they ask, the banks would be required to keep track themselves.
New paper at The Journal of 9/11 Studies
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 1:13 A GMT-05
"In the debate over the collapses of the Twin Towers on 9/11, the shaking of the earth that accompanied these collapses has played an important role. This shaking registered clearly on seismographs. Less clear, however, are its causes and the times it began. The National Institute of Standards and Technology emphasizes the role of the debris from the collapsing buildings in producing the seismic signals. In assessing NIST’s hypothesis I focus on the collapse of the South Tower and attempt to determine the time the collapse began, the time the debris from the Tower struck the ground, and the temporal relation of these events to the shaking of the earth that accompanied the collapse. I consider both the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory’s seismic evidence and the evidence provided by a less studied form of seismic instrument, the video camera. I also draw on witness testimony. I conclude that key statements by NIST are false. Major shaking of the earth, and corresponding seismic signals, started well before the debris hit the ground. In fact, it seems certain that the shaking of the earth started before visible signs of building collapse. This evidence is incompatible with the official NIST hypothesis of the cause of the collapse of the Towers."
In a First, US Acknowledges Joint Training With Cuban Army
Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:11 A GMT-05
A Cuban Army helicopter flew over this Navy base and dropped 500 gallons of saltwater on burning plywood to extinguish a simulated raging wildfire. American sailors crossed into Cuban-controlled turf to set up a mock triage center run by both nations' militaries, should catastrophe strike.
Padilla vs. Yoo: An Update
Monday, 20 July 2009 2:30 A GMT-05
Why is Padilla’s lawsuit important? Because the ultimate ruling in the case will apply not just to him but also to all Americans. The suit alleges that the U.S. government took Padilla into custody and held him for several years without charge, until finally indicting him and convicting him in federal district court of the federal crime of terrorism. For years prior to the indictment, Padilla was held in the custody of the U.S. military, where he was denied right to counsel, the right to due process of law, the right to bail, the right to a speedy trial, the right to a jury trial, and other procedural protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. He was also subjected to torture, sensory deprivation, isolation, sleep deprivation, and many other cruel and unusual pre-trial measures. The government takes the position that it had the legitimate authority to do these things to Padilla and that it, in fact, has the legitimate authority to do them to every other American, as part of its ”war on terrorism.“ Yoo is saying that as a government lawyer who was just delivering legal opinions, he is immune from Padilla’s suit. The district judge disagreed. He held that the U.S. government lacks constitutional authority to subject the American people to such treatment and that any lawyer who knowingly participates in a scheme to subject Americans to such mistreatment is not immune from suit. Given the predilection of the courts against interlocutory appeals, in my opinion the Court of Appeals will quickly rule against Yoo’s appeal, enabling Padilla to continue with his case and begin taking sworn depositions. That will be when things start to get interesting.
Celebrated FBI whistleblower supports new 9/11 probe
Sunday, 19 July 2009 3:39 P GMT-05
In the absence of my being there in New York City to stand with the 9/11 families, first responders and survivors, I offer the following statement in support of your goal of a new investigation into the attacks of September 11th and the NYC CAN campaign to place it on the ballot for November.
Big Pharma Bribes Doctors to Hook Your Kids on Drugs
Sunday, 19 July 2009 3:23 P GMT-05
The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession, whose all-star opportunist team is captained by Harvard psychiatrist Joseph Biederman, the high-profile doctor most responsible for the explosion of kids on psychiatric drugs, first for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and then for bipolar disorder.
CBS 60 Minutes: 300 death claims from 1976 swine flu vaccine, only one death from flu
Sunday, 19 July 2009 2:48 P GMT-05
This excellent 60 Minutes exposé reveals blatant U.S. government propaganda and fear-mongering in the swine flu outbreak and mass vaccination of 1976. The incisive report states that though only one person died as a result of the swine flu, "4,000 Americans are claiming damages from Uncle Sam amounting to three and a half billion dollars because of what happened when they took that [swine flu] shot."
Before kicks were caught on tape, witnesses say man was beaten on street | HeraldTribune.com
Sunday, 19 July 2009 7:33 A GMT-05
Once at the jail, a videotape from about 8 p.m. shows Childers pulling into the sallyport area. He remains in the front seat as Perez shimmies out the squad car’s open back window and falls face-first onto the pavement. The officer walks around the car and stands by Perez. Minutes later, as Perez is trying to stand up, Childers kicks him twice, apparently in the torso. Perez falls back to the ground and Childers stands with his foot on Perez for five minutes.
Upcoming Military Robot Could Feed on Dead Bodies
Wednesday, 15 July 2009 2:32 A GMT-05
A Maryland company under contract to the Pentagon is working on a steam-powered robot that would fuel itself by gobbling up whatever organic material it can find — grass, wood, old furniture, even dead bodies. Robotic Technology Inc.’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot — that’s right, “EATR” — “can find, ingest, and extract energy from biomass in the environment (and other organically-based energy sources), as well as use conventional and alternative fuels (such as gasoline, heavy fuel, kerosene, diesel, propane, coal, cooking oil, and solar) when suitable,” reads the company’s Web site.
Too easy on rogue cops
Friday, 10 July 2009 2:29 A GMT-05
Davis parceled out punishments ranging from written reprimands to a 45-day unpaid suspension to 11 officers who were involved in steroid use or had frequented an afterhours club in Hyde Park where drugs, alcohol, and prostitutes were present. The punishments are a byproduct of a federal investigation in 2006 that culminated in the arrest and lengthy imprisonment of three former Boston Police officers for protecting a large shipment of cocaine arranged by federal agents posing as drug dealers. The head of that protection racket, former officer Roberto Pulido, was a steroid user who also guarded parties at the after-hours club frequented by police.
Investigators Easily Smuggled Bomb Material Into Government Buildings
Thursday, 9 July 2009 2:03 A GMT-05
A new report by the Government Accountability Office inadvertently discredits a claim often made by 9/11 truth debunkers – that bombs could not have been smuggled into the twin towers or Building 7 without being noticed by security.
DC Metro Crash: Who Will Die Next Because We Throw Money at Billionaries and Scrimp on the Public Good?
Wednesday, 1 July 2009 4:14 A GMT-05
My shock became anger as it became clear that none of these people had to die, that no one had to be hurt. This accident was about as predictable as the setting sun. The wreckage by my house is not an accident site. It is a crime scene. And it happened for one reason: the twisted policies of the underfunded Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.
29 Engineers: Only Explosives Can Explain 9/11 World Trade Center Destruction
Saturday, 20 June 2009 2:08 A GMT-05
More than 700 architects and engineers have joined call for new investigation.
EXPLOSIVE TESTIMONY! / MacQueen NYFD 9/11 witnesses
Thursday, 18 June 2009 10:37 A GMT-05
NYFD Asst. Commissioner Stephen Gregory: I thought that I saw...low level flashes...I saw flash-flash-flash, and then it looked like the building came down. You know like when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw."
Firefighter Daniel Rivera: "At first I thought it was... Do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear, 'pop-pop-pop-pop-pop'? That's exactly what, because I thought it was that, when I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down."
NYFD Captain Karin Deshore: "Somewhere around the middle of the World Trade Center there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash kept popping, all the way around the building, and that building had started to explode."
$575G Reprieve For 9/11 Hospital
Thursday, 18 June 2009 1:36 A GMT-05
The Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Institute at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick had told its 1,800 patients it wasn't sure it could stay open past next month. Federal funding had been held up over an accounting dispute, but late Tuesday the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health said it was sending $575,000 to cover summer expenses. John Feal, founder of the Fealgood Foundation, which pushes for health care for 9/11 workers, said the money isn't enough. Feal said, "$575,000 is like putting a Band-Aid on a machine-gun wound. "Funding for three months is a joke when 9/11 first responders will need treatment for the rest of their lives."
America's socialism for the rich
Sunday, 14 June 2009 8:02 A GMT-05
But this new form of ersatz capitalism, in which losses are socialised and profits privatised, is doomed to failure. Incentives are distorted. There is no market discipline. The too-big-to-be-restructured banks know that they can gamble with impunity – and, with the Federal Reserve making funds available at near-zero interest rates, there are ample funds to do so. Some have called this new economic regime "socialism with American characteristics". But socialism is concerned about ordinary individuals. By contrast, the US has provided little help for the millions of Americans who are losing their homes. Workers who lose their jobs receive only 39 weeks of limited unemployment benefits, and are then left on their own. And, when they lose their jobs, most lose their health insurance too. America has expanded its corporate safety net in unprecedented ways, from commercial banks to investment banks, then to insurance and now to cars, with no end in sight. In truth, this is not socialism, but an extension of longstanding corporate welfarism. The rich and powerful turn to the government to help them whenever they can, while needy individuals get little social protection.
Downward Acceleration of the North Tower
Saturday, 13 June 2009 3:15 P GMT-05
"Terrorist" Threat to Keep Toxic Coal Ash Sites Secret?
Saturday, 13 June 2009 2:52 P GMT-05
Dozens of communities nationwide are at risk from a coal ash spill like the one that blanketed a Tennessee neighborhood last year, but the Obama administration has decided not to tell the public about it because of the danger of a terrorist attack.
Armenian genocide lawsuit rejected
Saturday, 13 June 2009 2:13 P GMT-05
US District Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf said in a long-awaited ruling that state and local education systems have the constitutionally protected right to decide on curriculum as long as it does not infringe on other rights. He said the lawsuit, filed by several students and teachers from Massachusetts, and the Assembly of Turkish America, would be better played out as a public and political debate in the Legislature, than in the courts. "Except in limited circumstances, decisions concerning what should be taught must be made by state and local boards rather than by federal judges," Wolf said in a detailed, 30-page decision.
Audit the Fed Update
Saturday, 13 June 2009 2:02 P GMT-05
Majority of the House of Representatives are now co-sponsors. - BE
Razing entire neighborhoods?
Saturday, 13 June 2009 12:29 A GMT-05
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens are homeless. But instead of allowing them to find shelter in abandoned buildings we destroy the buildings. The accepted excuse is safety and health concerns. Is facing the elements safer? Try that out one fine Michigan winter...
9/11 Truth Activist Sues Glenn Beck and Fox News for Defamation
Friday, 12 June 2009 11:26 P GMT-05
Specifically, Greg Hoover will be suing the above-described defendants in Federal Court for Beck’s having repeatedly broadcast statements characterizing those who question the government’s official version of the events of 9/11 as, "anarchists," "terrorists" and as persons denying the Holocaust. The complaint will note that - on October 22, 2007 - Beck suggested that those identifying themselves as associated with the 9/11 truth movement are "dangerous" "anarchists" who deny the Holocaust, and are "the kind of group that Timothy McVeigh would come from." The suit will also note that during Beck’s June 10th broadcast Beck linked the murder of the Washington D.C. holocaust museum guard with "9/11 truthers." As I have previously written, suing people for defamation who falsely claim that 9/11 activists are terrorists could be a good way to stand up to these bullies.
The OTHER Reason for the American Revolution
Sunday, 7 June 2009 9:58 P GMT-05
Is this just ancient history? No. The ability for America and the 50 states to create its own credit has largely been lost to private bankers. The lion's share of new credit creation is done by private banks, so - instead of being able to itself create money without owing interest - the government owes unfathomable trillions in interest to private banks. America may have won the Revolutionary War, but it has since lost one of the main things it fought for: the freedom to create its own credit instead of having to beg for credit from private banks at a usurious cost.
Allowing Guilty Pleas and Death Penalties Without Trial for Alleged 9/11 Plotters Would Be the Ultimate Obstruction of Justice
Sunday, 7 June 2009 7:01 P GMT-05
This is not simply a ploy to cover up the fact that these prisoners were brutally tortured. It is also a way to silence them forever, so that they can never tell what their real role was in the 9/11 attacks, and who they received assistance from, and how they were able to convince the mightiest military the world has ever known to stand down from standard air defense protocols on 9/11.
This may well be the most powerful letter to the editor...
Sunday, 7 June 2009 5:49 P GMT-05
Regarding the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the antiabortion zealots would like everyone to think late-term abortions are never performed for a good reason. (The woman's life, health and wellbeing and severe fetal defects are not considered good reasons.) Perhaps a real-life example will help everyone (at least the decent people) understand this issue.
Cops Ticket Car On BQE Repeatedly While Driver Lay Dead Inside For Weeks
Saturday, 6 June 2009 2:11 P GMT-05
His daughter suspects George Morales, who suffered from diabetes and heart problems, may have felt ill, and pulled off the road for a nap. A window was cracked. The odor became overpowering. After the car was ticketed each Monday for a month, a marshal, about to tow the van, noticed a body in the back seat.
Torture Is Not a Partisan Issue . . . George Washington - Who Was Neither a Democrat or Republican - Forbid All Torture
Thursday, 4 June 2009 10:54 P GMT-05
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner]. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.” - George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775...
A danish scientist Niels Harrit, on nano-thermite in the WTC dust ( english subtitles )
Tuesday, 2 June 2009 9:25 P GMT-05
Niels Harrit and 8 other scientists found nano-thermite in the dust from the World Trade Center. He is interviewed on danish TV2 News. People can see a full transcript, news, forum and the video in high quality here:
WeAreChange: New York Senator Gillibrand Supports New 9/11 Investigation May 30, 2009
Monday, 1 June 2009 11:24 P GMT-05
Suspect in shooting death of abortion provider George Tiller may be charged today
Monday, 1 June 2009 7:28 P GMT-05
Today, a 51-year-old Johnson County man could be charged with murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Tiller, who had been shot before by an anti-abortion foe. The crime has drawn condemnation and outrage from the president and stirred strong emotions across the nation. Tiller, 67, was shot once just after 10 a.m. Sunday as he stood in the lobby of Reformation Lutheran Church, 7601 E. 13th St., where he was serving as an usher. The gunman threatened to shoot two men who tried to apprehend him. Wichita police said that the suspect was arrested without incident on I-35 in Johnson County about three hours after the shooting, following a statewide broadcast describing the suspect and his car. Although Wichita police would not name the suspect, the Johnson County Sheriff's Office identified him as Scott P. Roeder, according to the Associated Press.
Again, May God Forgive Us
Monday, 1 June 2009 6:40 P GMT-05
An observation by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses, seems to underscore my point. "I am not sure what purpose [releasing the 2,000 additional photos of prisoner abuse] would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy – " Hold it right there: Taguba said "protectors of our foreign policy," not "defenders of our independence" or "guardians of our liberties." The foreign policy referred to entails open-ended entanglements in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth, as well as plundering huge sums from taxpayers to sustain a grotesquely huge military establishment and bribe political elites abroad. That foreign policy cultivates misery and harvests war and terrorism. Why in God's Name would any decent human being defend that foreign policy in the abstract, much less spill blood to implement it?
Guns are up in D.C., violence is down
Saturday, 30 May 2009 6:49 P GMT-05
The failure of urban gun laws to reduce violence is based on holding inanimate objects - guns - responsible for the actions of criminals. Criminals are cowards. They go after easy prey. This is why they target the poor, and not the rich. Criminals also target the unarmed, which is why Washington, D.C., was a "gangsta paradise," to quote an old rap song.
Police occasionally give self-defense lessons to law-abiding citizens, encouraging them to use judo and the like to disarm a criminal. Training the citizenry on how to shoot and carry a handgun might be a better investment. Everyone in a city does not have to be armed - just enough to keep criminals wondering if that "easy prey" is protected by Smith & Wesson.
Richard Gage on KMPH Fox 26 in Fresno, CA
Saturday, 30 May 2009 2:12 P GMT-05
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth --- Check out more info at:
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Still Working, but Forced to Make Do With Less
Friday, 29 May 2009 2:10 A GMT-05
About 6.7 million people were working fewer than 35 hours a week in April because of “slack work or business conditions,” nearly double the number a year earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A recent survey of 518 large companies by Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm, found 16 percent had cut pay and 20 percent had cut hours or imposed furloughs, far more than the firm has seen in previous recessions. (The actual percentage of workers affected is likely to be significantly lower.)
300,000 New Yorkers Could Be Headed For 9/11-Related Health Crisis
Friday, 29 May 2009 1:15 A GMT-05
Though we are approaching the eighth anniversary of 9/11, many New Yorkers are still dealing with the events of that day in the form of health problems. Now, it’s believed, as many as 300,000 are living with diseases that could worsen in the years to come. More than 70,000 New Yorkers have registered with the World Trade Center Health Registry, which tracks the health effects caused by the pollutants releases during the attacks. But many more have been excluded because of the limited area included in the survey—just one square mile. So, how many are really sick? “It’s obvious that thousands and thousands of New Yorkers are going to be battling illnesses in the coming years,” says Steve Centore, a federal first responder and Navy veteran who authored One of Them: A First Responder’s Story about his own experiences during and after his times at ground zero, “We’re going to see a major health crisis in the coming years.”
Conservative radio host gets waterboarded, and lasts six seconds before saying its torture
Saturday, 23 May 2009 11:44 P GMT-05
Chicago radio host Erich “Mancow” Muller decided he’d get himself waterboarded to prove the technique wasn’t torture. It didn’t turn out that way. “Mancow,” in fact, lasted just six or seven seconds before crying foul. Apparently, the experience went pretty badly — “Witnesses said Muller thrashed on the table, and even instantly threw the toy cow he was holding as his emergency tool to signify when he wanted the experiment to stop,” according to NBC Chicago.
US Doctors' association calls for Moratorium on GMO Foods
Saturday, 23 May 2009 9:58 P GMT-05
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has just issued a call for an immediate moratorium on Genetically Manipulated (GMO) Foods. In a just-released position paper on GMO foods, the AAEM states that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk’ and calls for a moratorium on GMO foods. Citing several animal studies, the AAEM concludes ‘there is more than a casual association between GMO foods and adverse health effects’ and that ‘GM foods pose a serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health.’ The report is a devastating blow to the multibillion dollar international agribusiness industry, most especially to Monsanto Corporation, the world’s leading purveyor of GMO seeds and related herbicides.
FBI Blows It: Supposed Terror Plot Against NY Synagogues Is Bogus
Saturday, 23 May 2009 9:54 P GMT-05
By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur. I've seen this movie before. In this case, the alleged perps -- Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen -- were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they're not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn't stop prosecutors from acting as if they'd captured Osama bin Laden himself.
MOCKINGBIRD - The Subversion Of The Free Press By The CIA
Thursday, 21 May 2009 10:55 A GMT-05
"You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." - CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)
Rep. Jim Gerlach Intends "To Support" The James Zadroga 9/11 Health And Compensation Act
Wednesday, 20 May 2009 5:21 A GMT-05
As you may know, H.R. 847 would, if enacted, provide medical treatment and compensation to first responders, construction workers, local residents and others who became ill as a result of exposure to Ground Zero toxins after the attacks of September 11, 2001. The bill would re-open the Victim Compensation Fund (VCF) in order to provide compensation to the responders and community members whose illnesses did not manifest until after the VCF deadline. H.R. 847 was introduced by Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York on February 4, 2009 and was referred to the House Committees on Energy and Commerce and the Judiciary. Although I am not a Member of either of these Committees, please know that I intend to support the bill should it come before the full House for a vote.
Arbitrary 'no-fly' list may soon become a 'no-guns' list
Wednesday, 20 May 2009 5:02 A GMT-05
The federal government's "no-fly" list of people forbidden to board commercial airliners has been the target of much-deserved criticism. Court documents reveal that the grounds for placing people on the list are "not hard and fast rules" but "necessarily subjective" judgments exercised by squabbling agencies. Getting off the list requires navigating an opaque and reluctantly implemented appeals process or a lawsuit. Even the size of the no-fly list is uncertain, with the Transportation Security Administration insisting that high estimates result from people being denied boarding because they've been confused with names on the list (a distinction without a difference). And now enrollment on that bureaucratic nightmare is poised to become grounds for denying Americans the ability to purchase firearms. What could possibly go wrong with that scheme? Would-be gun-owners may be introduced to the arbitrary justice of the no-fly list courtesy of H.R. 2401, the "No Fly, No Buy Act of 2009." Introduced last week by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, the announced intention of the legislation is "[t]o increase public safety and reduce the threat to domestic security by including persons who may be prevented from boarding an aircraft in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and for other purposes."
Arms Given by U.S. to Afghan Forces May Be Going to Taliban
Wednesday, 20 May 2009 4:50 A GMT-05
The presence of this ammunition among the dead in the Korangal Valley, an area of often fierce fighting near Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan, strongly suggests that munitions procured by the Pentagon have leaked from Afghan forces for use against American troops. The scope of that diversion remains unknown, and the 30 magazines represented a single sampling of fewer than 1,000 cartridges. But military officials, arms analysts and dealers say it points to a worrisome possibility: With only spotty American and Afghan controls on the vast inventory of weapons and ammunition sent into Afghanistan during an eight-year conflict, poor discipline and outright corruption among Afghan forces may have helped insurgents stay supplied.
Torture a hallmark of Phoenix's drug kidnappings
Wednesday, 20 May 2009 12:45 A GMT-05
Phoenix police say they have yet to witness the level of violence -- the beheadings, the bodies shoved in drums -- that their counterparts are seeing in Mexico City or the border town of Juarez. "It gets close sometimes," said Lt. Lauri Burgett, who heads the Home Invasion and Kidnapping Enforcement squad. Kidnappers will smash their victims' fingers with bricks, snip their backs open with wire cutters, carve them up with knives or simply shoot them. "We've had them electrocuted. They set them in a tub with water and use kind of barbaric means and zap the tub. I think it was a battery hooked up," Burgett said.
Off Woodward, life hits a dead end
Saturday, 16 May 2009 5:43 P GMT-05
The people of the Detroit Metropolitan region got a glimpse of the ruined block a few months ago when the police convened a press conference from the blood-stained porch of 654 Robinwood claiming they had rounded up 61 outlaws including the killer who assassinated the dope man at that address in broad daylight. And then like quicksilver, the police and the press slipped away. The six families remain. Trapped. "Do I live in Hell? Yes I do and no I don't," said Jerry Williams, who lives at 666 Robinwood and spoke through a steel gate dressed in a bathrobe and dirty socks. "It would be Hell if I was dead, but I ain't. So that just makes the place ugly. The most ugly thing that human beings can create."
The Emerging Gitmo Model?
Saturday, 16 May 2009 2:50 P GMT-05
What gives, I think, is that Gitmo is but a prototype, with a view of every police station and every county jail in the US of A being eventually gitmoized. And while they ain't there yet, not by a long shot, I can't help but say that some progress is apparantly being made in that direction.
Dog dodges traffic to help fellow canine
Thursday, 14 May 2009 10:29 P GMT-05
Just before 6:30 a.m., a 9-year-old female yellow lab chow mix ran onto the Major Deegan Expressway and was hit by a car at exit 3. That's when another dog, her son, ran to the rescue, right there on the busy highway.
WTP Federal Lawsuit to Ban All Electronic Voting Heads for Trial
Wednesday, 13 May 2009 10:31 A GMT-05
In 2007, WTP instigated a federal lawsuit in New York seeking to hold election officials in all fifty states accountable for their deprivation of the People’s fundamental Right to Vote because of the use of non-verifiable electronic and mechanical machine-based vote counting. The case was dubbed the “National Clean Elections Lawsuit,” or NCEL. Although a 2008 Order from the U.S. District Court in Albany removed all the non-New York defendants, as of last week, the Court ordered the remaining parties to commence preparations for a jury trial.
Under Restructuring, GM To Build More Cars Overseas
Saturday, 9 May 2009 2:38 P GMT-05
The U.S. government is pouring billions into General Motors in hopes of reviving the domestic economy, but when the automaker completes its restructuring plan, many of the company's new jobs will be filled by workers overseas. Аccording to an outline the company has been sharing privately with Washington legislators, the number of cars that GM sells in the United States and builds in Mexico, China and South Korea will roughly double. The proportion of GM cars sold domestically and manufactured in those low-wage countries will rise from 15 percent to 23 percent over the next five years, according to the figures contained in a 12-page presentation offered to lawmakers in response to their questions about overseas production.
Police Investigate Man With Civil Liberties Sticker As Possible "Extremist"
Saturday, 9 May 2009 2:53 A GMT-05
The deplorable irony of this incident is almost too much to stomach given the origins of the image seen above. The coiled rattlesnake and the defiant “Don’t Tread on Me” motto are taken from the Gadsden flag, named after American patriot Colonel Christopher Gadsden. The flag dates from around 1775 and was used by The United States Marine Corps as an early motto flag. The rattlesnake was used to signify the fact that it only strikes after giving warning and if it feels under threat of attack.
Taking a Page From the Bush Playbook
Friday, 8 May 2009 12:59 A GMT-05
The Obama administration is now considering reinstating the Military Commissions Act after a four-month suspension, in contradiction to the president’s promise to end military tribunals for detainees and to close down Gitmo. While there is talk about reforming the act to restrict hearsay evidence and to permit defendants to challenge intelligence used against them, the disparity between the tribunals and due process for other criminals leaves intact the concept of “unlawful enemy combatant,” as contained in the act, and thus threatens further evisceration of the rule of law. Running on the platform of a constitutional law professor who would restore the rule of law to the United States, the stench of hypocrisy pervades Barack Obama’s administration. This is not to challenge the need to make decisions based on available evidence and to fine-tune these decisions according to the facts—something that Obama has often held up as his modus operandi. The problem is that one of these facts to be taken into account is that evidence against at least some of these detainees was unlawfully obtained.
Illinois State Police Seize and Keep Desirable Cars for Personal Use
Thursday, 7 May 2009 1:27 A GMT-05
According to AP, the Charger is just one of two dozen desirable cars — including an Audi and a Cadillac Escalade — grabbed and kept by state troopers. State police officials decline to identify the beneficiaries of the confiscated car policy claiming it could endanger officers if the type of car they drove at taxpayer expense were made public.
(Yet Another) Potentially Deadly State Monopoly
Wednesday, 6 May 2009 10:09 A GMT-05
When a 17-year-old high school senior called 911 as her father was having a seizure, the operator cursed at her and hung up – not once, but three times. Then, when she ran to the police department, she was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and “abusing 911.”
Ashton Lundeby is being held under the USA Patriot Act
Tuesday, 5 May 2009 11:40 P GMT-05
Ashton now sits in a juvenile facility in South Bend, Ind. His mother has had little access to him since his arrest. She has gone to her state representatives as well as attorneys, seeking assistance, but, she said, there is nothing she can do.
Lundeby said the USA Patriot Act stripped her son of his due process rights.
"We have no rights under the Patriot Act to even defend them, because the Patriot Act basically supersedes the Constitution," she said. "It wasn't intended to drag your barely 16-year-old, 120-pound son out in the middle of the night on a charge that we can't even defend."
DHS Document Lists "Alternative Media" As Potential Terrorists
Tuesday, 5 May 2009 11:16 A GMT-05
In the same breath as radical Cuban Communists, the “decentralized terrorist movement,” “lone terrorists,” “racist skinheads” and the Mexican separatist movement, we find an entry for “alternative media,” alongside the blurb, “a term used to describe various information sources that provide a forum for interpretations of events and issues that differ radically from those presented in mass media products and outlets.” That’s right folks - the federal government is training its enforcers that people who don’t believe everything they see on Fox News, CNN or read in the New York Times are to be treated as a “threat” and a potential violent domestic terrorist. Apparently it’s not enough to treat Ron Paul supporters, people who fly U.S. flags or people who are able to accurately recite the Bill of Rights as potential mass killers, now anyone who merely questions what is reported by the corporate media is also a danger, according to the federal government.
An Even Worse Bybee Memo
Monday, 4 May 2009 2:51 P GMT-05
Jay Bybee wrote another memo that nobody has noticed, one purporting to authorize crimes far worse than torture, the same crimes the torture was itself intended to create false justifications for. On October 23, 2002, Assistant Attorney General Bybee signed a 48-page memo to the "counsel to the president" (Alberto Gonzales) titled "Authority of the President Under Domestic and International Law to Use Military Force Against Iraq." This was another secret law, but instead of authorizing particular uses of torture (which in reality were far exceeded, engaged in prior to the memos, etc.), this one authorized any president to single-handedly commit what Nuremberg called "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." And while the torture memos extensively and grotesquely limited the days of sleep deprivation and the hours of waterboarding, the aggressive war memo included only a single paragraph at the bottom of page 47 requiring that: "Were the President to determine that the use of force in self-defense is necessary to counter the threat posed by Iraq's WMD program, such force should be proportional; in other words, it should be limited to that which is needed to eliminate the threat posed by Iraq." When this memo was written, our president, vice president, and top cabinet officials were screaming about Iraq's vast quantities of weapons, but Bybee was already crafting his justifications around the idea of weapons "programs."
Paranoid Authorities Wouldn't Let My Plane Fly Over U.S. Territory -- Was It Something I Wrote?
Monday, 4 May 2009 2:36 P GMT-05
Again in the air, and preparing for another four hours of travel, a man who identified himself as the copilot came to me. Trying to look discreet, he asked if I was "Mr. Calvo Ospina." I told him yes. "The captain wants to sleep, that's why I came here," he said, and he invited me to accompany him to the back of the plane. There, he told me that I was the person "responsible" for the detour. I was astonished. My first reaction was to ask him: "Do you think I'm a terrorist?" He said no, that's the reason I'm telling you this. He also assured me that it was strange that this was the first time it happened on an Air France plane. Shortly before we landed in Martinique, a stewardess had told me that, in her 11-year career, nothing like that had ever happened to her.
"This Particular Strain of Flu Got its Genetic Start on U.S. Hog Farms Back in the 1990s. That's According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control"
Sunday, 3 May 2009 7:19 P GMT-05
The theory that industrial hog farms are disease incubators has been officially verified.
The True Haters
Saturday, 2 May 2009 4:48 P GMT-05
Demjanjuk is to be taken to Germany and prosecuted as an accessory to the murder of 29,000 Jews at Sobibor -- though not one living person can place him at that camp and not even the German prosecutor will say that he ever hurt anyone. One witness in Israel, who was at Sobibor and says he knew all the camp guards, says he never saw Demjanjuk there. If Friday's ruling is upheld, John Demjanjuk, who has been charged with no crime on German soil, is to be taken to Germany, home of the Third Reich, to be tried by Germans for his alleged role in a genocide planned and perpetrated by Germans. He is to serve as the sacrificial lamb whose blood washes away the stain of Germany's sins.
Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower
Saturday, 2 May 2009 3:46 P GMT-05
A Narco News investigation into the flow of arms across the U.S. border appears to lead right back to the systemic corruption that afflicts a vast swath of the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon and this nation’s own embrace of market-driven free-trade policies. The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons —are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.
Emergency Rooms Fill With Record Numbers, but Many Aren't Ill, Just Afraid
Saturday, 2 May 2009 3:34 P GMT-05
At San Joaquin Community Hospital in Bakersfield, Calif., none of the 188 patients — a daily record — who arrived at the emergency room on Tuesday had symptoms that met the criteria to even be tested, said Jarrod B. McNaughton, the hospital’s vice president. “It’s a major drain on resources,” Mr. McNaughton said.
When Government Replaces God and Family
Saturday, 2 May 2009 2:31 P GMT-05
It is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. It knows best what we need and what must be done. We must trust in its absolute power, knowledge, and presence in all areas of our lives. For this overseer is the source of justice, truth, wisdom, wrath, and mercy. So it appears big government has become for the American people.
Political Lies and Media Disinformation regarding the Swine Flu Pandemic
Saturday, 2 May 2009 2:23 P GMT-05
Statements of this nature on the "inevitable spread" of the disease, create, quite deliberately, an atmosphere of fear, insecurity and panic. They also serve to distract people's attention from a devastating global economic crisis which is leading the World into mass poverty and unemployment, not to mention the war in the Middle East and the broader issue of US-NATO war crimes. The Real Global Crisis is marked by poverty, economic collapse, ethnic strife, death and destruction, the derogation of civil rights and the demise of State social programs. The EU announcement of the swine flu pandemic inevitably serves to weaken the social protest movement which has spread across Europe. In Mexico, the swine flu emergency measures which have "closed down" entire urban areas, are widely perceived as a pretext of the Felipe Calderon government to curb mounting social dissent against one of the most corrupt administrations in Mexican history. In Mexico, the May 1st Parade, which was directed against the Calderon government, was cancelled.
Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms
Saturday, 2 May 2009 2:16 P GMT-05
Since the dawn of American ‘agribusiness,’ a project initiated with funding by the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s to turn farming into a pure profit maximization business, US pig or hog production has been transformed into a highly efficient, mass production industrialized enterprise from birth to slaughter. Pigs are caged in what are called Factory Farms, industrial concentrations which are run with the efficiency of a Dachau or Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. They are all conceived by artificial insemination and once born, are regularly injected with antibiotics, not because of illnesses which abound in the hyper-crowded growing pens, but in order to make them grow and add weight faster. Turn around time to slaughter is a profit factor of highest priority. The entire operation is vertically integrated from conception to slaughter to transport distribution to supermarket. Granjas Carroll de Mexico (GCM) happens to be such a Factory Farm concentration facility for hogs. In 2008 they produced almost one million factory hogs, 950,000 according to their own statistics. GCM is a joint venture operation owned 50% by the world’s largest pig producing industrial company, Smithfield Foods of Virginia.5 The pigs are grown in a tiny rural area of Mexico, a member of the North American Free Trade Agreement, and primarily trucked across the border to supermarkets in the USA, under the Smithfields’ family of labels. Most American consumers have no idea where the meat was raised.
U.S. Drops Case Against Ex-Lobbyists
Saturday, 2 May 2009 1:33 P GMT-05
Federal prosecutors yesterday abandoned an espionage-law case against two former lobbyists for a pro-Israel advocacy group, a case that had transfixed much of official Washington because of its potential to criminalize the exchange of sensitive information among journalists, lobbyists and policy analysts. In asking a judge to dismiss charges against Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, formerly of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, officials said recent court rulings had changed the legal landscape and made it unlikely that they would win.
Mexican swine flu may have originated at US-owned pig breeding farm
Monday, 27 April 2009 11:31 A GMT-05
The recent swine flu outbreak taking place in Mexico may have originated at a US-owned pig-breeding farm by the name of Granjas Carroll (aka Carroll Farms), which is owned, in part by the Smithfield Food Company. Smithfield also promotes the consumption of genetically-altered foods, and even owns certain genetic lines of pork breeding. On April 12 of 2009, before the swine flu outbreak was covered by mainstream media outlets, the Mexican newspaper La Jornada broke a story on how Carroll Farms was polluting the drinking water near the towns of La Gloria and Perote, in Veracruz.
US declares public health emergency for swine flu
Monday, 27 April 2009 12:25 A GMT-05
The U.S. declared a public health emergency Sunday to deal with the emerging new swine flu, much like the government does to prepare for approaching hurricanes.
Venture capital firm set to reap rewards on swine flu
Sunday, 26 April 2009 4:55 P GMT-05
The swine flu outbreak is likely to benefit one of the most prolific and successful venture capital firms in the United States: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Thomson Reuters Private Equity Week reported on Friday.
Harman Is A Poster Child For What Has Been Wrong With Congress For The Last 8 Years
Monday, 20 April 2009 10:51 P GMT-05
In a stunning development, powerful Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman has been busted via wiretap for promising the AIPAC lobbying group that she would get a couple of spies off the hook. As Congressional Quarterly's Jeff Stein, Glenn Greenwald, Raw Story and others point out, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales blackmailed Harman into support warrantless spying on Americans by threatening to prosecute her for her little AIPAC episode if she didn't play ball.
Baptist pastor beaten, tazed by Border patrol - 11 stitches
Sunday, 19 April 2009 4:16 A GMT-05
I DID NOT RESIST OR FIGHT BACK. YET I WAS TAZERED REPEATEDLY AND SHOVED IN BROKEN GLASS REPEATEDLY! I was IN the United States!!! I had crossed no international border!!! This occured on the night of April 14/15, 2009.
Dept. of Homeland Security employee, Ron Paul's C4L staffer Steve Bierfeldt should go to jail
Saturday, 18 April 2009 7:01 P GMT-05
There is no reason for this moron to be carring that much CASH with him. Get a Money order or something! He should go to jail for being dumb!
FBI: Mom, boyfriend kidnapped her son, held blow torch to him
Friday, 17 April 2009 3:18 A GMT-05
New details were released Tuesday in the bizarre case of a Miami woman who is accused of staging her own kidnapping, abducting her teenage son and standing by as an accomplice held a blow torch to the boy's leg to convince his father their ransom demand was serious.
2001 Gun Control Fact Sheet
Sunday, 12 April 2009 5:44 P GMT-05
Very informative and, in more than one way, quite humorous. -BE
Deadly dog-fighting ring is uncovered
Sunday, 12 April 2009 5:17 P GMT-05
Police broke up a deadly dog-fighting den in Dorchester yesterday, Joe Zanoli of the Boston Police Department said. Officers and representatives from the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals removed three dogs - one dead, another severely injured - from a bloody fighting pit in a first-floor apartment on Raven Road at about 7:30 p.m. Large amounts of blood, a fighting pit, cages, probing sticks, and bite sticks were found, Zanoli said. No arrests have been made, but Zanoli said the resident, an unidentified 36-year-old male, could face felony charges.
NYC Ballot Initiative relaunched as NYCCAN - The New York City Coalition for Accountability Now
Sunday, 12 April 2009 5:11 P GMT-05
The NYC Ballot Initiative has been reorganized, placing the further gathering of signatures for the petition in the hands of Ted Walter, one of the lead petition workers involved with the first phase of this project. He is joined by Frank Morales, who will safeguard funds for NYCCAN.org - Behind Walter and Morales are some familiar names; Donna Marsh O’Connor, Bob McIlvaine, Bill Doyle, Janette MacKinlay and William Rodriguez, who have formed an interim Executive Council for the coalition. This reorganization is the result of feedback that has effected change in the handling of the petition. NYCCAN also offers a new email address for further feedback, that will be accessible by the Executive Council. This could include opinions on the current membership of the commission, which can be changed once the commission has been established. Please feel free to distribute the Press Release below far and wide, and donate if you can.
Audio Full Version: Steve Bierfeldt detained and questioned by St. Louis TSA | Daily Newscaster
Saturday, 11 April 2009 4:46 P GMT-05
TSA agents claim having a large sum of money which could be any amount over $50.00 is cause to be detained and interrogated. When Mr. Bierfeldt asks if the interrogation over having cash is lawful he was threatened with further detainment and investigation by DEA and FBI. TSA continues to threaten and detain Mr. Bierfeldt even after discovering the cash in his possession are funds belonging to Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. TSA contacts an FBI agent who quickly discovers the funds being transported are political contributions the FBI agent tells Mr. Bierfeldt he is free to go. However the lead TSA agent quickly responds that he must contact his supervisor first because Mr. Bierfeldt is a “suspicious person” in his opinion. This incident with national police is particular chilling in the shadow of the politically motivated Missouri Fusion Center MIAC Report labeling Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), his supporters, Campaign for Liberty, and anyone one who believes in conservative issues as a threat to national security.
Ruined by Health Care: My Family Learned that Even with Insurance We Weren't Safe from Financial Ruin
Saturday, 11 April 2009 3:31 P GMT-05
My husband is a retired college professor, and what the teaching profession lacks in salary it often makes up for with generous benefits. His health insurance would cover most of the emergency costs related to the fall -- the surgeries, the hospitalization, the drugs. But in the astronomical sums the cost of medical care often entails, "most" is not a reassuring word. Months later, as his discharge from the hospital drew near, I sat in my living room looking at the bills piling up on the table. The co-pays, uncovered care and other costs had already reached $8,000, and we had virtually nothing left.
A danish scientist Niels Harrit, on nano-thermite in the WTC dust ( english subtitles )
Saturday, 11 April 2009 3:09 P GMT-05
Niels Harrit and 8 other scientists found nano-thermite in the dust from the World Trade
David Ray Griffin to Speak at Boston University, April 11, 2009
Friday, 10 April 2009 12:05 A GMT-05
The Boston 9/11 Truth Committee is pleased to announce that we are co-sponsoring a public lecture and book signing by renowned 9/11 author and researcher David Ray Griffin, in conjunction with the Boston University School of Theology. The event will take place at Boston University’s Morse Auditorium, 602 Commonwealth Ave., Saturday April 11, 2009 at 7pm. Donation: $5, students and seniors admitted free.
The Origins of US Illegitimacy: Fatal Flaws that Sink the Warren Commission
Thursday, 9 April 2009 2:19 A GMT-05
The death of Lee Harvey Oswald who had always maintained that he was a 'patsy' was improbably convenient. It relieved the government of having to get a conviction. Most importantly, however, the Warren Commission could not risk a trial that would have exposed the cover up. That is motive enough to order a 'hit'. Certainly --a trial of Oswald disastrous for a corrupt and perhaps illegitimate government. Oswald. Oswald knew too much.
Boston ponders future of Globe
Wednesday, 8 April 2009 10:21 A GMT-05
With The New York Times Co. threatening to close The Boston Globe if the Globe's unions don't accept $20 million in concessions, the fate of the paper has become a conversation starter - and stopper - among those near the nexus of power and money in this town. Who, the question goes, might be lining up to buy the newspaper and possibly stave off a shutdown?
Will Public Education Be Militarized?
Saturday, 4 April 2009 10:19 P GMT-05
Even if Duncan's policies do continue to boost test scores in coming years, the question must be asked: At whose expense? In a competition-driven educational system, some schools will, of course, succeed, receiving more funding and so hiring the most talented teachers. At the same time, schools that aren't "performing" will be put on probation, stripped of their autonomy, and possibly closed, only to be reopened as privately-run outfits -- or even handed over to the military. The highest achieving students (that is, the best test-takers) will have access to the most up-to-date facilities, advanced equipment, and academic support programs; struggling students will likely be left behind, separate and unequal, stuck in decrepit classrooms and underfunded schools.
Officer Convicted in Fatal Shooting of Driver in Bronx - NYTimes.com
Saturday, 4 April 2009 1:17 P GMT-05
The verdict, rendered by Justice Margaret L. Clancy of State Supreme Court, who heard the case without a jury, means that the officer, Rafael Lora, 39, faces up to 15 years in prison for killing the driver, Fermin Arzu, in 2007. Justice Clancy acquitted Officer Lora of the most serious charge, first-degree manslaughter, which could have sent him to prison for 25 years.
Fainting in This Country Can Carry a $10,000 Price Tag
Wednesday, 1 April 2009 9:52 A GMT-05
Of course, I was relieved, if not grateful, to learn that I'm not liable for the whole $10,260, and thus not like guys who faint and don't have emergency coverage. But upon further inspection of my statement I noticed a curious and disturbing thing. BCBS had to pay only $2,582 -- about one-fourth -- of that $10,260. So who paid the balance of my $7,992 in "savings"? I wondered. No one. The $7,992 was all discounted because hospitals let BCBS and other big insurance companies pay lower rates than ordinary, underinsured Americans. Similarly, the statement indicates that BCBS would have gotten a huge discount on, and had to pay only one-fourth of, the $1,409 ambulance bill that St. Paul Fire & Safety Service is now pressuring me to pay in full. I'm responsible for all but $17.65 of it, BCBS says, because the ambulance service was "out of network." BCBS has been kind enough to cover less than half of the $48 worth of oxygen I inhaled during my ambulance ride. Hence the check for $17.65 that BCBS mailed me. Some of the oxygen was "in network," I guess.
Lawsuit: Minneapolis cops planted pistol on teen after they gunned him down
Wednesday, 1 April 2009 8:35 A GMT-05
The court filings in a lawsuit filed by Fong Lee's family against Minneapolis police and the officer who fired the fatal shots, along with a review of police reports, witness statements and other documents, raise the possibility that Fong Lee was unarmed when an officer shot him eight times — and that the pistol that officers said they found near his body was placed there after the shooting. The gun in question had been recovered earlier after a burglary and turned over to police, who kept it as evidence and had never returned it to its owner. Moreover, Minneapolis police "may have tried to deliberately alter history by writing new reports indicating the gun recovered near Fong Lee's body was not the same gun" that had been recovered after the burglary, according to Richard Hechter, a lawyer representing Fong Lee's family, wrote in an affidavit filed in U.S. District Court on Monday.
To All Readers: Help Force Congress To Observe the Law on National Emergencies!
Wednesday, 1 April 2009 8:11 A GMT-05
On 9/11 the Bush administration declared a State of Emergency (SOE), which was formally proclaimed on September 14, 2001, and extended by Bush repeatedly thereafter, most recently on August 28, 2008.(1) Under cover of this SOE, Bush secretly enacted many extreme measures, ranging from suspension of habeas corpus to preparations for martial law in America; all these were undertaken as part of secret so-called "Continuity of Government" (COG) procedures associated with the SOE, and first instituted on 9/11.
New Orleans Murder Blog
Sunday, 29 March 2009 3:52 P GMT-05
Washington Parish authorities believe KKK group tied to killing was not extensive organization
Sunday, 29 March 2009 2:42 P GMT-05
As travel declines, aircraft 'boneyard' in Victorville fills up
Sunday, 15 March 2009 8:01 P GMT-05
Air carriers are grounding planes at a rate not seen since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and industry experts say this year is likely to set a record for planes sitting on the ground. That has meant job security for Richard Robertson, an aircraft mechanic at the Southern California Logistics Airport in Victorville, formerly George Air Force Base, now one of the nation's busiest boneyards.
After $170b US bailout, AIG to pay $100m in bonuses
Sunday, 15 March 2009 11:38 A GMT-05
In his letter to the Treasury, Liddy said AIG hoped to reduce its retention bonuses for 2009 by 30 percent. He said the top 25 executives at the Financial Products division had also agreed to reduce their salary for the rest of 2009 to $1. But Liddy defended the need to continue paying bonuses if AIG was going to unwind the rest of its disastrous mortgage-related business at the lowest possible cost to taxpayers. "We cannot attract and retain the best and the brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses - which are now being operated principally on behalf of American taxpayers - if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued arbitrary adjustment by the US Treasury," he wrote Geithner. The government owns nearly 80 percent of the company.
Mexican drug lord makes Forbes' billionaire list
Saturday, 14 March 2009 10:29 P GMT-05
Guzman Loera, whose nickname means Shorty, escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001. He heads the powerful Sinaloa cartel, investigators say. Authorities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border blame the Sinaloa and other cartels for a surge in violence in the region. He ranked 701st on Forbes' yearly report, with an estimated fortune of $1 billion.
U.S. passports easily obtained with phony documents, finds government investigator
Saturday, 14 March 2009 7:46 P GMT-05
Using phony documents and the identities of a dead man and a 5-year-old boy, a government investigator obtained U.S. passports in a security test. Despite efforts to boost passport security since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the investigator fooled passport and postal service employees on four separate applications, according to a new report.
Funny crimes of our times...
Saturday, 14 March 2009 7:42 P GMT-05
14 $20 bills is a grand total of $280. I don't know how well the counterfeiters knew their trade but it is entirely conceivable that they were at least good enough to make the bills look genuine to an untrained eye. And if Mr White was into counterfeiting himself I would guess the amount he would produce would likely exceed $280. So quite likely he is just being charged with not being a currency expert.
Gardner Museum recalls art heist as 19th anniversary nears
Saturday, 14 March 2009 2:58 P GMT-05
After two men dressed as Boston police officers conned their way into the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after midnight on March 18, 1990, and stole artwork now valued at $500 million, South Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger started pressuring people to find out who did it, according to a longtime associate of the gangster.
Bailout for The Mainstream Media May be Next
Sunday, 8 March 2009 3:02 P GMT-05
The article goes on to say “Politicians have every reason to want to see print media fail. That can be said tongue in cheek, but too many governors and congressmen have lost jobs after newspaper investigations to make the relationship between Fourth Estate and politicians a comfortable one. A neutered press would benefit a number of elected officials.“ I wonder what a “neutered press” would look like? Would they peddle optimism even while the economy was collapsing? Would celebrity gossip become newsworthy? If the government wanted to loot the United States treasury and bailout their campaign contributors on Wall St, would a “neutered press” fail to demand answers or, even worse, scare the American people into submission? Would this neutered press allow the government to use 9-11 as a tool to occupy the middle east, while ignoring the cries of first responders and families of 9-11? I’ve often said that I do not follow the mainstream news for information, I follow it for the lie. Establishment news organizations such as Time magazine should be followed only to figure out what it is they are trying to sell. “They” meaning the Washington “In” crowd of government, lobbyists and mainstream reporters. When US government public relations organizations (Mainstream News) publish an article such as Mr. McIntyre’s, you should be paying attention. The campaign is beginning.
MASSILON, Ohio: School Gets 700 Applications for One Janitorial Job
Sunday, 8 March 2009 5:49 A GMT-05
Evidence of the slumping economy is stacking up at an Ohio school which has nearly 700 applications for one open janitorial job. Officials at Perry Local Schools near Canton in northeast Ohio say they've extended the deadline until Monday to accommodate the overwhelming response to the week-old posting.
Is It Now Okay to Talk about Hitler's Assumption of Dictatorial Power?
Saturday, 7 March 2009 9:21 P GMT-05
Sure, pro-tyranny advocates might respond by saying that Bush didn’t abuse his powers, while Hitler did, but doesn’t that miss the point? The point is not whether America has had a more benevolent dictator for the past 7 years than the German people did under Hitler. The point is that both the German people and the American people were living under some form of dictatorship — a type of political system in which there are no constraints on the power of the ruler. Remember: dictatorship entails the existence of omnipotent power, even if such power isn’t always being exercised to its full extent. The cases of Jose Padilla and Ali al-Marri do reflect the exercise of the omnipotent power wielded by Bush and his military forces over the American people for the past 7 years. Padilla is an American citizen and al-Marri is a foreigner. Both were arrested on American soil and given the enemy-combatant treatment — i.e., indefinite incarceration for years, denial of due process, denial of trial by jury, and touchless torture in the form of isolation and sensory deprivation. For the last 7 years, Bush and his military have wielded the power to subject all Americans to the Padilla treatment. Why would that not be considered dictatorship?
12.5 Million Unemployed in the United States
Saturday, 7 March 2009 3:46 P GMT-05
The number of unemployed persons increased by 851,000 to 12.5 million in February, and the unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by about 5.0 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 3.3 percentage points.
Pictured: The credit crunch tent city which has returned to haunt America
Saturday, 7 March 2009 4:34 A GMT-05
Those who have lost their jobs and homes and have nowhere else to go are constructing makeshift shelters on the site, which covers several acres. As many as 50 people a week are turning up and the authorities estimate that the tent city is now home to more than 1,200 people.
EFF Surveillance Self-Defense Project
Friday, 6 March 2009 9:42 P GMT-05
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has created this Surveillance Self-Defense site to educate the American public about the law and technology of government surveillance in the United States, providing the information and tools necessary to evaluate the threat of surveillance and take appropriate steps to defend against it.
Pre-9/11 WTC Steel Fireproofing/Post-9/11 Ground Zero Clean-Up Contractor, Planned 2000 Seattle Kingdome Demolition
Friday, 6 March 2009 9:39 P GMT-05
Turner Construction Company, assigned to re-fireproof the steel frames of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers during the late 1990s, who also occupied space on the 38th floor of WTC 1 and was later assigned to quickly collect and remove the wreckage of the WTC towers destroyed during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, also supervised the 2000 implosion of Seattle Kingdome during this same period.
Law Professor: "We May Not Have Realized It At The Time, But In The Period From Late 2001-January 19, 2009, This Country Was A Dictatorship."
Wednesday, 4 March 2009 12:09 A GMT-05
Scott Horton - a professor at Columbia Law School and writer for Harper's - says of the Bush administration memos authorizing torture, spying, indefinite detention without charge, the use of the military within the U.S. and the suspension of free speech and press rights: We may not have realized it at the time, but in the period from late 2001-January 19, 2009, this country was a dictatorship. The constitutional rights we learned about in high school civics were suspended. That was thanks to secret memos crafted deep inside the Justice Department that effectively trashed the Constitution. What we know now is likely the least of it.
'Rockefeller' asks judge to drop fake name charge
Sunday, 1 March 2009 11:59 P GMT-05
Lawyers for the German national who moved to the United States in the late 1970s said on Sunday that prosecutors failed to prove that he adopted the alias for the purpose of throwing the arresting police officers off his trail. The lawyers are asking a judge to drop the charge of providing a false name to police, arguing that he had used the name Clark Rockefeller for at least 15 years, including in a sworn affidavit to the grand jury. The motion to dismiss the charge will be filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Monday.
Mortgage Delinquencies Jump 50 Percent
Sunday, 1 March 2009 7:42 P GMT-05
Dann Adams, president of U.S. Information Systems for Equifax Inc, reported a 37 percent rise in Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings. Under Chapter 7, assets are liquidated for those unable to pay their debts. Also, Equifax reported a 50 percent increase in the number of homeowners who fell at least a month behind on mortgage payments in January, compared with last year.
The Obama Democrats: by the numbers
Sunday, 1 March 2009 7:10 P GMT-05
$800,000: the amount of "sweetheart" mortgages Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) received from Countrywide Financial, the details for which he has refused to release details despite months of promises to do so. Countrywide was once the nation's largest mortgage lender and linked to Government-Sponsored Entities like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their meltdown precipitated the current financial crisis. Just days ago in Pennsylvania, Countrywide was forced to pay $150,000,000 in mortgage assistance following "a state investigation that concluded that Countrywide relaxed its underwriting standards to sell risky loans to consumers who did not understand them and could not afford them."
WeAreChange RI, Boston Confront John Yoo
Sunday, 1 March 2009 4:03 P GMT-05
Our Domestic Torture State: Hero Cop Beats Teenage Girl in Seattle
Sunday, 1 March 2009 3:51 P GMT-05
Deputy Paul Schene of the King County Sheriff's Department, an eight-year law enforcement veteran, was videotaped beating a 15-year-old in a holding cell last November. The video was pried out of police hands just days ago by a Seattle television station that filed an official request under Washington's open records law. After being arrested and booked on a charge of auto theft (the car belongs to her parents, and she was a passenger, not the driver), the teenager displayed a "lippy" disposition toward Schene and another officer. As the door to her cell was being closed, she was ordered to remove her shoes. She complied by kicking one of them in Schene's direction. Perhaps Schene is well-versed in Arab culture and perceived this to be a grave insult to his masculinity, such as it is. In any case, he charged into the cell, kicked her in the stomach, slammed the girl's head against the wall, threw the girl (who weighed roughly half of what he did) face-first to the floor, and -- with the assistance of his fellow tax-feeder -- handcuffed her while striking her twice to the back to the head. Once she was shackled, the girl was pulled to her feet and dragged out of the cell by her hair:
Blue Cross CEO's pay rose 26%
Sunday, 1 March 2009 3:28 P GMT-05
The salary and bonus paid to Cleve L. Killingsworth, chairman and chief executive of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, increased 26 percent last year, to $3.5 million, even though the health insurer's membership declined and its net income fell 49 percent.
Americans in Appalachia Are Living in a State of Terror
Saturday, 28 February 2009 6:17 P GMT-05
Every day, more than 3 million pounds of explosives are detonated in our state to remove our mountains and expose the thin seams of coal. Over 470 mountains in Appalachia have been destroyed in this process, the coal scooped up and hauled away to be burned at coal-fired power plants across our country and abroad. This includes the Potomac River Plant, which generates the electricity for the White House. Mountaintop removal is the dirty secret in our nation's energy supply. If coal can't be mined clean, it can't be called clean. Here, at the point of extraction, coal passes through a preparation plant that manages to remove some, but not all, of the metals and toxins. Those separated impurities are stored in mammoth toxic sludge dams above our communities throughout Appalachia. There are three sludge dams within 10 miles of my home. Coal companies are now blasting directly above and next to a dam above my home that contains over 2 billion gallons of toxic waste. That is the same seeping dam that hovers just 400 yards above the Marsh Fork Elementary School. As you know, coal sludge dams have failed before, and lives have been lost.
The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis
Saturday, 28 February 2009 6:15 P GMT-05
As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an "epidemic" of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a "weapon" to defraud we categorize it as a "control fraud" ("The Organization as 'Weapon' in White Collar Crime." Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds' "weapon of choice" is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime -- combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a "criminogenic environment" (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)
Violence between repo men, car owners on the rise
Saturday, 28 February 2009 6:00 P GMT-05
Alone in his mobile home off a winding dirt road, Jimmy Tanks heard a commotion at 2:30 a.m. just outside his bedroom window: Somebody was messing with his car. The 67-year-old railroad retiree grabbed a gun, walked out the back door and confronted not a thief but a repo man and two helpers trying to tow off the Chrysler Sebring. Shots were fired, and Tanks wound up dead, a bullet in his chest. The man who came to repossess the car, Kenneth Alvin Smith, is awaiting trial on a murder charge in a state considered a Wild West territory even by the standards of an industry that's largely unregulated nationally. Since Tanks' death last June, two other repo men from the same company Smith worked for were shot, one fatally.
Citigroup Stock Costs Less Than Their ATM Fee
Saturday, 28 February 2009 5:56 P GMT-05
Citi Shares Drop Below Their $1.50 ATM Fee
911 WTC7 CBS Breakthrough
Saturday, 28 February 2009 5:54 P GMT-05
The Abrupt Limits of Glenn Beck's Understanding
Saturday, 28 February 2009 5:46 P GMT-05
Like most other conservative authoritarians, Beck apparently cannot understand the principle involved here, or why some people like myself who neither smoke nor drink nor take drugs of any kind would want to end the murderous fraud called the War on Drugs. As the following interview with Rob Campia of the Marijuana Policy Project demonstrates, Beck -- a former alcoholic and drug addict -- is not willing to endorse an end to the stupid, senseless, destructive policy of drug prohibition. As several observes have noted, Beck the prohibitionist comes off as the one who's on some kind of controlled substance, while Campia -- who has to endure Beck's palpable condescension (first question: "Do you smoke marijuana, Rob?") and constantly misfiring attempts at humor -- is composed, rational, and in command of the facts:
Boomer wealth is evaporating
Saturday, 28 February 2009 5:35 P GMT-05
Boomers between 45 and 54 have lost 45% of their median net worth, leaving them with just $80,000 in net worth, including home equity, according to the report. Older boomers have fared marginally better. Those between 55 and 64 have lost 38% of their net worth, leaving them with $140,000. But this group is rapidly nearing retirement age and they have few working years left to make up the losses.
How the Economy was Lost
Wednesday, 25 February 2009 3:46 A GMT-05
As a former Treasury official, I am amazed that the US government, in the midst of the worst financial crises ever, is content for short-selling to drive down the asset prices that the government is trying to support. No bailout or stimulus plan has any hope until the uptick rule is reinstated. The bald fact is that the combination of ignorance, negligence, and ideology that permitted the crisis to happen still prevails and is blocking any remedy. Either the people in power in Washington and the financial community are total dimwits or they are manipulating an opportunity to redistribute wealth from taxpayers, equity owners and pension funds to the financial sector. The Bush and Obama plans total 1.6 trillion dollars, every one of which will have to be borrowed, and no one knows from where. This huge sum will compromise the value of the US dollar, its role as reserve currency, the ability of the US government to service its debt, and the price level. These staggering costs are pointless and are to no avail, as not one step has been taken that would alleviate the crisis.
Destroying the Economy to Save It
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 7:15 P GMT-05
Housing prices are doing what prices should when there's a glut of supply, they are falling. Over the past year the median price has fallen from $429,000 to $280,100 in San Diego, and from $415,000 to $250,000 in Southern California as a whole. Think about all the people who didn't buy houses they couldn't afford. The free market is now rewarding their prudence by making homes available at affordable prices. This will also help people who are upside-down on their mortgages, because housing prices can't move upward again until the glut clears. All hail the free market and personal responsibility! Screeeech! That's the sound of the politicians hitting the brakes. Politicians hate personal responsibility. Everyone must be dependent on them, instead. No one should be able to benefit from being responsible and prudent. INSTEAD, SUCH PEOPLE MUST BE PUNISHED!
How to Lose 55 Percent: Invest in TARP
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 6:18 P GMT-05
TARP investments are certainly “troubled.” And Washington, it turns out, isn’t the best short-term investor. The government’s investments in the nation’s ailing banks, made through the newly coined Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, have taken a huge hit since the program started making capital injections last October. Thanks to last week’s stock market sell-off, the government is now sitting on a paper loss of at least 55 percent, or $107.7 billion, on the $195.5 billion invested under the TARP program.
Health care costs to top $8,000 per person
Tuesday, 24 February 2009 5:57 P GMT-05
Health care costs will top $8,000 per person this year, consuming an ever-bigger slice of a shrinking economic pie, says the report by the Department of Health and Human Services, due out Tuesday. As the recession cuts into tax receipts, Medicare's giant hospital trust fund is running out of cash more rapidly, and could become insolvent as early as 2016, the report said. That's three years sooner than previously forecast.
Downturn inspires an uptick in volunteerism
Friday, 20 February 2009 4:23 P GMT-05
Volunteer organizations such as the Peace Corps and Teach for America say the floundering economy and President Obama's call for service have led to a major increase in applications. Teach for America received a record 14,000 applications by November, an almost 50 percent increase over the previous year. And Peace Corps applications rose 16 percent from fiscal 2007 to 2008.
Family of 5 weathers economy with 7 housemates
Friday, 20 February 2009 12:30 A GMT-05
Chris and Georgia Frankel have no idea what it must be like to live alone as a married couple. They started out their life together staying with relatives and later friends. Those early years proved to be good training because their house in Albuquerque, New Mexico, now has 12 people calling it home. In addition to their three daughters, ages 3, 6 and 17, the couple shares their space with five adults and two teens. The family started taking in people before the economy soured, and now they say they are weathering the downturn better than some, in part because of their unconventional living arrangement.
Police recover second weapons cache in central MA
Tuesday, 17 February 2009 4:45 A GMT-05
Police say a 72-year-old Auburn man will face criminal charges after investigators found 85 guns and 800 pounds of ammunition in his home, most of them stored improperly. Investigators zeroed in on Anthony Simulynas after a Worcester resident who was arrested for illegal possession of military-style explosives and assault weapons said he stole a powerful machine gun from the elderly Auburn resident.
When police park at HQ, regular rules do not apply
Monday, 16 February 2009 8:06 A GMT-05
Illegal parking in a handicapped spot is no trifling matter. Boston issues 11,000 tickets a year, each of which carries a $120 fine and often a $93 towing charge. And it is not uncommon for passersby to loudly rebuke able-bodied drivers who use parking spots reserved for the disabled. But violators who use the 11 handicapped-designated spaces in front of Boston Police headquarters are immune from any sanction at all - or even a sidelong glance from the scores of police officers who enter and leave the building every day, according to Globe observations over the past two months. One repeat scofflaw: the driver of a Toyota Corolla registered to Irene Landry, the city's supervisor of Parking Enforcement, who oversees the 194 parking enforcement officers who write 1.3 million tickets a year.
A Dubious Equality for Women
Sunday, 15 February 2009 4:33 P GMT-05
In the winter of our economic discontent, women now hold more than 49 percent of jobs on the nation’s payrolls. If we cross the 50 percent line—hold the applause—it will be because men are losing their jobs even faster than women. This dubious equality is in large part an ongoing tale of two economies. Men tend to work in manufacturing and construction, areas that were the hardest and first hit. Women tend to work in jobs such as health care and education that haven’t (yet) been as affected. In the past year, eight out of 10 pink slips went to men. The unemployment rate for women is bad enough at 6.2 percent, up 2 percentage points since 2007. But the unemployment rate for men is 7.6 percent, up three points. Add to that the fact that more men stop looking for jobs. You not only have a near-equal number of women in the work force, you have a lot of women in formerly two-earner families who’ve become the breadwinners. Breadwinners? Or should I say crustwinners. The other dubious part of this “equality” for families is that even if women fill half of the payroll jobs, they don’t bring home half the paychecks. They still earn only 78 cents for every male dollar. In two-worker households, husbands earn close to two-thirds of the income and usually hold the job with health insurance.
"National Service" and Conscription: A Question of Ownership
Sunday, 15 February 2009 4:26 P GMT-05
Of course, most Americans are hardly strangers to responsibility. They hold jobs, provide for families, and perform volunteer work for schools and churches. Thousands of acts of service occur literally every second of every day in America, both in the form of mutually beneficial business transactions and charitable deeds performed out of conviction. The problem with such service, apparently, is that it is neither mandated nor brokered by the government. So from the perspective of those who believe that life should be organized by the state, such spontaneous service simply doesn't count.
With US infrastructure in tatters, stimulus plan offers paltry sum
Sunday, 15 February 2009 3:43 P GMT-05
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) released its 2009 Report Card on the state of infrastructure in the US late last month. The report is a stinging indictment of the state of the nation's infrastructure, assigning it an overall grade of "D". The report card evaluates the categories of Aviation, Bridges, Dams, Drinking Water, Energy, Hazardous Waste, Solid Waste, Inland Waterways and Levees, Public Parks and Recreation, Roads, Railroads, Schools, Mass Transit and Wastewater.
To Alter or Abolish
Sunday, 15 February 2009 3:30 P GMT-05
Our state governments are starting to feel the same way about you that we do. Many are openly refusing to obey your so-called "REAL ID" attempt at creating a national "your papers, please" regime of Hitlerian proportions. Some are even starting to make noises about the Tenth Amendment, which reiterates that you aren't allowed to just do anything you feel like doing. (We are not big fans of our state governments either, but at least they don't start wars, counterfeit our money, and prop up tyrannies across the globe.) You see? Look in the mirror for once. The emperor not only hasn't got any clothes, he's a quadruple amputee demanding that everyone admire his muscular physique. We don't know whether to laugh at or feel pity for such a pathetic creature.
In Plane Crash, Loss of Momentum Still a Mystery
Sunday, 15 February 2009 3:04 P GMT-05
According to investigators, the last minute of flight, as described so far, unfolded this way: As the plane flew about 1,600 feet above the ground, southwest toward a runway at the Buffalo airport, the crew lowered the landing gear. Twenty seconds later, one of the two pilots set a lever to extend the flaps, movable metal panels on the back of each wing, to 15 degrees, a standard step before landing. Immediately, the airplane’s nose began to pitch radically up and down, and soon after, the airplane rolled left and right. A stick shaker, a device that warns that the plane is flying so slowly that its wings are about to stall, losing lift, gave its warning by shaking the yoke in the pilots’ hands. Then the stick pusher came on, a system that literally takes matters out of the pilots’ hands by pushing the yoke forward, to push the nose down and increase airspeed to avoid stall. The crew increased engine power, but never regained control: the plane hit the house, having spun around to face northeast, although it had been flying southwest. It happened so fast that the flaps never made it to 15 degrees.
Cohasset officer credited with quick aid to choking baby
Sunday, 15 February 2009 4:10 A GMT-05
Lieutenant William Quigley rushed out of the police station when he heard a distraught mother's call about the baby. He arrived within 15 to 30 seconds at the nearby home, found the mother outside with the baby in her arms, and was able to dislodge the piece of food blocking baby's airway, police said. "We are extremely proud of his actions," said Lieutenant Gregory Lennon. "I would say if he didn't get there, it certainly could have been a tragedy."
'Clark Rockefeller' to claim temporary insanity
Saturday, 14 February 2009 2:05 P GMT-05
The man who has called himself Clark Rockefeller -- as well as Chip Smith, Christopher Crowe, Christopher Chichester, and a string of other aliases during 30 years of chameleon-like identity changes -- plans to claim he was insane when he allegedly kidnapped his 7-year-old daughter last summer on a Back Bay street. Rockefeller's lawyer, Jeffrey A. Denner, filed a motion today in Suffolk Superior Court saying his client was not responsible for the alleged abduction because he was suffering from a "mental disease or defect'' that made it impossible to understand his actions or to control them.
Home price declines deepen
Friday, 13 February 2009 9:44 A GMT-05
Home prices fell 12.4% during the fourth quarter of 2008, the largest year-over-year decline since the National Association of Realtors began keeping comprehensive records in 1979. The median price for a U.S. home sold during the fourth quarter of 2008 fell to $180,100, down from $205,700 during the last quarter of 2007.
Why You Can't Buy a New Car Online
Friday, 13 February 2009 9:35 A GMT-05
Americans can buy virtually anything over the Internet these days -- sex, booze, houses -- everything, that is, but a new car. If you want to buy a new Ford Fusion, you have to go down to your local dealership and haggle with the car salesmen, an unpleasant and daunting task. The process usually subjects consumers to hours in the dealership hotbox and can add hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to the price of the car. Wouldn't it be nice if you could cut out the middleman and just order your Prius straight from Toyota? But you can't. And there's one reason why: the car-dealer lobby, which has worked hard to ensure that this will never happen. Since the late 1990s, car dealers have used their considerable political clout to pass or better enforce state franchise laws that in many cases make it a criminal offense for an auto manufacturer to sell a new car to anyone but a state-licensed car dealer. The laws governing who can sell new cars are among the most anti-competitive of any domestic industry. By creating local monopolies for dealerships and prohibiting online sales for new cars, they constitute a major restraint on interstate commerce; in 2001, the Consumer Federation of America estimated [pdf] that the laws added at least $1,500 to the price of every new car.
Hackers clone passports in drive-by RFID heist
Friday, 13 February 2009 7:47 A GMT-05
Chris Paget, director of research and development at Seattle-based IOActive, used a US$250 Motorola RFID reader and an antenna mounted in a car’s side window and drove for 20 minutes around San Francisco, with a colleague videoing the demonstration. During the demonstration he picked up the details of two US passport cards, which are fitted with RFID chips and can be used instead of traditional passports for travel to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
NEWS: Cop Guilty of Kidnapping and Robbing Dealers, Reselling Drugs
Friday, 13 February 2009 7:28 A GMT-05
The evidence at trial showed that from November 2003 through April 2006, Sease conspired with other Memphis police officers to use their authority as law enforcement officers, including their service weapons, to rob suspected drug dealers of cash, cocaine and marijuana. Sease and his co-conspirators would then resell the stolen drugs for their own profit. The government introduced proof of 16 separate robberies, as well as one attempted robbery. In each robbery, Sease or another uniformed Memphis police officer, would pull over a car containing suspected drug dealers and steal whatever drugs and cash that they found.
Fire Consumes WTC 7-Size Skyscraper, Building Does Not Collapse
Tuesday, 10 February 2009 1:02 A GMT-05
Giant flames engulf every floor of 44-story building and it remains standing, yet limited fires across just 8 floors of WTC 7 brought down building within 7 seconds on 9/11. How can NIST’s “new phenomenon” explain this one?
Stimulating Tyranny
Sunday, 8 February 2009 7:39 P GMT-05
"Not that I don't trust the police," Johnson later commented to the Washington Post. "But I wanted to personally witness what [was] going to happen to my mayor, so if they [the SWAT team] say this guy went for a gun -- and he didn't -- it's not going to happen on my watch." Roll that comment around in your mind for just a second. Officer Johnson stayed behind to make sure his mayor wasn't murdered by his fellow police officers. A few days later, long after the raiders failed to find so much as a molecule of evidence to justify their criminal assault on the Calvo home, Chief Murphy publicly expressed exactly the same sentiments. Addressing a rally on behalf of the victims, Murphy pointed out that the SWAT team declined to notify him about the impending raid, which would have permitted the Chief to help them arrange a peaceful, orderly search of the property.
Monica Yant Kinney: Hidden cost of unemployment benefits | Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/08/2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009 7:23 P GMT-05
Steve Lippe is a calm, cool sort. After getting sacked, he had the presence of mind to read the fine print about the fees associated with his new Pennsylvania unemployment debit card. Yes, fees. Fees to withdraw unemployment benefits. Fees to transfer. Fees to learn that besides being out of work, you're broke. Lippe may work in business-to-business sales, but the guy has a nose for news. "Who," he asked, "is making all this money off the unemployed?" Excellent question. Timely, too.
Study: 9/11 lung problems persist years later
Sunday, 8 February 2009 3:29 P GMT-05
Experts have struggled since the 2001 attacks to find standards to define post-Sept. 11 illness and the time it would take to develop. The city's medical examiner recently added to the official victims' list a man who died in October of cancer and lung disease, citing his exposure to the dust cloud that enveloped the city when the 110-story towers collapsed. Mount Sinai's program has treated more than 26,000 people who were at the site or worked there in the days after Sept. 11. The study's authors noted that participants asked to be enrolled in the program and may have more health problems than others who were exposed but didn't enroll.
Keep Your Job, Lose Your Health Insurance
Saturday, 7 February 2009 2:48 P GMT-05
According to The Washington Post, ten years ago, employers paid about 90 percent of their workers' health costs. That is down to 73 percent.
Video: Cop Punches Woman In Face Four Times During Arrest For Riding A Bike
Thursday, 5 February 2009 3:39 A GMT-05
A video released as part of a lawsuit against police in Millville, Philadelphia, shows an officer forcefully punching a woman in the face four times after he bungled an attempt to arrest her for riding a bike on the sidewalk.
UPDATE: Junket Canceled... Bailed-Out Wells Fargo Plans Vegas Casino Junkets
Thursday, 5 February 2009 3:17 A GMT-05
Wells Fargo & Co. abruptly canceled Tuesday a pricey Las Vegas casino junket for employees after a torrent of criticism that it was misusing $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money.
Secret Spending: Fed Lends Two Trillion Without Oversight
Sunday, 1 February 2009 3:52 P GMT-05
Stricken man evacuated from MBTA train six stops after his collapse
Sunday, 1 February 2009 7:50 A GMT-05
A man who was stricken Thursday evening on a rush-hour Red Line train as it left Harvard Square - collapsing onto the floor - was not taken off the train for medical help until 22 minutes later while the train made regular stops in Cambridge and Boston and passengers frantically tried to summon help.
Medford readies wind turbine at site along I-93
Saturday, 31 January 2009 2:27 P GMT-05
The turbine's hub is 131 feet tall and its three blades are 34 feet long. It was made by Northern Power of Vermont. It's expected to generate 170,000 kilowatt hours per year, or about $25,000 worth of electricity. That's about 10 percent of the school's electricity bill, said Patty Barry, director of the city's energy and environment office.
Why I'm Selling My Virginity
Friday, 30 January 2009 12:22 P GMT-05
When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what's to stop me from benefiting from that? It is mine, after all. And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men. I took the ancient notion that a woman's virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.
The Financial Crisis Is Driving Hordes of Americans to Suicide
Thursday, 29 January 2009 12:16 P GMT-05
Pushed past their breaking points, people are robbing banks to pay the rent, setting homes on fire -- even taking their own lives.
Prisoner kept beyond term, despite state's vow to change
Thursday, 29 January 2009 11:49 A GMT-05
In the fall of 2006, halfway into a five-year sentence at the Massachusetts Treatment Center, the inmate asked prison officials why he was not accruing time off his term for good behavior. An official in the records division responded in writing, erroneously telling Taylor that he was not eligible because he was a habitual offender. One afternoon last month prison officials realized the mistake and abruptly told Taylor he was leaving, more than seven months after he should have been released, even though he had nowhere to go. An officer then took Taylor, who has a history of drug problems, to a homeless shelter in Worcester, where he said he spent a long night watching other men smoke crack and shoot heroin.
Wall Street's Sick Psychology of Entitlement
Thursday, 29 January 2009 12:36 A GMT-05
The news that Merrill Lynch paid out $15 billion in bonuses is sure to ignite new questions about the wisdom of bailing out Wall Street. Merrill Lynch took $10 billion from the TARP, allegedly to fill holes in its balance sheet. But instead of using that to repair its financial health, it simply put the money into the pockets of its employees. There is no way to defend this disgusting payout.
Risen: I May Have Been A Victim Of The NSA's Program Spying On Journalists
Tuesday, 27 January 2009 12:56 A GMT-05
Earlier this week on MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” former National Security Agency (NSA) analyst Russell Tice revealed that the agency had “monitored all communications” of Americans — specifically targeting journalists. To discuss this development, Olbermann yesterday hosted Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times reporter James Risen, who famously angered the Bush administration by revealing the government’s domestic wiretapping program and its secret snooping on the financial records of thousands of Americans allegedly linked to terrorists. Since that time, the Bush Justice Department had been trying to identify Risen’s sources for his book on the nation’s spy agencies, called State of War. In April, the New York Times reported that former government officials had been called before a grand jury and confronted with phone records documenting their calls with Risen. Neither Risen nor the New York Times had received a subpoena for those records.
Watching the Growth of Walmart Across America
Sunday, 25 January 2009 6:01 P GMT-05
The war on drugs nears a major achievement
Sunday, 25 January 2009 5:58 P GMT-05
The complete collapse of Mexico into a terrorist state. Let’s hear it for the DEA! Perfect example of blowback. Also, read Radley Balko’s War on Drugs: Collateral Damage to find out how drug prohibition “militarizes police, enriches our enemies, undermines our laws, and condemns our sick to suffering”.
Microsoft could face $8.5 billion in damages for "Vista Capable" case
Sunday, 25 January 2009 5:46 P GMT-05
A University of Washington economist, and an expert witness for the plaintiffs has calculated that it would cost anywhere from $3.92 billion to $8.52 billion to upgrade all of the PCs that were sold as Vista Capable so that they would be able to run the premium versions of Windows Vista. This number was computed by utilizing data provided by Microsoft, and arrives at how many "Vista upgradeable" PCs had been sold in the United States between April 2006 (when the Vista Capable Campaign began) through to January 2007 (when Vista hit the market and the marketing campaign ended). It was deemed that 13.75 million notebooks and 5.65 million desktop PCs had been classified "Vista Capable" when they were not actually able to meet the harsher "Premium Ready" requirements. Basically, Microsoft certification branded "Vista Capable PCs" as such without stressing to consumers that the PCs were designed only to run at the barest minimum of Vista Basic - which is the lowest level of the many products of Vista. Unfortunately, some of these PCs weren't capable of running more powerful versions, or were not able to run all of the program features in other versions.
Explosion destroys Gloucester home
Sunday, 25 January 2009 5:40 P GMT-05
The explosion occurred shortly before 8 a.m. at 76 Eastern Avenue, which is near Route 128, said Gloucester fire Captain Andrew McRobb. Two other houses were damaged, he said.
Selflessness -- Core Of All Major World Religions -- Has Neuropsychological Connection
Sunday, 25 January 2009 2:08 P GMT-05
This study, along with other recent neuroradiological studies of Buddhist meditators and Francescan nuns, suggests that all individuals, regardless of cultural background or religion, experience the same neuropsychological functions during spiritual experiences, such as transcendence. Transcendence, feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self, is a core tenet of all major religions. Meditation and prayer are the primary vehicles by which such spiritual transcendence is achieved. “The brain functions in a certain way during spiritual experiences,” said Brick Johnstone, professor of health psychology in the MU School of Health Professions. “We studied people with brain injury and found that people with injuries to the right parietal lobe of the brain reported higher levels of spiritual experiences, such as transcendence.”
Pentagon's terror 'recidivism' claims blasted as 'propaganda'
Saturday, 24 January 2009 6:24 P GMT-05
A study published by Seton Hall Law Professor Mark Denbeaux on Jan. 15 finds the Pentagon wrongly altered its figures on terrorist 'recidivism' 43 times, with the latest figure being "the most egregiously so."
It's hard to find a date when you're looking for a job
Saturday, 24 January 2009 6:07 P GMT-05
Like West, Kevin Cain, 44, has also paused his search for romance. The biotechnology marketer has been out of work for a year and has been actively looking for jobs since April. He's now doing part-time catering work to help cover his $3,000 mortgage in Hingham, earning a tenth of what he once made. When he considers what it would cost to take a woman on a date he thinks: "That's my electric bill."
New poll on torture and investigations negates Beltway conventional wisdom
Saturday, 24 January 2009 5:19 P GMT-05
By a wide margin -- 58-40% -- Americans say that torture should never be used, no matter the circumstances. Let's repeat that: "no matter the circumstance." That margin is enormous among Democrats (71-28%) and substantial among independents (56-43%). As usual these days, Republicans hold the minority view, but even among them there is substantial categorical opposition to torture (42-55%).
Resistance to Housing Foreclosures Spread Across the Land
Friday, 23 January 2009 10:58 A GMT-05
"The small home-owners of the United States are organizing," Steele concluded, "tardily perhaps, but none the less surely." It wasn't just homeowners -- three months earlier the governor of Iowa had called out the National Guard after farmers stormed a courthouse and threatened to hang the judge if he didn't stop issuing foreclosures. They left him in a ditch, bruised but alive. By the end of the 1930s, farmers' and home-owners' struggles had pushed the legislatures of no fewer than twenty-seven states to pass moratoriums on foreclosures. The crowds appear to be gathering again -- far more quietly this time but hardly tentatively. Community-based movements to halt the flood of foreclosures have been building across the country. They turned out in Cleveland once again in October, when a coalition of grassroots housing groups rallied outside the Cuyahoga County courthouse, calling for a foreclosure freeze and constructing a mock graveyard of Styrofoam headstones bearing the names of local communities decimated by the housing crisis. (They did not, unfortunately, stop the more than 1,000 foreclosure filings in the county the following month.) In Boston the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America began protesting in front of Countrywide Financial offices in October 2007. Within weeks, Countrywide had agreed to work with the group to renegotiate loans. In Philadelphia ACORN and other community organizations helped to pressure the city council to order the county sheriff to halt foreclosure auctions this past March. Philadelphia has since implemented a program mandating "conciliation conferences" between defaulting homeowners and lenders. ACORN organizers say the program has a 78 percent success rate at keeping people in their homes. One activist group in Miami has taken a more direct approach to the crisis, housing homeless families in abandoned bank-owned homes without waiting for government permission.
Partners, insurer under scrutiny
Friday, 23 January 2009 10:15 A GMT-05
Attorney General Martha Coakley has launched an investigation into whether the state's largest health insurance company and its largest healthcare provider may have illegally colluded to increase the price of health insurance statewide over the last nine years, according to several legal and government sources.
Killing 'nonwhite people' was motive in Brockton shooting spree, police say
Friday, 23 January 2009 2:58 A GMT-05
A man accused of a horrific rape and killing spree told investigators that he was "fighting extinction" of the white race and had stockpiled 200 rounds of ammunition to "kill 'nonwhite people' such as African Americans, Hispanics and Jewish people," according to a police report filed today in court.
Nashville may make English official
Thursday, 22 January 2009 11:36 A GMT-05
The referendum's most vocal supporter, city Councilman Eric Crafton collected enough signatures to get the "English First" charter amendment on the ballot because he fears government won't run smoothly if his hometown mirrors New York City, where services are offered in Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Italian, and French Creole. Crafton has tried to eliminate the city's language translation services since 2006, but the mayor vetoed a similar measure in 2007. "A community that speaks a common language is unified and efficient," said Crafton, who is fluent in Japanese and married to a native of Japan.
More Americans Joining Military as Jobs Dwindle
Thursday, 22 January 2009 11:17 A GMT-05
And the trend seems to be accelerating. The Army exceeded its targets each month for October, November and December — the first quarter of the new fiscal year — bringing in 21,443 new soldiers on active duty and in the reserves. December figures were released last week. Recruiters also report that more people are inquiring about joining the military, a trend that could further bolster the ranks. Of the four armed services, the Army has faced the toughest recruiting challenge in recent years because of high casualty rates in Iraq and long deployments overseas. Recruitment is also strong for the Army National Guard, according to Pentagon figures. The Guard tends to draw older people.
Mexican Drug War Poses Major Threat to U.S.
Thursday, 22 January 2009 10:41 A GMT-05
The U.S. Department of Justice called the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States” in their 2009 National Drug Assessment report. Last year the Mexican drug cartels killed close to 5,700 people.
Stats Say Yes, It's a *Depression*
Monday, 19 January 2009 3:22 P GMT-05
Retail sales actually fell off a cliff last quarter, down by over 17%. This is more than DOUBLE the 7.7% drop the government “officially” reported Jan. 14th. [link to "official" report] This massive drop in retail sales and fourth quarter industrial production easily exceeds the “10% Rule” for defining the difference between a recession and a depression. Yes, we are now in a DEPRESSION, not a recession.
Inauguration Day, 2009: A Day of Mourning
Monday, 19 January 2009 3:18 P GMT-05
When Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated, he sought to dismantle the evolving Federalist tradition of pomp and circumstance. In a ceremonial sense, royalism seemed to have been restored, or so it seemed to him. As this blogger put it, "Dressed in simple attire, Jefferson walked over to the Capitol with a phalanx of riflemen, friends, and fellow citizens from his home state of Virginia." In these last days of the American Empire, such austere republicanism would be considered impossibly quaint. Having long ago morphed into Jefferson's worst nightmare, the closer we get to the end, the more glamorous our inaugurals become. The poorer we are, the more millions we'll throw at a ceremony that is really the crowning of a monarch – and not just any old king, but an emperor bestriding the globe.
U.S. role in Gaza invasion
Monday, 19 January 2009 2:57 P GMT-05
It's well known that the U.S. supplies the Israelis with much of their military hardware. Over the past few decades, the U.S. has provided about $53 billion in military aid to Israel. What's not well known is that since 2004, U.S. taxpayers have paid to supply over 500 million gallons of refined oil products -- worth about $1.1 billion –- to the Israeli military. While a handful of countries get motor fuel from the U.S., they receive only a fraction of the fuel that Israel does -- fuel now being used by Israeli fighter jets, helicopters and tanks to battle Hamas. According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, between 2004 and 2007 the U.S. Defense Department gave $818 million worth of fuel to the Israeli military. The total amount was 479 million gallons, the equivalent of about 66 gallons per Israeli citizen. In 2008, an additional $280 million in fuel was given to the Israeli military, again at U.S. taxpayers' expense. The U.S. has even paid the cost of shipping the fuel from U.S. refineries to ports in Israel.
What's It Going to Take to Lock Up Drug Company Execs?
Saturday, 17 January 2009 3:09 A GMT-05
The New England Journal of Medicine is now warning physicians that medicine's corruption by drug companies has threatened public confidence in their profession. If those physicians who are not drug-company shills want to save their profession, they might want to start taking aggressive actions against their colleagues who are on the take. Perhaps it will help motivate clean physicians to be reminded that history shows that any institution -- no matter how large and powerful -- can arrogantly cross those lines leading to its demise.
Bank Of America "Is Insolvent", Will be "Broken Up"
Friday, 16 January 2009 10:24 A GMT-05
Mike "Mish" Shedlock has batted 100% - for the time I've been reading his blog - in calling companies insolvent months or years before it becomes public knowledge. Mish is now saying "Bank of America Is Insolvent".
'Miracle on the Hudson': All safe in jet crash
Friday, 16 January 2009 3:12 A GMT-05
With both engines out, a cool-headed pilot maneuvered his crowded jetliner over New York City and ditched it in the frigid Hudson River on Thursday, and all 155 on board were pulled to safety as the plane slowly sank. It was, the governor said, "a miracle on the Hudson." One victim suffered two broken legs, a paramedic said, but there were no other reports of serious injuries. The plane, a US Airways Airbus A320 bound for Charlotte, N.C., struck a flock of birds during takeoff minutes earlier at LaGuardia Airport and was submerged up to its windows in the river by the time rescuers arrived in Coast Guard vessels and ferries. Some passengers waded in water up to their knees, standing on the wing of the plane and waiting for help.
'Qualifying fireams'
Thursday, 15 January 2009 10:11 A GMT-05
Read the bill for yourself. As of now, it has no co-sponsors. Some will tell you that means there's no cause for alarm. Some may even tell us this has no chance of passing (now), and to expend effort opposing it will weaken future political efforts. One mass shooting in a "no guns" zone from now, that could change, and this could come to the front burner. Along with the anticipated push to permanently ban (that means no "sunset clause" this time) all semiautomatics by both name and characteristic. Here's the important part: It will make it illegal for you to possess guns you currently legally own unless you go jump through their hoops, register yourself and obtain a license. All under the watchful oversight of Eric Holder--another grave danger to gun rights our lobbyists see no need to expend "political capital" on.
Firefighter killed in crash is remembered for his humor, dedication
Thursday, 15 January 2009 8:45 A GMT-05
On his last call, he was blasting the horn on Ladder 26 as the hulking firetruck barreled downhill toward a brick wall. Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley was doing what he could to save lives.
Israeli PM: I Dictated Bush's Vote on UN Gaza Truce Vote
Thursday, 15 January 2009 8:40 A GMT-05
"I said, 'Get Bush on the phone.' They tried, and told me he was in the middle of a lecture in Philadelphia. I said, 'I need to speak to him now.' He got down from the podium, went out and took the phone call. I told him that the US cannot possibly vote in favor of this resolution. He immediately called [Rice] and told her not to vote for it."
FOX Commentator states WTC 7 "would collapse in a southerly direction"
Thursday, 15 January 2009 8:31 A GMT-05
Yet another instance of WTC 7 foreknowledge. This time describing the manner in which the building would fall.
A firefighter's ultimate gift
Wednesday, 14 January 2009 12:03 P GMT-05
Father Dan is the Boston Fire Department's chief chaplain, and he's there for the good times and the bad. He presides over firefighters' weddings, he baptizes their kids, he distributes First Communion, he does the confirmations. And when it's all over, when a firefighter dies, he's there again. He prays over them and then he buries them. More than 50 times in the 45 years that Father Dan has been a fire chaplain, he has had to break the news to a family that a Boston firefighter died in the line of duty.
Does The Government Manipulate Social Media?
Monday, 12 January 2009 1:04 A GMT-05
Finally, under the post-9/11 "homeland security" laws, the government almost certainl routinely demands full access to ISPs and websites. In other words, we've all seen polls at Digg, Reddit, YouTube, and mainstream news sites suddenly disappear entirely if a sufficiently pro-government sentiment was not expressed. Do you doubt that the military and homeland security apparatus would step in to take control of what it considered an "enemy" message? And remember, the government considers any message questioning anything the government does as an enemy message.
The Secret and (Very) Profitable World of Intelligence and Narcotrafficking
Sunday, 4 January 2009 4:44 A GMT-05
When the Taliban was routed by the U.S. during the initial phase of its 2001 invasion, Noorzai was entrusted with some $20 million of the Taliban's cash for "safekeeping," according to the History Commons. But Noorzai turned himself in to U.S. military forces where he spent several days in custody at Kandahar airport. Though questioned by U.S. officials, Noorzai was released and quietly disappeared into Pakistan after an associate was killed by U.S. forces. In a 2002 CBS News account, Noorzai reportedly said, "I spent my days and nights comfortably. There was special room for me. I was like a guest, not a prisoner." Eventually, Noorzai resurfaced in Peshawar. Armed with a Pakistani passport allegedly furnished by the ISI, the kingpin operated drug-processing laboratories that turned raw opium into finished "product," heroin bound for European and U.S. markets.
False Diagnosis of Deflation
Saturday, 3 January 2009 2:27 P GMT-05
In my view, the entire topic of inflation is intentionally obfuscated by the economists at work across the entire financial sector spectrum. They prefer to maintain a high level of ignorance among the public, and of confusion even among the analysts, so that the USGovt officials and Wall Street bankers can continue to steal savings via confiscation by inflation, all without any formal tax levy and without any legislation in support. Worse, inflation is blessed as good, which actually enables those Elite in Power to continue vast counterfeit rings. Their vehicles are USTreasury Bonds, Fannie Mae bonds, Congressional appropriations, and sacred USMilitary budgets, each of which has had almost zero enforcement. It is my contention that each has been a principal part of syndicate activity, sanctioned and protected by USGovt agencies and US Financial titans, along with lapdog regulators. Generally, the dumber the nation remains, the more the Elite can continue to ply their privileged trade. The era of paper pusher domination is gone, as Wall Street gradually will resemble a Ghost Town that mirrors suburban residential foreclosure blight. The nation has probably never been more ignorant on matters pertaining to inflation in its history, as it is now. The next stage will feature grand exposure of lies, fraud, deceit, and corrupt relationships including routine bribery, insider trading, and counterfeit rings. The penalty suffered is a wrecked nation, and inevitable lost sovereignty. When foreigners own over half the national debt, and the USEconomy is in tatters, and the US banking system is both dysfunctional and in failure mode, foreigners have the right to take control. They will do so. The arrogant will be swept aside as thoroughly as the billionaires will be ruined. If you think such words are wild and silly, just wait and watch! Receivership committees are being formed in foreign lands, but they must contend with military threats. Numerous bilateral trade agreements are being hammered out, designed to circumvent the corrupt paper price systems in US & UK control. Times are changing, and the door is open for some degree of colonization. Wealth will flow in the direction of those prepared. Owners of actual gold & silver, as well as crude oil & natural gas, will lead the next era.
The Economist: U.S. In Depression, Not Recession
Saturday, 3 January 2009 2:17 P GMT-05
“A depression is the result of a bursting asset and credit bubble, a contraction in credit, and a decline in the general price level,” according to the article. “In the Great Depression average prices in America fell by one-quarter, and nominal GDP ended up shrinking by almost half.” Fast forward to the start of 2009 and house prices have fallen by at least 17 per cent over the last two years with that number only set to plunge further over the coming 18 months. Overall, American homeowners have lost $2 trillion of equity during what has become the worst housing slump since World War II. U.S. GDP in the fourth quarter last year fell an estimated six per cent, but that number is expected to accelerate through 2009.
5 governors unite, seek $1 trillion in federal aid
Saturday, 3 January 2009 1:16 P GMT-05
Governor Deval Patrick and four other influential Democratic governors pleaded their case yesterday for up to $1 trillion in federal assistance over the next two years, to help alleviate budget cuts, create jobs, and avoid inflicting irreversible damage to schools during a fiscal crisis.
Many police chiefs say they won't enforce new Mass. marijuana law
Saturday, 3 January 2009 1:15 P GMT-05
"We're just basically not enforcing it right now," said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. "You'll probably have a lot of officers that, unless there's a caller complaining about it, won't even bother with it. They probably handled a lot of it informally before and probably more so now."
Alberto Gonzales Considers Himself a 'Casualty of the War on Terror' | PEEK | AlterNet
Thursday, 1 January 2009 10:12 P GMT-05
During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that "for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."
Warning of the collapse of the Twin Towers and more
Thursday, 1 January 2009 9:43 P GMT-05
One of the most startling stories to come out of 9-11 involves reports of individuals in the south tower (Building 2) who announced only moments after the first plane struck the north tower (Building 1) that it was safe to return to work. I have a particular interest in this issue, as only two years before 9-11, I worked for a short time at Fuji Bank, which occupied the offices where the second plane hit. During my stay, I participated in a fire drill in which the division I was working for walked down all 79 flights of stairs and exited the building, an exercise of the type the 9-11 Commission Report expressly denies ever occurred. [The 9-11 Commission Report, 2006, Barnes and Noble Pub., NY p. 280: "Deputy fire safety directors conducted fire drills at least twice a year." p. 281: "But during these drills, civilians were not directed into the stairwells, or provided with information about their configuration and about the existence of transfer hallways and smoke doors. Neither full nor partial evacuation drills were held."]
Man accused of leaving Colo. bombs kills himself
Thursday, 1 January 2009 8:59 P GMT-05
The threat that shut down this resort town on New Year's Eve was real: Police said Thursday that four packages in holiday wrapping held dangerous bombs made of gasoline and cell phone parts and came with notes warning of "mass death." The man suspected of placing the bombs in two banks and in an alleyway on Wednesday shot and killed himself a short time later, police said. The body of James Chester Blanning, who grew up in Aspen and lived in Denver since 2003, was found Thursday, police said.
The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World's Number One Sponsor of World Terrorism
Wednesday, 31 December 2008 5:11 A GMT-05
I have repeatedly stated that the US regime of George W. Bush was not legitimate. How can I make it any clearer? "Illegitimate" means that the regime of George W. Bush was no more legitimate than the crooked regimes of tin horn dictators in banana republics. The Bush regime differed little in terms of competence or statesmanship. Now, in a cynical document that the US Army had never intended be disseminated publicly, we have confirmation that the position of the US vis a vis the rest of the world is based not upon Democracy or legitimacy. It is, rather based entirely upon force, aggression and US terrorism.
In Housing Fall, Breaking Up Is Harder to Do
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 11:23 A GMT-05
With nearly one in six homes worth less than the mortgage owed on it, according to Moody’s Economy.com, divorce lawyers and financial advisers around the country say the logistics of divorce have been turned around. “We used to fight about who gets to keep the house,” said Gary Nickelson, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “Now we fight about who gets stuck with the dead cow.”
Nanothermites and WTC dust
Tuesday, 30 December 2008 1:58 A GMT-05
But I've also spent some time making nanothermites, and igniting them. Here is a slideshow of 26 photomicrographs, half of which are nanothermite residues and half of which are ferromagnetic particles extracted from WTC dust samples. These photos share many things in common, including the presence of metallic microspheres, vesicular formations and red-orange chips. Sometimes it's hard to remember which photo belongs to which category. If the nanothermite residues were mixed with concrete dust and glass fragments, it would likely be much more difficult to notice any differences.
New Discoveries Prove Lies and Deception by Britian and America and the sinking of the Lusitania
Monday, 29 December 2008 3:19 A GMT-05
Her sinking with the loss of almost 1,200 lives caused such outrage that it propelled the U.S. into the First World War. But now divers have revealed a dark secret about the cargo carried by the Lusitania on its final journey in May 1915. Munitions they found in the hold suggest that the Germans had been right all along in claiming the ship was carrying war materials and was a legitimate military target.
Karl Rove Destroyed My Life
Saturday, 27 December 2008 7:24 P GMT-05
There is no question in my mind that Rove played a key role in what happened to me. From the beginning, the investigation was started by Rove’s client, the state attorney general Mark Pryor; then the prosecution was carried out by the wife of Rove’s best friend and his former business partner. [They had previously worked as political consultants together in Alabama.] We have a live witness who claims that Bill Canary—Rove’s partner—said Rove had taken my case to the Department of Justice. Now it’s up to Congress—and the House and the Senate judiciary committees—to bring Rove before the House Judiciary Committee.
Karl Rove Threatened Connell, Suspected of Sabotage and Murder
Thursday, 25 December 2008 6:45 P GMT-05
Did Bush's guru Karl Rove order the Murder of Mike Connell because he knew too much? Attorneys for Mike Connell, recently killed in a suspicious 'plane crash', had sought protection for Connell and his family. Connell was being threatened by Karl Rove, the Republican guru, arguably the 'brains' behind Bush's rise to near absolute power in the White House. If Rove's threats in response to Connell's imminent revelations are not probable cause to arrest Rove immediately, it ought to be. In any case, Rove should be targeted by an exhaustive and relentless investigation of this crime of obvious murder. Connell, who was on John McCain's payroll, had also been 'warned' that his craft had been tampered with. Connell was killed December 19th when the Piper Lance Saratoga he piloted crashed short of the Akron-Canton Airport runway. Sabotage was suspected immediately. Connell was the GOP IT guru who may have rigged Bush's victories in 2000 and, again, in 2004. Certainly, Karl Rove as well as the GOP leadership and George W. Bush have motive. Connell was the man who knew how the GOP steals elections. Connell was the man who knew too much.
Police unclear on how to enforce new marijuana law that takes effect Jan. 2
Thursday, 25 December 2008 6:38 P GMT-05
Many law enforcement officials strongly opposed the intensely debated Nov. 4 state ballot question that will turn possession of an ounce or less of marijuana into an offense on par with a traffic violation. Police and prosecutors say they are in the dark about many aspects of the law.
"Living Under the Trees"
Thursday, 25 December 2008 4:40 P GMT-05
"Migration is a necessity, not a choice," explained Romualdo Juan Gutierrez Cortez, a teacher in Santiago Juxtlahuaca, in Oaxaca's rural Mixteca region. "It is disheartening to see a student go through many hardships to get an education here in Mexico and become a professional, and then later in the United States do manual labor. Sometimes those with an education are working side-by-side with others who do not even know how to read."
U.S. Army Ready If The Downturn Gets Out Of Hand
Thursday, 25 December 2008 4:10 P GMT-05
ARE you afraid that the eco nomic downturn could get out of hand? I mean, really out of hand?
Well, don’t worry. The US Army War College is on the case - ready to handle “unforeseen economic collapse” and the “rapid dissolution of public order in all or significant parts of the US.” And you thought we were just dealing with a recession!
Krugman: We're in for a Year of 'Economic Hell'
Thursday, 25 December 2008 3:44 P GMT-05
Whatever the new administration does, we're in for months, perhaps even a year, of economic hell. After that, things should get better, as President Obama's stimulus plan -- O.K., I'm told that the politically correct term is now "economic recovery plan" -- begins to gain traction. Late next year the economy should begin to stabilize, and I'm fairly optimistic about 2010.
Interesting comment from FDNY lieutenant on Building 7, "it would be taken down"
Thursday, 25 December 2008 3:27 P GMT-05
Note FDNY lieutenant David Rastuccio's comment at 1:20 that the building had been allowed to fall on it's own but also mentioning a plan that, "it would be taken down".
Michael Connell's Death Brings to Mind the Strange Death of Raymond Lemme
Thursday, 25 December 2008 3:03 P GMT-05
Michael Connell, the IT consultant who died in a plane crash last Friday, shortly before he was due to testify in federal court regarding his alleged role in tampering with the 2004 Ohio presidential election results, brings to mind the death of Raymond Lemme. Because of the similarities between Lemme’s and Connell’s connection to the 2004 Presidential election, I think that people trying to figure out the cause of Connell’s death would do well to consider the death of Raymond Lemme. Therefore, I’m reposting my 2005 DU post on the death of Raymond Lemme, with some minor revisions to make it more current:
'Santa' opens fire at Calif. party; 3 dead
Thursday, 25 December 2008 2:39 P GMT-05
A man dressed as Santa Claus opened fire at a Christmas Eve party in a suburban Los Angeles home that subsequently caught fire, leaving three people dead, police said. The man arrived at the party in Covina late Wednesday and immediately opened fire with a handgun, police Lt. Pat Buchanan said.
How to Get on an Atheist's Good Side
Thursday, 25 December 2008 2:35 P GMT-05
Survey: Americans prefer Web over papers to read news
Thursday, 25 December 2008 2:32 P GMT-05
The Internet has surpassed newspapers as the main source for national and international news for Americans, according to a new survey.
Environmental Spill Disaster Devastates Tennessee; 48 Times the Size of Exxon Valdez
Thursday, 25 December 2008 2:20 P GMT-05
An environmental disaster of epic proportions has occurred in Tennessee. Monday night, 2.6 million cubic yards (the equivalent of 525.2 million gallons, 48 times more than the Exxon Valdez spill by volume) of coal ash sludge broke through a dike of a 40-acre holding pond at TVA's Kingston coal-fired power plant covering 400 acres up to six feet deep, damaging 12 homes and wrecking a train.
Cincinnati 9/11 Truth / WeAreCHANGE Ohio public access TV show Episode 4
Thursday, 25 December 2008 1:37 P GMT-05
We eased the audience in with the financial crisis, which led to discussion of the Fed, which then segued into false flag terrorism, and finally 9/11. We figured it would be more effective than hitting the audience hard with 9/11 stuff from the get-go.
The Homicides You Didn't Hear About in Hurricane Katrina
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 10:35 A GMT-05
What do you do when you notice that there seems to have been a killing spree? While the national and international media were working themselves and much of the public into a frenzy about imaginary hordes of murderers, rapists, snipers, marauders, and general rampagers among the stranded crowds of mostly poor, mostly black people in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, a group of white men went on a shooting spree across the river. Their criminal acts were no secret but they never became part of the official story. The media demonized the city's black population for crimes that turned out not to have happened, and the retractions were, as always, too little too late. At one point FEMA sent a refrigerated 18-wheeler to pick up what a colonel in the National Guard expected to be 200 bodies in New Orleans's Superdome, only to find six, including four who died naturally and a suicide. Meanwhile, the media never paid attention to the real rampage that took place openly across the river, even though there were corpses lying in unflooded streets and testimony everywhere you looked -- or I looked, anyway. The widely reported violent crimes in the Superdome turned out to be little more than hysterical rumor, but they painted African-Americans as out-of-control savages at a critical moment. The result was to shift institutional responses from disaster relief to law enforcement, a decision that resulted in further deaths among the thirsty, hot, stranded multitude. Governor Kathleen Blanco announced, "I have one message for these hoodlums: These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary, and I expect they will." So would the white vigilantes, and though their exact body count remains unknown, at least 11 black men were apparently shot, some fatally.
How We Can Live with Less and Still Feel Rich
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 10:29 A GMT-05
"Nobody really wants to talk about consumption, itself, as the issue," says Michael Maniates, co-editor of Confronting Consumption, a scholarly dissection of the origin and politics of America's consumer society. "We talk about ways to save, ways to conserve, ways to be more efficient, but when we do, we don't get at the heart of the problem: Our demand is simply too high." Only when the question is placed directly on the table, he says, will government consider measures to reduce consumption. And only then, he says, will Americans confront the fundamental assumptions of economic policy that underlie their consumer behavior.
Rove's IT Guru Warned of Sabotage Before Fatal Plane Crash; Was Set to Testify
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 10:21 A GMT-05
A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Mike Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. He also set up the official Ohio state election website reporting the 2004 presidential election returns. Connell was reportedly an experienced pilot. He died instantly Friday night when his private plane crashed in a residential neighborhood near Akron, Ohio. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count and his access to Karl Rove's e-mail files and how they went missing.
Gilt-free shopping
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 9:12 A GMT-05
Because of the down economy, malls in the Northeast, those vast retail shrines to creature comforts, have welcomed a new business into the mix this holiday season: gold buyers. A Virginia-based company called Goldrush has set up kiosks in malls from Virginia to New Hampshire asking customers to sell them gold and silver - at a fraction of its value - so they can melt it down and resell it.
Hospitals shorten the waits in ERs
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 9:00 A GMT-05
Emergency room waits are decreasing at some Massachusetts hospitals as they prepare to comply with a new state rule that, as of New Year's Day, will prohibit swamped ERs from turning away ambulances.
Aspartame, Brain Cancer & the FDA Approval Process
Wednesday, 24 December 2008 1:22 A GMT-05
Aspartame was 'discovered' in 1965 by Searle, a Chicago drug company. The FDA finally approved aspartame in 1981, even though scientific research had clearly shown that aspartame caused brain cancer in lab animals.
Layoff warning law falls short
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 10:42 P GMT-05
The law requires companies with 100 or more workers to give 60 days notice to officials in states where they plan to make wide-scale job cuts and facility closings. Adopted in 1988 after a wave of plant closings, the law is intended to give state and local officials time to help targeted workers move on - or even to try to save the jobs from elimination. Violators are liable for back pay and benefits, and penalties of $500 per day. But labor leaders say the law, known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or the WARN Act, doesn't typically apply to financial firms, which unlike manufacturers with one or two plants, often have workers deployed at many smaller offices around the country.
Depression Hits Detroit: Average home price $18,513 - Unemployment rate 21%
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 4:32 P GMT-05
Home values have plummeted to levels not seen in 1/2 a century… and the 21% unemployment has in some cases been projected to double within 12 months if the auto industry totally collapses. To make matters even worse, Detroit has superseded New Orleans as the “worst city” in America…. but New Orleans had a Hurricane they could assign blame to… Detroit has no such natural disaster crutch.
Check out all these unexpected deaths of people involved with elections
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 4:22 P GMT-05
Keep your coincidence caps handy, folks. People involved in elections and voting machine companies seem very unlucky. Especially those in Ohio (4 of the 7) and Georgia (2 of the 7).
In Hard Times, Houses of God Turn to Chapter 11 in Book of Bankruptcy
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 12:42 P GMT-05
During this holiday season of hard times, not even houses of God have been spared. Some lenders believe more churches than ever have fallen behind on loans or defaulted this year. Some churches, and at least one company that specialized in church lending, have filed for bankruptcy. Church giving is down as much as 15% in some places, pastors and lenders report. The financial problems are crimping a church building boom that began in the 1990s, when megachurches multiplied, turning many houses of worship into suburban social centers complete with bookstores, gyms and coffee bars. Lenders say mortgage applications are down, while some commercial lenders no longer see churches as a safe investment.
Entrapment? Five convicted in Ft. Dix plot
Tuesday, 23 December 2008 12:36 P GMT-05
Five men whom attorneys said paid FBI informants prodded into exploring their deepest fantasies about waging jihad on America were convicted in federal court Monday of conspiring to kill US soldiers but acquitted on attempted murder charges.
Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns
Wednesday, 17 December 2008 2:41 P GMT-05
The bipartisan Senate Armed Services Committee report issued on Thursday -- which documents that "former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba" and "that Rumsfeld's actions were 'a direct cause of detainee abuse' at Guantanamo and 'influenced and contributed to the use of abusive techniques ... in Afghanistan and Iraq'" -- raises an obvious and glaring question: how can it possibly be justified that the low-level Army personnel carrying out these policies at Abu Ghraib have been charged, convicted and imprisoned, while the high-level political officials and lawyers who directed and authorized these same policies remain free of any risk of prosecution?
Racial Extremists Are Infiltrating the Military for the Chance to 'Kill a Brown'
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:28 A GMT-05
Sobibor's SS included enough biographical details in his various posts to Forum 14 over the years, including that he's a single father from the small town in southern Alabama, that a military investigator with access to enlistment records for recent months should have little trouble determining whether the Army may actually be teaching a skinhead with genocide on his mind about tactical bomb-making. But there's little reason to expect that will happen.
How We Got the Worst Health Care System Mountains of Money Can Buy
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 10:11 A GMT-05
Many of the problems of American health care grow out of this history. The system is so complex that even experts -- let alone ordinary people trying to find care for themselves and their loved ones -- are unable to fully understand it. The system spends one-third of its cost on paperwork, waste and profit over and above the cost of actually providing health care. Yet, nearly one-third of Americans are without health insurance over the course of a year. In all other developed countries, more than 85 percent of citizens have health coverage under public programs. The American health care system is full of inequalities: People who work for one company may have high-quality insurance, while those who work for a similar company have none.
3 victims' kin demand 9/11 justice (BostonHerald.com)
Tuesday, 16 December 2008 9:51 A GMT-05
The families of the late Mark Bavis, 31, Barbara Keating, 72, and Low, 28, will plead with Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Federal District Court in Manhattan today to allow an open trial against Massport, the airlines and security companies in Boston.
Official history excoriates US rebuilding process in Iraq
Sunday, 14 December 2008 6:16 P GMT-05
"Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," the first official account of its kind, is circulating in draft form here and in Washington among technical reviewers, policy analysts, and senior officials. It also concludes that when the reconstruction began to lag - particularly in the critical area of rebuilding the Iraqi police and army - the Pentagon simply put out inflated measures of progress to cover up the failures. In one passage, for example, former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is quoted as saying that in the months after the 2003 invasion, the Defense Department "kept inventing numbers of Iraqi security forces - the number would jump 20,000 a week! 'We now have 80,000, we now have 100,000, we now have 120,000.' "
Wal-Mart workers in Minnesota win $54 million settlement
Saturday, 13 December 2008 6:49 P GMT-05
Some 100,000 current and former hourly employees of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores in Minnesota – and the state of Minnesota itself – will share up to $54 million from the giant retailer under a settlement announced Tuesday. The agreement is the final stage in a wage-and-hour class action suit that put a spotlight on Wal-Mart's practice of having employees work through their rest and meal breaks. In July, Dakota County District Judge Robert King ruled the company committed more than 2 million violations of the Minnesota Fair Labor Standards Act and ordered it to pay $6.5 million in back pay.
Homelessness, hunger on rise in US cities: report
Saturday, 13 December 2008 6:44 P GMT-05
The price of food increased 6.2 percent on average over the last year, the largest increase in nearly 20 years, the report said. And during the 12-month period ending in September for which most of the cities provided data, gasoline (petrol) prices skyrocketed in the United States to reach record highs of more than four dollars per gallon to the consumer, with the price of diesel fuel used by truckers going even higher.
That Was No Small War in Georgia -- It Was the Beginning of the End of the American Empire
Saturday, 13 December 2008 3:49 P GMT-05
But listening to Colonel Konashenko, it becomes clear to me that I'm looking at more than just the smoldering remains of battle in an obscure regional war: This spot is ground zero for an epic historical shift. The dead tanks are American-upgraded, as are the spent 40mm grenade shells that one spetznaz soldier shows me. The bloated bodies on the ground are American-trained Georgian soldiers who have been stripped of their American-issue uniforms. And yet, there is no American cavalry on the way. For years now, everyone from Pat Buchanan to hybrid-powered hippies have been warning that America would suddenly find itself on a historical downslope from having been too reckless, too profligate, and too arrogant as an unopposed superpower. Even decent patriotic folk were starting to worry that America was suffering from a classic case of Celebrity Personality Disorder, becoming a nation of Tom Cruise party-dicks dancing in our socks over every corner and every culture in the world, lip-synching about freedom as we plunged headfirst into as much risky business as we could mismanage. And now, bleeding money from endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're a sick giant hooked on ever-pricier doses of oil paid for with a currency few people want anymore. In the history books of the future, I would wager that this very spot in Tskhinvali will be remembered as both the geographic highwater mark of the American empire, and the place where it all started to fall apart.
Bank blast kills police officer in Oregon
Saturday, 13 December 2008 3:19 P GMT-05
A bomb exploded inside a bank here late Friday afternoon, killing a police officer who arrived to check on a suspicious object and seriously injuring two others. A spokesman for the Oregon State Police, Lt. Gregg Hastings, said a Woodburn police officer died. He did not identify him. He also said the blast seriously injured the Woodburn police chief and a bomb technician with the Oregon State Police. The police chief, Scott Russell, was in surgery at a Portland hospital late Friday, said a hospital spokeswoman. Hastings said Russell was in stable condition.
9/11 Victims' Families Challenge Legitimacy Of Guantanamo Military Commissions
Thursday, 11 December 2008 3:15 P GMT-05
While we support everyone's right to their individual opinions about these proceedings, including, of course, other family members who have suffered the devastation we have, we also feel obliged to make clear that many of us do not believe these military commissions to be fair, in accordance with American values, or capable of achieving the justice that 9/11 family members and all Americans deserve. We believe that the secretive and unconstitutional nature of these proceedings deprive us of the right to know the full truth about what happened on 9/11. These prosecutions have been politically motivated from the start, are designed to ensure quick convictions at the expense of due process and transparency, and are structured to prevent the revelation of abusive interrogations and torture engaged in by the U.S. government. Unfortunately, any verdict borne of these proceedings will lack legitimacy and leave us wondering if true justice has been served. No comfort or closure can come from military commissions that ignore the rule of law and stain America's reputation at home and abroad.
Why Noam Chomsky is Dead Wrong About 911!
Thursday, 11 December 2008 2:46 P GMT-05
Noam, you have, in fact, said that the crime of 911 should not be investigated. If 911 should not be investigated than no crime should be investigated. If no crime should be investigated, then the rule of law means nothing. You have granted to Bush and other known criminals and terrorists arbitrary, illogical and illegal exceptions to the rule of law. The consequences are disastrous. The 'rule of law' applies to all or it applies to none!
Job cuts make holidays bleak
Sunday, 7 December 2008 5:11 P GMT-05
The pace of layoffs around the country is clearly accelerating as we enter the final weeks of a terrible year. There is no good moment to lose your job, but the holiday season is a particularly bitter time to get a pink slip.
Finding words at last for an unspeakable loss
Sunday, 7 December 2008 5:01 P GMT-05
The Lamberts's anguish remains raw from that chilly Friday night when Thibault picked up their children to drive to a sleepover with cousins at her house in Bellingham. Along the way, Thibault crossed the median of I-495, stopped her car in the wrong direction, undressed herself and the two children, and then ran them to their deaths. According to one eyewitness, she was screaming about religion before she was hit. But in the Lamberts's grief, they are searching for whatever clarity they can find and trying to use the information they have begun gathering to prevent the unthinkable from happening to someone else.
A day they'll never forget
Sunday, 7 December 2008 4:48 P GMT-05
The survivors of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor have been decimated by death and disability. And today, when a memorial ceremony is held at the Charlestown Navy Yard, only one survivor is expected to make his way to the fantail of a World War II destroyer to toss a wreath into Boston Harbor. "The ones who won't be there either can't make it or they're dead," said Don Tabbut, 85, a stooped Navy veteran who will step aboard the USS Cassin Young. "I'm still doing my best."
The smell of fear is real, claim scientists
Sunday, 7 December 2008 4:35 P GMT-05
The discovery may help to explain why individuals with phobias such as a fear of flying can infect others who normally exhibit no such worries. The study by Stony Brook University in New York found people who are scared give off "pheromones" - hormones - that subconsciously trigger parts of the brain associated with fear.
Your public servants at work
Sunday, 7 December 2008 4:32 P GMT-05
Several public servants have come under scrutiny in Massachusetts recently for performance that was slightly less than a job well done. Here are a few high profile examples that have gotten a lot of attention.
U.S. Collective Dictatorship Enlarges
Sunday, 7 December 2008 3:43 P GMT-05
We are entering upon a sequence of events that will, in the end, transform the American economy even more than now into a slow-growth, no-growth, inflationary, regulated, stalled, and inefficient economy. It will be a miracle if the Fed’s expansion is brought under control and reduced. The Fed will maintain its lending and even expand it. This can only atrophy both the banking system and the capital markets. Inflationary pressures are bound to build up, and that will lead to economic controls. The Treasury will look for ways to regulate capital markets still further, and this will undermine them. There is no worse signal than the Treasury’s intrusion into maintaining zombie institutions that should fail and be re-organized. This has already happened in the cases of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. This all means that efficient institutions, companies, and persons will be penalized at the expense of the inefficient ones or the deadbeats. More and more will buy tickets to Washington to beg for relief. The end of the road is government control of the means of production. When companies can no longer finance themselves through the standard private means of capital markets and banks, they turn to government. When government can no longer handle the bankruptcies, it seizes the means of production.
Cruel and Unusual: Serving a Death Sentence in a Prison Hospital
Friday, 5 December 2008 8:27 A GMT-05
Johnson was convicted of murder in 1999 and sent to death row. In 2003, his sentence was commuted to 40 years, and on Oct. 30, 2008, Gov. Rod Blagojevich commuted his sentence to time served. This means the state of Illinois has no legal basis for keeping him incarcerated. But now he faces a new challenge: the possibility of extradition to California for different charge. For Gloria, who has been fighting for years to bring her son home for the last months of his life, this would be an unthinkable defeat.
Charges Dropped Against 9/11 Rescue Worker due to Hero Status
Wednesday, 3 December 2008 7:42 P GMT-05
A Long Island judge has dismissed charges of driving under the influence and illegally possessing a weapon against a 9/11 rescue worker, citing the man's status as an "American hero." "The Court notes with admiration the Defendant's lengthy service to his country and to his community, and acknowledges the many letters and documents concerning his outstanding service on September 11, 2001 and his injuries," District Court Judge Paul M. Hensley of Suffolk County wrote in People v. McCormack, 06SU51940. "[T]he Court finds that the Defendant has demonstrated the existence of compelling factors, considerations or circumstances which show that his prosecution or conviction upon the accusatory instruments herein would constitute an injustice."
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff says False-flag Terrorism an Imaginary Threat - Philly 9/11 Truth
Sunday, 30 November 2008 6:19 P GMT-05
Conn. officer accused of brutality
Sunday, 30 November 2008 2:22 P GMT-05
A New Haven police officer is facing two federal lawsuits accusing him of brutality and an illegal strip search, while records show he has been subject to a history of complaints of excessive force.
While Some of Us Are Hoping for Change, Others Are Literally Starving for It
Thursday, 27 November 2008 6:08 P GMT-05
The swelling numbers waiting outside homeless shelters and food pantries around the country, many of them elderly or single women with children, have grown by at least 30 percent since the summer. General welfare recipients receive $140 a month in cash and another $140 in food stamps. This is all many in Trenton and other impoverished areas have to live on. Trenton, a former manufacturing center that has a 20 percent unemployment rate and a median income of $33,000, is a window into our current unraveling. The financial meltdown is plunging the working class and the poor into levels of destitution unseen since the Depression. And as the government squanders taxpayer money in fruitless schemes to prop up insolvent banks and investment houses, citizens are callously thrown onto the street without work, a place to live or enough food.
Cost Of Bailout Hits $8.5 Trillion
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 8:32 P GMT-05
The total amount of funds now committed equals a figure that represents 60 per cent of the U.S. gross domestic product. Millions of Americans with savings accounts and pensions will ultimately pay the price because, as the San Francisco Chronicle admits today, “The Fed lends money from its own balance sheet or by essentially creating new money.”
Surprise: Cops Who Get Tasered Really Don't Like It
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 4:58 P GMT-05
And nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with the police inflicting horrible pain on people on the thinnest of pretexts. As long as there's no permanent damage, there's no harm in it. Heck, even if there is permanent damage, it's the victim's fault for failing to be properly cooperative --- or agreeing to do it as part of their job. You can see why waterboarding is now considered perfectly acceptable. The authorities only use it when they believe they need to (and ok, sometimes just because they're in a bad mood) and it doesn't leave any permanent damage either. No harm no foul. What's the problem?
America's forgotten freedoms
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 4:10 P GMT-05
The study found that no more than 3% of Americans remember “petition” among the First Amendment’s five basic freedoms. However, freedom of speech was remembered by the majority of respondents - 56%. The others freedoms enshrined in the constitution appeared to have made little impression: freedom of religion was named by 15%; the same percentage remembered press freedom as a constitutional right while just 14% knew they had a right to assembly.
Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 1:14 P GMT-05
When asked how Russia should react to his vision of the future, Panarin said: "Develop the ruble as a regional currency. Create a fully functioning oil exchange, trading in rubles... We must break the strings tying us to the financial Titanic, which in my view will soon sink."
Dollar Collapse Has Begun
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 1:12 P GMT-05
There will be hyperinflation on par with that experienced by the Weimar Republic. Gas and food prices will jump up sharply to new highs and keep rising. Meanwhile, Consumer spending on anything outside food and energy will completely collapse, and most retailers will be forced into bankruptcy. Unemployment will soar, and there will be social unrest.
Down on the farm, a frenzy over free food
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 2:55 A GMT-05
They expected between 5,000 and 10,000 people spread out over a couple of days. Instead, they found themselves on Saturday morning inundated with cars and people with sacks and wagons and barrels ready to harvest whatever was available. The Millers canceled the second day of the giveaway originally planned for today because, as Chris Miller put it, "the pickins' are very slim now." At one point, 30 acres of family farmland had become a parking lot. Their crowd estimate of 40,000 plus was based on the number of cars. Sheriff's officials said they "wouldn't be surprised" if that count was accurate.
Iceland Riots Precursor To U.S. Civil Unrest?
Wednesday, 26 November 2008 2:41 A GMT-05
Those who continue to assert, “It can’t happen here,” only need to look at the scenes in Reykjavik to realize that similar events could unfold across the U.S., where the reaction of militarized riot cops and even the military itself may be a little more heavy handed to say the least. With top Russian analysts predicting the breakup of the U.S. into different parts, allied with people like deadly accurate trends forecaster Gerald Celente warning of food riots and tax rebellions, the scenes in Reykjavik may be amplified in the U.S. should a significant portion of the public wake up to the monumental fraud of the bailout and begin to feel the impact of its consequences as we enter 2009.
Mass. home sales rise, but prices fall
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 9:28 P GMT-05
One bright spot: The number of homes sold in October rose nearly 14 percent from October 2007, said the Warren Group, a Boston real estate date firm. The median selling price for a Massachusetts single family home was $285,000 in October, compared with $331,000 in October 2007 and $287,500 in September 2008. Last month, 3,698 single family homes were sold in Massachusetts versus 3,253 in October 2007, the Warren Group said.
Officer allegedly saw killing, fled scene
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 9:23 P GMT-05
Commissioner Edward F. Davis placed Officer Junior Phillips on administrative leave yesterday after internal affairs investigators told him they believed the 36-year-old patrolman was present when Sheldon Andrews was stabbed to death at a Dorchester cookout. Investigators believe Phillips fled before homicide detectives arrived at the scene, police said.
Correction officer accused of raping inmate
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 9:01 P GMT-05
A correction officer has been accused of rape and having sexual relations with a female inmate at the Suffolk House of Correction in Roxbury. Lieutenant Thomas A. Healy, Jr., 41, was held on $1,500 cash bail after his arraignment today in Roxbury Municipal Court. Healy faces charges that also include indecent assault and battery, according to Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley's office.
In Stunning Ruling, D.C. Judge Orders Release of Five Gitmo Prisoners
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 6:28 P GMT-05
Following Judge Richard J. Leon’s decision today in U.S. District Court ordering the release of five of the six Boumediene habeas defendants, Center for Constitutional Rights Executive Director Vincent Warren released the following statement:
Albuquerque police want ad: We need snitches
Tuesday, 25 November 2008 1:31 A GMT-05
An ad this week in the alternative newspaper The Alibi asks "people who hang out with crooks" to do part-time work for the police. It reads in part: "Make some extra cash! Drug use and criminal record OK."
US in deal to rescue Citigroup
Monday, 24 November 2008 1:44 P GMT-05
The complex arrangement, announced jointly by the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., calls for the government to back about $306 billion in loans and securities. The $20 billion cash injection by the Treasury Department will come from the $700 billion financial bailout package. The infusion follows an earlier one of $25 billion in Citigroup in which the government received an ownership stake. The plan, which emerged after a harrowing week in the financial markets and around-the-clock negotiations this past weekend, marks the government's third attempt in as many months to contain the deepening economic crisis.
I'm an American Worker and I'm Tired of Getting Screwed
Saturday, 22 November 2008 10:21 P GMT-05
The American worker doesn't want a handout. Never did. We do want a hand up from our government. We still believe and have hope that this is a government of, by and for the people. We do want to know that our government will finally stand with us against this onslaught, this Robin Hood in reverse, being conducted by the bosses against the workers. The bosses know that W. and McCain have been on their side for the past eight years - and so do we workers. We just want our government to now stand on our side as we stand up against this corporate attempt to create third world working conditions right here in America. Restore our right to fight for a better living for ourselves and our families, and let the power of pissed-off workers, united in struggle, spread corporate America's stolen wealth back into the pockets of those whose pockets got picked these last eight years - the American worker.
General Motors to Invest $1 Billion in Brazil Operations -- Money to Come from U.S. Rescue Program
Saturday, 22 November 2008 9:41 P GMT-05
General Motors plans to invest $1 billion in Brazil to avoid the kind of problems the U.S. automaker is facing in its home market, said the beleaguered car maker. According to the president of GM Brazil-Mercosur, Jaime Ardila, the funding will come from the package of financial aid that the manufacturer will receive from the U.S. government and will be used to "complete the renovation of the line of products up to 2012."
Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat
Saturday, 22 November 2008 6:34 P GMT-05
“Somebody in D.C. was feeding you guys quite a story prior to the bailout, a story that if we didn’t do this we were going to see something on the scale of the depression, there were people talking about martial law being instituted, civil unrest….who was feeding you guys this stuff?,” asked host Pat Campbell. “That’s Henry Paulson,” responded Inhofe, “We had a conference call early on, it was on a Friday I think – a week and half before the vote on Oct. 1. So it would have been the middle … what was it – the 19th of September, we had a conference call. In this conference call – and I guess there’s no reason for me not to repeat what he said, but he said – he painted this picture you just described. He said, ‘This is serious. This is the most serious thing that we faced.’”
Theater of War: Portrait of a Homeland Security State [Photo Slideshow Included]
Saturday, 22 November 2008 6:18 P GMT-05
Nina Berman is an award-winning documentary photographer with a keen interest in America's social and political landscape. Her first book, Purple Hearts: Back From Iraq, is a collection of portraits and interviews of wounded soldiers who have returned home. Her photograph of a severely disfigured Iraq veteran and his bride on their wedding day won the World Press Photo competition for portraiture in 2006. Berman's new book, Homeland, depicts the evolution of the "American security state" from 2001 to 2007. Berman traveled around the country, photographing gun shows, SWAT team training, a public military academy for juvenile delinquents and endless drills and simulations designed to prepare Americans of all ages to respond to someone's idea of a terrorist attack. Berman began the project after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Beaten, Tortured and Sentenced 25-to-Life for Minor Drug Offense
Saturday, 22 November 2008 5:53 P GMT-05
Williams is serving a 25-year-to-life sentence for a "mickey mouse" drug offense that occurred in Albany County back in 1991. Anthony has already served more than 17 years of that sentence, dragged in chains from one maximum-security prison to the next. Though he is among the least of small offenders, he is serving the longest of times. He just can't find his way home from perpetual exile behind thick walls trimmed with razor wire.
Price of Southern California homes falls 41% from peak
Thursday, 20 November 2008 3:27 A GMT-05
The median sales price for homes in the region fell to $300,000 in October, a level not seen since 2003 and a 41% drop from the peak price set in the spring and summer of 2007, according to San Diego-based MDA DataQuick.
US right stymie sensitive medical research
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 6:13 P GMT-05
Among 82 researchers polled by Ms Kempner, who had received money from the NIH, almost a quarter had dropped or reframed studies around sexual behaviour they judged to be politically sensitive, and four had made career changes and left academia as a result of the controversy. Half reframed their studies to avoid work on marginalised populations, or dropped studies they thought would be politically sensitive, such as those on sexual orientation, abortion, childhood sexual abuse, and condom use. One interviewee said: “I do not study sex workers, I study ‘women at risk’.” Almost four-fifths believed NIH funding decisions had become more political under President George W. Bush than under his predecessor Bill Clinton, and more than a third believed they were less likely to receive NIH funding as a result of the controversy.
Cheney, Gonzales Indicted in Texas Prison Case
Wednesday, 19 November 2008 2:42 P GMT-05
Cheney is charged with engaging in an organized criminal activity related to the vice president's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds financial interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees because of his link to the prison companies.
Megan Mitchell, a spokeswoman for Cheney, declined to comment on Tuesday, saying that the vice president had not yet received a copy of the indictment. The indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation in 2006 into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons. Gonzales' attorney, George Terwilliger III, said in a written statement, "This is obviously a bogus charge on its face, as any good prosecutor can recognize." He said he hoped Texas authorities would take steps to stop "this abuse of the criminal justice system."
Steps proposed to ease air travel congestion
Tuesday, 18 November 2008 10:42 P GMT-05
The government is opening some military airspace to ease airline congestion over Thanksgiving and Christmas, though the effort is likely to have only limited results. And if the weather's bad, all bets are off. President George W. Bush announced Tuesday that he's expanding the Thanksgiving express lanes this year to include military air corridors in the Midwest, the Southwest and the West Coast. That's in addition to the East Coast corridors, which were also freed up for holiday traffic last year.
Big Three automakers beg for $25 billion lifeline
Tuesday, 18 November 2008 9:46 P GMT-05
Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., told Wagoner and leaders of Ford and Chrysler that the industry was "seeking treatment for wounds that were largely self-inflicted." Still, he said, "Hundreds of thousands would lose their jobs" if the companies were allowed to collapse.
Exposed: Federal Air Marshals Too Busy Smuggling Coke and Molesting Kids to Protect You
Sunday, 16 November 2008 3:09 A GMT-05
Under government policies, air marshals found guilty of felonies were fired or forced to resign. But 10 air marshals convicted of misdemeanors, mostly drunken driving, were allowed to keep their jobs. And even after notice that background checks were poor, the agency failed to root out air marshals with troubled pasts before they committed felonies.
$50 billion for the auto industry?
Saturday, 15 November 2008 1:50 P GMT-05
Since when is it the government’s job to restructure the auto industry? The auto industry got itself into this mess, and it doesn’t need government or the tax payers to get it out of this mess. That’s how capitalism works people. If a company has made bad executive decisions, that means that they should file for bankruptcy and not have the taxpayers try to bail them out. Also, there will always be another company their to either purchase it or pick up the slack. And besides, what makes the auto makers believe that government could do a better job of restructuring their industry? Politicians aren’t in the industry … let the companies that once enjoyed such great success build on the ingenuity that made them great. The only guarantee you will have from government is mediocrity. In the mean time, all three automakers will be hoping their lobbying efforts pay off, though none of the companies is on track to spend much more than they did last year–perhaps another indicator of their dire financial situation.
Priest: No Communion for Obama voters
Saturday, 15 November 2008 1:35 P GMT-05
The pastor of St. Mary Catholic Church in Greenville, SC, is urging parishioners who voted for Barack Obama not to present themselves for Communion unless they go to confession first because they have cooperated with "intrinsic evil'' by voting for a candidate who supports abortion rights over a candidate who does not. The Rev. Jay Scott Newman told the Greenville News that he doesn't intend to deny anyone Communion, but made it clear that his view is that Obama voters should not present themselves without seeking penance first "lest they eat and drink their own condemnation.''
ACLU wants probe into police-staged DNC protest
Saturday, 15 November 2008 12:41 P GMT-05
When a Jefferson County deputy unleashed pepper spray at unruly protesters on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he did not know that his targets were undercover Denver police officers. Now the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is questioning whether that staged confrontation by police pretending to be violent inflamed other protesters or officers during the most intense night of the four-day event. The protest occurred Aug. 25 at 15th Street and Court Place near Civic Center. Police ultimately arrested 106 people, the highest number of arrests in a single day during the convention.
Put an end to election messes
Friday, 14 November 2008 6:04 P GMT-05
After the 2000 election made the United States look like something out of a Marx Brothers movie, former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter co-chaired a National Election Commission. Their report concluded that the country has one of the most burdensome voter registration systems - and one of the lowest participation rates - in the developed world. Even with the Obama wave, voter turnout this year was only about 61 percent of registered voters. One simple change would solve several problems that have bedeviled recent national elections: universal voter registration. Under this plan, promoted by the watchdog Brennan Center for Justice and others, the government would be responsible for automatically registering citizens when they turn 18. This would eliminate sometimes sketchy private groups, such as ACORN, from the business of registering voters. It would substantially reduce registration challenges - and lawsuits - that can disenfranchise voters. And, by capturing the 28 percent of Americans who are not now registered to vote, it would add almost 50 million voters to the rolls.
Fed won't give info on nearly $2 trillion in loans
Friday, 14 November 2008 12:59 P GMT-05
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn’t require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
Forget Red vs. Blue -- It's the Educated vs. People Easily Fooled by Propaganda
Friday, 14 November 2008 5:08 A GMT-05
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation's population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book. The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
GM Spends $17 Million Per Year on Viagra
Friday, 14 November 2008 12:33 A GMT-05
Lifestyle drugs -- chiefly Viagra -- are costing General Motors $17 million dollars a year and the cost is passed along to car, truck and SUV consumers. The blue pill is covered under GM's labor agreement with United Auto Workers, as well as benefit plans for salaried employees. GM executives estimate health care adds $1,500 to the price of each vehicle but they do not break out how much of the premium is caused by erectile dysfunction expenses. GM provides health care for 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependents and is the world's largest private purchaser of Viagra.
Former Vice President of Dallas Federal Reserve: Failure of the Government to Provide More Information About Bailout Could Signal Corrruption
Thursday, 13 November 2008 3:53 P GMT-05
Gerald O'Driscoll, a former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said he worried that the failure of the government to provide more information about its rescue spending could signal corruption.
Government To Confiscate 401(k)s and IRAs For Mandatory Savings Tax?
Thursday, 13 November 2008 1:15 P GMT-05
Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, testified before Congress last month, proposing that 401(k)s and IRAs be confiscated and converted into universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration. The GRAs would be enforced by means of a mandatory savings tax equating to 5 per cent of an individual’s annual paycheck deposited to the GRA. Social Security and Medicare taxes would still be payable, employers would no longer would be able to write off their contributions and capital gains would be taxable year-on-year. In addition, workers could bequeath only half of their account balances to their heirs, unlike full balances from existing 401(k) and IRA accounts.
For What Did They Die?
Wednesday, 12 November 2008 11:49 P GMT-05
It gets very quiet at The Wall around midnight. The tourists have gone home, and are all tucked into bed. A homeless Vietnam veteran patrols the black granite panels. He tells us that he has cancer and is having a hard time getting any benefits from the Veterans Administration. He lives in a mission that houses those who have nowhere else to go, but the doors don't open until 11 p.m.
Defense: Money motivated informant in Fort Dix case
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 1:27 A GMT-05
Mahmoud Omar, 39, who recorded over 200 conversations with the five men accused of plotting to kill U.S. military personnel at the South Jersey Army base, has been paid $240,000 for helping build the government's case. Today, the second day of Omar's cross-examination, Rocco Cipparone Jr., lawyer for defendant Mohamad Shnewer, endeavored to highlight Omar has benefitted from the FBI's support.
Intellectual Espionage
Tuesday, 11 November 2008 1:12 A GMT-05
A third American war began in the mid-1960s. By its end in 1973 the number of men found noninductible by reason of inability to read safety instructions, interpret road signs, decipher orders, and so on—in other words, the number found illiterate—had reached 27 percent of the total pool. Vietnam-era young men had been schooled in the 1950s and the 1960s—much better schooled than either of the two earlier groups—but the 4 percent illiteracy of 1941 which had transmuted into the 19 percent illiteracy of 1952 had now had grown into the 27 percent illiteracy of 1970. Not only had the fraction of competent readers dropped to 73 percent but a substantial chunk of even those were only barely adequate; they could not keep abreast of developments by reading a newspaper, they could not read for pleasure, they could not sustain a thought or an argument, they could not write well enough to manage their own affairs without assistance.
Stolen Election from Alaska?
Thursday, 6 November 2008 9:19 P GMT-05
Something stinks. You don't care? Obama won. Yes. He. Did! Free at last! Wait. Democracy demands all of the votes be counted... if you can find them. In the balance hangs the fate of Alaska's Senate seat and House seat. We still don't know if we have elected now convicted felon Ted Stevens, or Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. We still don't know if Don Young and his million dollar legal problems will defeat former State Representative Ethan Berkowitz and his dreams of Washington DC. Alaska hasn't had a Democrat represent us in Washington DC since Mike Gravel lost his senate seat in 1980. Four years ago, 313,592 out of 474,740 registered voters in Alaska participated in the election-a 66% turnout. Taking into account 49,000 outstanding ballots, on Tuesday 272,633 out of 495,731 registered Alaskans showed up at the polls; a turnout of 54.9%. That's a decrease of more than 11% in voter turnout even though passions ran high for and against Obama, as well as for and against Sarah Palin! This year, early voters set a new record. As of last Thursday, with 4 days left for early voting, 15,000 Alaskans showed up-shattering the old record set in 2004 by 28%! Consider the most popular governor in history-and now the most polarizing-was on the Republican ticket. Consider the historic nature of this race; the first African American presidential candidate EVER! The second woman to ever make a presidential ticket; and she's one of our own. Despite that, we're supposed to believe that overall participation DECREASED by 11%. This historic election both nationally and for Alaska Had the lowest Alaska turnout for a presidential race ever!!! That makes sense. Really??? Something stinks.
Exalting Atrocity: The GOP's Torturer-American Candidate
Thursday, 30 October 2008 6:30 P GMT-05
So what will be left of the Republican Party after next week's US election? The answer lies in the sands of Florida, where the sunshine-state Republicans have nominated an unrepentant torturer as their candidate for Congress. They view his readiness to torture an innocent Iraqi not as a source of shame, but as his prime qualification for office. This is American conservatism in the dying days of Bush – and it points out the direction that Sarah Palin would like to take it in 2012. In August 2003, Colonel Allen West – commanding a US unit in Baghdad – heard a rumour that one of the Iraqi policeman he was working with was a secret insurgent. He ordered his officers to go and seize Yehiya Hamoodi, a thin, bespectacled 31-year-old, from his home. They dragged him into a Humvee, beat him, and then handcuffed, shackled and blindfolded him. In a dank interrogation room, they told him he had better start talking. Perplexed and terrified, Yehiya explained he didn't know what they were talking about: why was he here? So West was called in. He told Yehiya he was going to be killed. While his men beat him again, he explained he had one last chance to save his life – by talking.
Don't tell my mother I work at the White House. She thinks I play the piano in a whore house.
Thursday, 30 October 2008 6:19 P GMT-05
And who has John McCain been palling around with? Who has been co-chair of McCain’s New York campaign and a foreign policy adviser to McCain himself? None other than the illustrious unindicted war criminal and mass murderer Henry Kissinger, who must be very careful when he travels to Europe for there are committed and serious people in several countries there who will again try to have him arrested for the crimes against humanity he’s responsible for … Chile … Angola … East Timor … Vietnam … Laos … Cambodia … By contrast, there is no evidence that Bill Ayers was involved in any Weathermen bombing that killed anyone; nor have I seen any evidence that on the very rare occasion that an anti-Vietnam War bombing in the United States resulted in a casualty that it could be ascribed to the Weathermen.
Web of Debt - Dollar Deception: How Banks Secretly Create Money
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 11:42 P GMT-05
Don't believe banks create the money they lend? Neither did the jury in a landmark Minnesota case, until they heard the evidence. First National Bank of Montgomery vs. Daly (1969) was a courtroom drama worthy of a movie script.3 Defendant Jerome Daly opposed the bank's foreclosure on his $14,000 home mortgage loan on the ground that there was no consideration for the loan. "Consideration" ("the thing exchanged") is an essential element of a contract. Daly, an attorney representing himself, argued that the bank had put up no real money for his loan. The courtroom proceedings were recorded by Associate Justice Bill Drexler, whose chief role, he said, was to keep order in a highly charged courtroom where the attorneys were threatening a fist fight. Drexler hadn't given much credence to the theory of the defense, until Mr. Morgan, the bank's president, took the stand. To everyone's surprise, Morgan admitted that the bank routinely created money "out of thin air" for its loans, and that this was standard banking practice. "It sounds like fraud to me," intoned Presiding Justice Martin Mahoney amid nods from the jurors. In his court memorandum, Justice Mahoney stated:
Foreclosure Alley
Tuesday, 28 October 2008 11:23 P GMT-05
SoCal Connected tracked down some surreal sights associated with the crisis - a company that specializes in removing whatever people leave behind in their foreclosed homes. The process is called a “trashout” - a term the company came up with because it perfectly describes what happens. Everything that’s left is dumped in a trailer and taken to the landfill.
Then there’s the guy who started a business to spray-paint dead lawns. That’s right. He paints brown lawns green. We also tag along with a couple of code enforcement officers who are spending more and more of their time having to drain slimy, abandoned pools.
Two Victories for Advocates of Life
Monday, 27 October 2008 11:36 P GMT-05
On Thursday, the Texas Criminal Court of Appeals stopped the scheduled execution of Bobby Woods because of overwhelming evidence that he is mentally retarded. The following day in Atlanta, a federal appeals court granted a stay to Troy Davis, who was set to be executed on Monday night. Davis's case, which has garnered international attention, will now return to litigation for at least another 25 days.
Justice Department Pressed by Bush to Contest 200,000 Ohio Voters
Monday, 27 October 2008 9:46 P GMT-05
As the 2008 presidential election heads into its final week, the current president threw a political wild card on table late Friday, when he asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate the status of 200,000 Ohio voters. George W. Bush's request, if honored, could be politically explosive. It would remind voters of the Department of Justice's partisan abuses of power in the scandal surrounding the firing of seven U.S. attorneys in 2006 who did not deliver 'voter fraud' convictions.
Grieving father says he gave son, 8, permissionto fire Uzi
Monday, 27 October 2008 9:11 P GMT-05
As Bizilj reached for his camera, the boy clutched the gun in his arms and squeezed the trigger. The Uzi flipped backwards and 8-year-old Christopher Bizilj fatally shot himself in the head.
Md. teen pleads guilty to killing family
Monday, 27 October 2008 9:07 P GMT-05
Nicholas Browning, 16, of Cockeysville pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder in the February slayings of John W. Browning, 45; Tamara, 44; Gregory, 14, and Benjamin, 11. Browning wept in court as prosecutors described the crime. A sheriff's deputy brought him a box of tissues, and Browning wiped his eyes and blew his nose. In exchange for the plea, prosecutors will not seek a sentence of life without parole. Instead, they will seek a maximum of two consecutive and two concurrent life sentences, meaning Browning could eventually be released on parole. Under state law, he would serve at least 23 years behind bars.
ATF disrupts skinhead plot to assassinate Obama
Monday, 27 October 2008 8:59 P GMT-05
In court records unsealed Monday, federal agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target a predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the school by name. Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville field office for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said the two men planned to shoot 88 black people and decapitate another 14. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community. The men also sought to go on a national killing spree, with Obama as its final target, Cavanaugh told The Associated Press. "They said that would be their last, final act -- that they would attempt to kill Sen. Obama," Cavanaugh said. "They didn't believe they would be able to do it, but that they would get killed trying." An Obama spokeswoman traveling with the senator in Pennsylvania had no immediate comment. The men, Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman 18, of West Helena, Ark., are being held without bond. Agents seized a rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and three pistols from the men when they were arrested. Authorities alleged the two men were preparing to break into a gun shop to steal more.
Sept. 11 First Responders To Visit W. Va. School
Monday, 27 October 2008 8:41 P GMT-05
John Feal, founding president of the FealGood Foundation and a demolition expert who worked at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, will bring his message to Upshur County students and residents on Friday, Oct. 24. Feal and up to seven other first responders will meet with students at Buchannon Upshur High School beginning at 8:30 a.m. The group will meet with the community later in the day. Feal, like 70 percent of 9/11 workers, suffers from post-9/11 illnesses. One of his feet had to be amputated after being crushed by an eight-ton steel beam. He also suffers from a respiratory syndrome called World Trade Center Cough and posttraumatic stress disorder. Feal agreed to visit West Virginia after some Buckhannon-Upshur High School students contacted him via e-mail after watching a documentary in health educator Mateal Poling’s class. The documentary, Save the Brave, chronicles the daily struggles of 9/11 Ground Zero workers in the seven years since the attacks. Greg Quibell, one of the men featured, died of his injuries the day before the film’s premiere in New York. “You have no idea how excited they were when Feal replied -- me too,” Poling said. “It is hard to imagine that these kids were only first and second graders on 9/11, but thanks to Feal’s efforts, our students are starting to have a better understanding of the profound effects of that day.”
Families of the Victims Tortured by Chicago Detectives Rejoice at First Arrest
Monday, 27 October 2008 7:28 P GMT-05
Jon Burge might have gotten away with torture altogether if it weren't for the case of Andrew Wilson. Wilson was arrested on Valentines Day, 1982, for the killing of two police officers, William Fahey and Richard O'Brien. That night, after spending hours being interrogated at Area Two, where he ultimately confessed to the crime, he was admitted to Chicago's Mercy Hospital with multiple injuries, including lacerations to his face, bruises to his chest, and second degree burns to one thigh. The next year, Wilson was convicted for the murders and sentenced to death, but the Illinois Supreme Court overturned the conviction, based on the fact that he had been apparently abused by police. The court's opinion cited Wilson's testimony at a pretrial hearing, where he described being "punched, kicked, smothered with a plastic bag, electrically shocked and forced against a hot radiator throughout the day until he confessed." Wilson was convicted a second time for the same crime, in 1988, and given a life sentence. In 1989 he filed a civil suit against Jon Burge and four other police officers.
Most Major Papers Continue Circ Decline
Monday, 27 October 2008 7:00 P GMT-05
According to ABC for the 507 newspapers reporting in this period, daily circulation slipped 4.6% to 38,165,848 copies. For the 571 papers, Sunday dropped 4.8% to 43,631,646 copies. For comparison purposes, in September 2007 reporting period, daily circ fell 2.6% and Sunday was down 4.6%. Across the country, publishers have put in place plans to cater to core readers and subscribers. It's too expensive to bulk up circulation in unprofitable areas such as third-party, newspapers in education, and bonus day copies. Not in the core market defined by the newspaper? You are out of luck, at least for the print edition.
Oysters should love that dirty water
Monday, 27 October 2008 12:30 A GMT-05
Yesterday's colony of seed oysters should grow at an inch per year. If they're lucky, they'll live as long as a decade. As it eats, an oyster can filter 30 gallons of water per day, Jay said. The shellfish potentially stand to process 3 million gallons of sewage-tainted liquid every 24 hours, slowly purifying the Charles.
Gasoline prices in steepest drop ever
Monday, 27 October 2008 12:29 A GMT-05
The national average price for a gallon of self-serve, regular unleaded gas was $2.7785 on October 24, a decline of about 53 cents per gallon in the past two weeks, according to the survey of some 7,000 gas stations. Gasoline is now about a penny cheaper than it was a year ago, and about $1.33 less than it was at a record peak in July.
Mass. man revived, wife jumps from burning NH home
Sunday, 26 October 2008 7:17 P GMT-05
A Massachusetts man was revived after being pulled unconscious and not breathing from his burning seasonal home in Sanbornton, N.H., early Sunday after his wife jumped from a second-floor window to call for help. Fire Chief John DeSilva said a firefighter using a thermal imaging camera found Robert Livoti of Waltham, Mass., with little time to spare. Rescuers revived him outside. "They were able to bring him back," he said. The chief said the camera made all the difference in the blinding and deadly smoke.
ACLU highlights 'Constitution-Free Zone' 100 miles from border
Sunday, 26 October 2008 3:30 P GMT-05
The ACLU says a "Constitution-free zone" exists within 100 miles of the US border, where DHS claims the authority to stop, search and detain anyone for any reason. Nearly two-thirds of the US population lives within 100 miles of the border, according to the ACLU, and the border zone encompasses scores of major metropolitan areas and even entire states.
DHS Checkpoint Video Blog Day 5: The Gang's All Here
Sunday, 26 October 2008 3:24 P GMT-05
This was the fifth time in three weeks I've been stopped & seized at this checkpoint absent reasonable suspicion. Normally, there are only three or four agents present with two patrol vehicles parked nearby. This time the scenario were dramatically different. Present were no less than twelve agents visible at any given time along with six Homeland Security vehicles lining the entry to the checkpoint. There was also a large United States flag flying over one of the trailers - something that hasn't been present before. Perhaps the agents were hoping the large American flag would somehow mask their un-American activities.
9/11 Truth Candidate's TV Ad
Friday, 24 October 2008 11:04 A GMT-05
This ad will be shown on CNN News and on other cable channels in California's 14th District where Carol Brouillet is the Green Party Candidate for Congress.
Midwest high school copes with HIV scare
Friday, 24 October 2008 3:40 A GMT-05
Students at a suburban St. Louis high school headed to the gymnasium for HIV testing this week after an infected person told health officials as many as 50 teenagers might have been exposed to the virus that causes AIDS.
Democrats: Veterans to be 'dumped onto the streets'
Thursday, 23 October 2008 11:12 A GMT-05
While Gov. Sonny Perdue took part in a ceremony Wednesday to honor veterans, Democrats criticized the state’s decision to close a Georgia War Veterans Home facility in Milledgeville to save money. Dale Parham, 67, a former U.S. Marine who lives at the home, told reporters after Wednesday’s ceremony that he doesn’t know where he’ll go when the domiciliary unit is closed Nov. 30. Neither do many of the 81 veterans who live in the facility. “A lot of them (the veterans) have been there 10, 15 years,” Parham said. “They don’t know what to do.”
Copper thefts leave youth sports scrambling for field time, answers
Thursday, 23 October 2008 11:07 A GMT-05
In the past five years, copper prices have risen about 300 percent, from about a dollar a pound at scrap yards in 2005 to more than $4 a pound earlier this year. "When it was around a dollar a pound, metal theft wasn't something we dealt with too often. Now, it consumes about 85 to 90 percent of our time," said Sgt. Walt Reed of the Kern County Sheriff's Department in California. His jurisdiction covers 100 square miles of the county in California's central valley, the heartland of the state's agricultural production. Kern County's vast geography makes it difficult for Reed's force to patrol tracts of farmland. It's a magnet for scrap thieves drawn to the metal in irrigation pipes, water pumps and diesel motors. Reed estimated that about 90 percent of the suspects arrested for metal theft turn out to be addicted to the stimulant methamphetamine.
Mass. fears a gap in census
Thursday, 23 October 2008 11:02 A GMT-05
More than 900,000 immigrants live in Massachusetts, 14 percent of the population, according to 2006 estimates. About 1 in 5 immigrants is here illegally.
16 Words: New Court Filing Suggests Manufactured Terror Threat in Bush's 2002 State of the Union
Tuesday, 21 October 2008 11:04 A GMT-05
A new court filing by the lawyers for Lakhdar Boumediene and five other Guantanamo detainees suggests that the Bush administration ordered the Bosnian government to arrest and hold the men after an exhaustive Bosnian investigation had found them innocent of any terrorism related activity and had ordered their release, in order to use them as props in Bush's January 2002 State of the Union speech. The filing--"Lakhdar Boumediene, et al., Petitioners, v. George W. Bush, President of the United States, et al., Respondents, Petitioners' Public Traverse to the Government's Return to the Petition for Habeas Corpus"--lays out the case that the Bush administration threatened at the highest levels to withdraw diplomatic and military aid to the Balkan nation if Bosnia released the men, which its own three-month investigation had found innocent of any terrorism charges in the days leading up to Bush's January 2002 State of the Union.
Arson, Suicide, and Murder Mark the Economic Crisis, and We're Not Hearing About it
Monday, 20 October 2008 10:48 A GMT-05
Suicide is, however, just one type of extreme act for which the financial meltdown has seemingly been the catalyst. Since the beginning of the year, stories of resistance to eviction, armed self-defense, canicide, arson, self-inflicted injury, murder, as well as suicide, especially in response to the foreclosure crisis, have bubbled up into the local news, although most reports have gone unnoticed nationally -- as has any pattern to these events.
In the Public Spotlight, Chicago, IL and the Web: the Legitimacy of 9/11 Questions
Thursday, 16 October 2008 11:15 A GMT-05
North Shore Democratic congressional candidate Dan Seals' campaign on Tuesday defended using an Iraq War veteran with ties to the 9/11 conspiracy movement in a new TV ad attacking Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk for supporting the war. Seals spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith said she didn't "really see what is so controversial" about using Caleb Davis in the ad. Davis, 25, is a Peoria native who spent five months in Iraq as an Army diver and got an honorable discharge in 2004. Last June, the Peoria Journal Star reported that Davis wore a black T-shirt proclaiming "Investigate 9/ 11@911truth.org" while sitting at a table at a Peoria library where books, fliers and DVDs supporting conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks were on display. The organization argues the government's version of the terrorist attacks is fraudulent and offers a "Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story" and an "Official Coverup Guide." Kirk, who was in the Pentagon when the airplane crashed into it Sept. 11, 2001, called on Seals to stop airing the ad. "I am disappointed that you would center your campaign on a spokesman who believes the U.S. government murdered nearly 3,000 of its own citizens," Kirk said in his Monday letter to Seals, a Wilmette resident who is challenging Kirk again after coming close in 2006. Smith said Tuesday that Seals has no plans to pull the ad and said the focus should be on the ad's contention that Kirk supported the war and hasn't done enough to help veterans. The 30-second ad does not identify Davis by name. Seals' media consultant Ann Liston, whose firm produced the ad, said the campaign "could have, but we felt he is one soldier, but he also represents the voice of many. It was more of a choice, than a strategic decision." Davis declined to talk to the Tribune. In an e-mail released through the Seals campaign, Davis denied any official affiliation with members of 911truth.org. He also said he does not doubt that Al Qaeda terrorists were responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Why this bailout is as bad as the last one
Thursday, 16 October 2008 3:45 A GMT-05
The Treasury Department's decision to take equity stakes in banks represents a significant reversal, coming just weeks after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had opposed the idea. In a momentous meeting yesterday afternoon in Washington, Paulson, flanked by top financial regulators, told the executives of nine leading banks that they needed to participate in the program for the good of the national economy, two industry sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
U.S. Forces Nine Major Banks To Accept Partial Nationalization
Thursday, 16 October 2008 3:20 A GMT-05
The Treasury Department's decision to take equity stakes in banks represents a significant reversal, coming just weeks after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had opposed the idea. In a momentous meeting yesterday afternoon in Washington, Paulson, flanked by top financial regulators, told the executives of nine leading banks that they needed to participate in the program for the good of the national economy, two industry sources said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Paul added to Louisiana presidential ballot
Monday, 13 October 2008 1:40 P GMT-05
Paul has been added to the Louisiana ballot on the top of the Louisiana Taxpayers Party ticket with Barry Goldwater, Jr., a former Republican congressman from California and the son of the late Barry Goldwater, the Republican presidential nominee in 1964. Paul and Goldwater are on the ballot due partly to the efforts of an Alexandria man, Brent Sanders. Sanders, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully in the past as a Libertarian for both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Louisiana House of Representatives, helped create the Louisiana Taxpayers Party to place Paul on the ballot.
These Are the Times That Try Men's Souls
Sunday, 12 October 2008 5:16 P GMT-05
Since we have been abandoned by our government, we must collectively focus upon a peaceful method to modify our government to one which more attentively considers the needs and protection of all voters, whether Republican, Democrat, Reform, Libertarian, Green or Independent. An intolerant, non responsive and repressive government cannot endure. The choice is whether political change results from a violent revolution or a peaceful evolution, from a revolt or an evolt. One way we can regain control of our government is to require it to hold a National Policy Referendum every four years when we vote for our president. Such a referendum would not make law; rather the purpose would be to express the collective policy of the people through their answers to the major political questions that should most concern the new administration and Congress during their terms of office.
Manatee rescued in Dennis
Sunday, 12 October 2008 5:04 P GMT-05
Within an hour, using a mooring barge and a forklift, they hauled the torpid animal -- whose temperature had fallen 20 degrees below normal -- into a waiting Penske moving truck, where they readied him for a long drive to Sea World in Orlando, Fla. where he was to be rehabilitated. The manatee, who had become a celebrity in recent days on Cape Cod, was the first ever to make it this far north, straying far from its usual habitat off of Florida and the southeastern United States.
America as we have known it and loved it is finished
Friday, 10 October 2008 3:00 A GMT-05
America is falling apart and the election of a new President beholden to special interests and corporate cash is not going to save the country, but only hasten its demise. Having bet on both horses it is a win-win situation for the wealthy elite, but a sure loser for the rest of us. America, as we have known and loved it, is finished!
Mass. judge rejects Holocaust memoir lawsuit
Friday, 10 October 2008 2:49 A GMT-05
A woman who admitted fabricating a best-selling memoir about surviving the Holocaust as a child by living with wolves has won a court battle with her former publisher. Misha Defonseca's 1997 book, "Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years," was translated into 18 languages, made into a feature film in France, and drew interest from the Walt Disney Co. and Oprah Winfrey. After Defonseca admitted earlier this year that she had made up the story, her former publisher, Jane Daniel, sued to try to overturn a $32.4 million court judgment Defonseca and her ghost writer, Vera Lee, won against her in an earlier fight over profits. Daniel argued that because the story was false, Defonseca "perpetrated a hoax" on the trial judge and the jury. But this week, Middlesex Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley threw out Daniel's lawsuit because she did not file it within a one-year statute of limitations.
ABC: NSA agents admit spying on Americans' private calls
Friday, 10 October 2008 1:32 A GMT-05
When asked about President Bush's statement that the intercepts were directed only at known al-Qaeda suspects, Kinne stated, "That is completely a lie." She said that military officers, journalists, and Red Cross workers were among the people whose calls she transcribed. Faulk told ABC that certain calls were even passed around among the intercept operators like office jokes. "I was told, 'Hey, check this out, there's some good phone sex.' ... It was there, stored the way you'd look at songs on your iPod."
Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States
Friday, 10 October 2008 12:48 A GMT-05
A nice interactive way to see the dynamics of the housing loans - and, consequently, of the current crisis. -BE
Keene artist had hard time getting back into US
Friday, 10 October 2008 12:37 A GMT-05
Keene Valley resident Jerilea Zempel was detained at the U.S. border this summer because she had a drawing of a sport-utility vehicle in her sketchbook. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told Zempel they suspected her of copyright infringement.
U.S. Army prepares to invade U.S.
Friday, 10 October 2008 12:04 A GMT-05
The plans to implement martial law in America have been taking shape for decades, hidden behind "Continuity of Government" contingency planning. Now, with public outcry over the banker bailout bill at fever pitch, all of the pieces are in place for the U.S. Army to start policing American citizens. For more information and analysis, please visit http://www.corbettreport.com
3 charged in Pikesville vandalism
Thursday, 9 October 2008 3:21 P GMT-05
A 19-year-old member of Baltimore Hebrew Congregation was being held yesterday after being charged in connection with the spray-painting of a swastika and the word "Nazis" at the synagogue in Pikesville. Matthew Ian Saunders, whose family worships at the temple, and two other young Jewish men - Daniel Alexander Diaz, 19, and a 17-year-old who was not identified by police - were charged with two counts of destruction of property and damaging the property of a religious entity.
Judge orders 17 freed from Guantanamo
Thursday, 9 October 2008 3:08 P GMT-05
Federal District Judge Ricardo Urbina called the detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of the 17 prisoners - ethnic Uighurs, a restive Muslim minority in western China - unlawful, saying the Constitution prohibits indefinite imprisonment without charges.
McCain linked to group in Iran-Contra affair
Wednesday, 8 October 2008 6:46 A GMT-05
The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman. McCain's tie to Singlaub's council is undergoing renewed scrutiny after his presidential campaign criticized Barack Obama for his link to William Ayers, a former radical who engaged in violent acts 40 years ago. Over the weekend, Democratic operative Paul Begala said on ABC's "This Week" that this "guilt by association" tactic could backfire on the McCain campaign by renewing discussion of McCain's service on the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, "an ultraconservative right-wing group."
THE ESSENTIAL LESSONS OF THE ROSENBERG CASE
Tuesday, 7 October 2008 12:23 A GMT-05
The central lesson of this episode is that our government abused its power in dangerous ways that remain relevant today. Those in power targeted our parents, making them the focus of the public’s Cold War-era fear and anger. They manufactured testimony and evidence. They arrested our mother simply as leverage to get our father to cooperate. They used the ultimate weapon — the threat of death — to try to extort a confession. They created the myth that there was a key “secret” of the atomic bomb, and then devised a strategy to make it appear that our father had sought and passed on that “secret.” They executed our father when he refused to collaborate in this lie. They executed our mother as well, even though they knew that she was not an active participant in any espionage activities.
$700 billion is nothing
Sunday, 5 October 2008 4:21 P GMT-05
Voters are rightly furious at the proposal to spend $700,000,000,000 that the government doesn't have to bail out Wall Street bankers who created the current economic crisis in the first place. But why then aren't we concerned about the trillions of dollars the Federal Reserve is pumping into the system? Or the trillions missing from the Pentagon? Or the quadrillion dollar derivatives bubble. For more news and economic analysis, visit: http://www.corbettreport.com
California approves nurse-assisted suicide
Sunday, 5 October 2008 3:43 P GMT-05
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially approved an assisted-suicide measure allowing nurses to sedate, dehydrate and starve depressed or confused individuals they consider to be "terminally ill." The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Patty Berg, a Democrat, passed the California Assembly Aug. 28, and the state Senate Aug. 20. It was signed by the governor yesterday. The legislation, called the "Terminal Patients' Right to Know End of Life Options Act," or AB 2747, passed by a 42 to 34 vote. An Aug. 20 Senate vote of 21 to 17 ushered the measure to the governor's desk for signing. Randy Thomasson, chief of the Campaign for Children and Families, said the legislation is dangerous and should have been vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger. "AB 2747 pushes suicide through the back door at the hands of non-physicians taking advantage of depressed patients," he said in a statement. "AB 2747 cheapens the value of human life by endorsing suicide as an option."
At home with the Palins: 'struggling working-class Americans' worth $1.2m
Sunday, 5 October 2008 3:33 P GMT-05
But the Palin family income reached comfortably into six figures in her 2007 declaration, capitalising on valuable salmon fishing rights and a series of property deals. Her governor's salary brought in $125,000 (£71,000), while her husband Todd earned almost $100,000 from his part-time job at BP, combined with income from commercial fishing. The couple appeared to be worth at least $1.2m, including a $500,000 lakefront home, a Piper float-plane and two holiday getaways. That probably does not seem like struggling to the average American family living on less than $50,000 a year and trying to pay off credit card debts of $9,840 (Mrs Palin has none).
Has Sarah Palin Been Picked as the Titular Head of the Coming Police State?
Sunday, 5 October 2008 2:52 P GMT-05
I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit -- but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain. Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas -- this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing. Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protege Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.
Two weeks after AIG bailout, execs party in style (!!!)
Sunday, 5 October 2008 2:43 P GMT-05
Less than two weeks after Uncle Sam gave American International Group (AIG) an $85 billion loan - staving off financial collapse - execs from one of its insurance subsidiaries, AIG American General, gathered for a conference at the uber-swank St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort, billed as “California’s only Mobil Travel Guide Five-Star Resort,” where ocean-view rooms start at $565 a night and “world class luxury” is the rule.
Boston Tea Party, 2008
Sunday, 5 October 2008 5:47 A GMT-05
How dare you throw that tea into Boston Harbor! Such is the anti-democratic arrogance of the fear-mongering pundits and politicians who tell us if we taxpayers don’t instantly give the Wall Street banking bandits a $700-billion bailout, we are destroying America. Instead of applauding representatives from both parties who, for once, heeded the public rather than the fat cats, the established pundits blasted those who dared get out of line. It was a time for some of the best commentators to fail and, as much as I hate to admit it, for Lou Dobbs, and even Newt Gingrich, to shine. Dobbs called it correctly: The sky is not falling, there is time for reasoned debate, and why isn’t the public being listened to? Gingrich put it best when he said short-circuiting serious congressional oversight over an enormous transfer of taxpayer dollars to an industry is “un-American.” Others, with whom I typically am in far greater agreement, just rolled over to give the bankers what they demanded.
Obama gaining crucial ground
Sunday, 5 October 2008 5:42 A GMT-05
The McCain campaign's decision this week to abandon Democratic-leaning Michigan is the most obvious and dramatic sign, a major tactical retreat that limits the ways he can reach the magic number of 270 electoral votes on Nov. 4.
National debt topped $10 trill this week
Sunday, 5 October 2008 5:26 A GMT-05
There were no fireworks so a lot of people probably missed it. We even forgot to mention it here on The Swamp when it happened though we saw the reports. Anyway, on the last day of September, the national debt hit $10 trillion plus.
Income tax opponents rally at Faneuil Hall
Sunday, 5 October 2008 4:31 A GMT-05
Nine other states have no income tax -- Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Washington, and Wyoming, according to the Internal Revenue Service. In 2002, a similar ballot measure gained 45 percent of the vote, a level of support that stunned many political observers.
The Bailout in Plain English
Saturday, 4 October 2008 8:33 P GMT-05
Any number of cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favor. And over the past couple of decades he has had a downright love fest with the already-rich. So much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away that the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion bucks. This was accomplished by selling off or shipping out ever available asset, from jobs to seaports, smashing usury and anti-monopoly laws, raiding the public coffers and manipulating the medium of exchange and blackmailing the peasantry regarding common needs such as heath care and energy to keep their asses warm -- to name a few. The ultimate coup was to convince the entire nation that the well being of the rich, meaning the well being of Wall Street, was indeed the common man's well being. All went well for a while. People went into credit card hock up to their noses in order to provide 26% credit card interest to Wall Street, etc. And when that became untenable, flimsy mortgages were cranked out by the millions ensuring that every American who could hold a crayon could sign to purchase a home. To facilitate this all sorts of shaky 'mortgage instruments' were created -- balloon, (sign here Jeeter, you're gonna flip it in a year and make a hundred K on this house trailer) interest only, and finally negative balance mortgages where you only paid part of the interest and the rest was rolled back into the principal balance. And joy of joys you could refinance a couple of times while the inflated value of these houses was on the way up. Life was good for everybody.
Food Stamp Participation Increases As Economy Slows
Saturday, 4 October 2008 5:45 P GMT-05
The latest federal statistics indicate that nationally, participation in the low-income nutrition supplement program rose from 28.08 million in April to 29.05 million in July, the last month for which the figures are available, a department spokeswoman said.
Shock and Awe: Bipartisan Beltway Terrorists Launch Economic 9/11 on the American People
Saturday, 4 October 2008 5:38 P GMT-05
There were many viable, reasonable, eminently centrist alternatives to the radical, plutocratic Bush-Obama scam -- alternatives which would have been politically palatable to a broad spectrum of the electorate. One of the best ones of this ilk that I've seen was outlined in the eminently mainstream Washington Post earlier this week by two eminently respectable Yale economists. (You can find it here.) There were many other such practical and effective plans offered by reputable experts, any one of which could have gone a long way toward protecting ordinary citizens now exposed by the meltdown, supporting the banks, and stabilizing the markets -- all without effecting one of the largest single redistributions of wealth since the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in 1917. None of these plans were considered or debated or even mentioned, not even for a single moment, by the Democratic leadership in the House and Senate. Instead, they joined the Republican leadership and the Bush Administration in repeating, over and over, the Big Lie that there was NO OTHER CHOICE but some basic version of the unworkable Bush plan. The Democrats -- led by Barack Obama -- not only threw a political lifeline to the most despised president in American history (in the middle of an election year!), they deliberately took ownership of a measure widely rejected by the American public -- a class war weapon of mass destruction whose malign effects will reverberate through American society for years, perhaps generations to come.
9/11 Truth Holds One-Year Anniversary Meeting
Saturday, 4 October 2008 5:28 P GMT-05
People from throughout the Des Moines area, as far as Ames, Ankeny and Altoona, signed their names to a mailing list in the lobby, all curious about what the group's about. In fact, almost 200 people filled the seats to watch "Zero: An Investigation Into 9-11" on the big screen, which inspired an uproarious applause when the lights came on. The documentary film, produced by Italian company Telemaco, explores witness testimonies backed by scientific evidence which directly conflicts with the U.S. government's account of 9-11. In the film, interviewees, ranging from college professors, architects, a Nobel-prize winner and eye-witness survivors, tell a different tale than the "9-11 Commissioners Report."
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) Says Congress Threatened with Martial Law If Bailout Bill Is Not Passed
Saturday, 4 October 2008 5:12 P GMT-05
For bailout to work, housing market needs to mend
Saturday, 4 October 2008 5:01 P GMT-05
Washington's financial bailout plan is now law. So the credit spigot will start flowing again, banks will resume lending, and an economic recovery can begin, right? Wrong. Experts say the most important thing that needs to happen before the $700 billion bailout even has a chance of working: Home prices must stop falling. That would send a signal to banks that the worst has passed and it's safe to start doling out money again.
Fannie Mae forgives loan for woman who shot herself
Saturday, 4 October 2008 2:43 P GMT-05
Addie Polk, 90, of Akron, Ohio, became a symbol of the nation's home mortgage crisis when she was hospitalized after shooting herself at least twice in the upper body Wednesday afternoon. On Friday, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith said the mortgage association had decided to halt action against Polk and sign the property "outright" to her. "We're going to forgive whatever outstanding balance she had on the loan and give her the house," Faith said. "Given the circumstances, we think it's appropriate." Residents of Akron have rallied behind Polk, who is being treated at Akron General Medical Center. She was listed in critical condition Friday afternoon, according to Akron City Council President Marco Sommerville.
Bailout Bill Passes the Senate
Thursday, 2 October 2008 11:49 P GMT-05
The bill also allows the FDIC to borrow an unlimited amount of money from the Treasury Department until the end of next year to cover the increased insurance limit.
Pride
Wednesday, 1 October 2008 3:11 A GMT-05
For a long time now, powerful people have been able to control public opinion and pass rushed legislation with visions of boogeymen under our beds. They’ve used our fear to convince us to abandon our core principles. Yesterday, I found out that it’s still OK to have faith in Joe Average. He has been thinking of all the different things he has allowed to happen in the last few years, and he’s ashamed of them. We’re all ashamed of them. Polls show that anywhere between 70 to 90 percent of Americans are opposed to the “bailout package”, while CNN screams at us about how VERY, VERY AFRAID we should be. We’re not certain about what’s best economically, but we are not going to be manipulated by fear. We’re willing to look down the gun barrel and tell our representatives - and our own children - that the market is supposed to be free, that hard work is supposed to be the key to success, and that it’s time the people resumed the ultimate responsibility for the government this country, and we will do so even if it’s painful and difficult.
Putin Promises $50Bln For Banks
Wednesday, 1 October 2008 3:05 A GMT-05
The liquidity boost comes in addition to a $130 billion crisis package comprising loans to banks, tax cuts and delayed tax payments. The government was forced into action by investor flight triggered by last month's five-day war in Georgia, a drop in commodity prices and the seizure in global capital markets after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. "Psychologically, this is very much needed," said Natalya Orlova, chief economist at Alfa Bank. "It will help restore confidence in the interbank market."
Exit Tax for U.S. Expatriates Becomes Law
Wednesday, 1 October 2008 2:33 A GMT-05
Giving up a U.S. passport can carry a steep price tag. A new law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by the President will subject certain individuals, who expatriate or give up their green cards, to immediate tax on the inherent gain on all of their worldwide assets and a tax on future gifts or bequests made to a U.S. citizen or resident.
Wall Street Bailout Takes Us Back to the U.S.S.R.
Sunday, 28 September 2008 3:15 P GMT-05
Amerika, like other socialist nations, also has its share of faux converts and unconvincing agitprop. John "I am fundamentally a deregulator" McCain has suddenly gone French, embracing regulation with the zeal of a beret-wearing Parisian reciting "Das Kapital" in a left bank coffeehouse (call him Monsieur Jean McCain, s'il vous plait). CNBC's Larry Kudlow justifies kleptocratic socialism by absolving the financial elite and blaming the meltdown on that all-powerful Poor People Lobby, which he claims is "forcing banks to make low-income loans." And New York Times' columnist David Brooks, long the ruling class's Minister of Propaganda, applauds the "public spiritedness" of Paulson's "Progressive Corporatism."
Anti-war veterans unfurl 'Arrest Bush/Cheney' banner at National Archives
Sunday, 28 September 2008 2:59 P GMT-05
Bush and Cheney's serial abuse of the law of the land clearly marks them as domestic enemies of the Constitution. They have illegally invaded and occupied Iraq, deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure, authorized torture, and unlawfully detained prisoners. These actions clearly mark them as war criminals. Accountability extends beyond impeachment to prosecution for war crimes even after their terms of office expire....
3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Technically Recoverable Oil Assessed in North Dakota and Montana’s Bakken Formation—25 Times More Than 1995 Estimate
Sunday, 28 September 2008 1:59 A GMT-05
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.
Tell the Truth About Obama in Missouri, Go to Jail
Sunday, 28 September 2008 12:43 A GMT-05
This is precisely how political campaigns are run in despotic third world countries and dictatorships that pretend to be democracies. In Bolivia, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Burma, Georgia, Haiti — there is no shortage of recent examples — the opposition is routinely arrested, even killed, but we are supposedly above such tactics here in America. Instead, we just fix the voting machines and nix thousands of voters from the rolls. It appears all of this has changed under Obama. Isn’t this the sort of behavior Hitler’s goons engaged in before he swept into power and killed millions of people, beginning with his political opponents? Isn’t this the sort of thing Stalin and Mao did, eventually graduating to mass murder and genocide? Didn’t East Germany’s Stasi encourage people to turn in their neighbors, even their family and friends, for holding the wrong political opinions?
The Bailout Is - Literally - Fascist
Saturday, 27 September 2008 10:12 P GMT-05
The bailout is - literally - fascist, because it socializes Wall Street's losses and privatizes its gains, in order to further the merger between corporations and the state, to guarantee loyalty by Wall Street to Big Brother, and to reward the boys who have been "playing ball" with the Bush administration.
Bank Borrowing From Fed Already Exceeded Bailout Total in Last Week
Saturday, 27 September 2008 2:30 A GMT-05
U.S. banks borrowed $188 billion per day on average in the latest week from the Federal Reserve, meaning that the Fed loaned out more money than the Treasury’s proposed bailout in just one week, still barely managing to keep the economy afloat.
Bush Mouthpiece Admits: They've Been Sitting on this Plan
Thursday, 25 September 2008 2:02 A GMT-05
Which raises three questions for me:
Vote No Bailout!
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 10:59 A GMT-05
We are witnessing a bankers' coup d’etat. In the name of saving the economy from a crisis created by their own greed and immense profits, the biggest bankers have taken a country and a people hostage. “Give us your money and tear up what’s left of your Constitution or we will sink your economy,” is the message from Wall Street and the Bush Administration. “Give us the power and money we demand or you will be left jobless from a new economic depression." Under the pretext of the banking crisis, the Bush Administration is changing the way this country operates. This is not simply taking trillions of dollars from the people and giving it to the richest bankers to do with as they see fit.
Visibility 9-11 Welcomes Constitutional Expert Michael Badnarik
Tuesday, 23 September 2008 10:50 A GMT-05
This week Visibility 9-11 welcomes Constitutional expert Michael Badnarik. Mr. Badnarik ran for President of the United States in 2004 and was actually arrested when he dared to cross police lines in protest of being excluded from the Presidential debates of 2004. He also teaches an 8 hour class as an introduction to the Constitution and has written a book about the Constitution titled Good to be King; Foundations of Freedom. For more information, visit Michael's website at Constitution Preservation. This interview includes a frank discussion about the usurpation's of the Constitution since 9-11 through the USA PATRIOT Act and the Military Commissions Act, George Orwell, and some of Mr. Badnarik's doubts about the official story of 9-11 and his support for a new investigation.
Fury at $2.5bn Lehman bonus
Sunday, 21 September 2008 4:45 P GMT-05
STAFF at Lehman’s New York office who helped to cause the world’s biggest corporate bankruptcy are to share in a $2.5 billion bonanza.
We Have DAYS To Stop the $700 Billion Stick-Up (and Fascist Power Grab)
Sunday, 21 September 2008 2:46 P GMT-05
In case you haven't heard, the bill would not only stick up American taxpayers for an additional $700 billion, but would literally give Paulson and the government fascist powers. Don't believe me? Well, as the Bloomberg article notes: "The bill would bar courts from reviewing actions taken under its authority."
Rescue plan seeks $700B to buy bad mortgages
Saturday, 20 September 2008 5:07 P GMT-05
The Bush administration is asking Congress to let the government buy $700 billion in toxic mortgages in the largest financial bailout since the Great Depression, according to a draft of the plan obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.
How the GOP Wired Ohio's 2004 Vote Count for Bush to Win
Saturday, 20 September 2008 4:30 P GMT-05
An election whistleblower who is a Republican, a nationally known data security and computer architecture expert, and an Ohio resident has filed a sworn affidavit in federal court that describes how Republican Party consultants in 2004 built an electronic vote counting network in Ohio that could have stolen votes to re-elect the president. The whistleblower, Stephen Spoonamore, who has run or held senior technology positions in six technology companies, and whose clients have included MasterCard, American Express, NBC-GE, and federal agencies including the State Department and the Navy, said Mike Connell, a longtime Republican Party computer networking contractor, "agrees that the electronic voting systems in the US are not secure" and told Spoonamore in 2007 "that he (Connell) is afraid some of the more ruthless partisans of the GOP may have exploited systems he in part worked on for this purpose."
At 22, Omar Khadr Has Spent a Third of His Life in Guantanamo
Saturday, 20 September 2008 4:26 P GMT-05
On Friday, Omar Khadr, the sole Canadian citizen in Guantanamo, marked his 22nd birthday in isolation. Seized in Afghanistan when he was just 15 years old, Omar has now spent nearly a third of his life in U.S. custody, in conditions that ought to be shameful to the U.S. administration responsible for holding him and to the Canadian government that has abdicated its responsibilities toward him.
I Spent 16 Years in Jail for a Crime I Didn't Commit. Here's What Should Be Done.
Saturday, 20 September 2008 4:11 P GMT-05
I was wrongfully convicted in 1990 of a murder and rape in Peekskill, N.Y. DNA taken from semen found in the victim did not match my DNA. But misconduct at every stage of the criminal justice system led me to spend 16 years of my life in prison. That misconduct included a coerced, false confession when I was 16, extracted after many days of interrogation overseen by current Peekskill Police Chief Eugene Tumolo and others, as well as the falsification of other evidence.
High Energy Costs Prompt Farmers to Eye Treated Sewage for Fertilizer
Saturday, 20 September 2008 1:12 P GMT-05
The flags might easily be overlooked by an outsider, but they provide an alert that's well understood by locals: This field has been fertilized with treated sewage. The stuff's technical name is "biosolids," and it's been used by golf courses, parks, and even some farms for decades. But partly because of rising energy costs, farmers here and elsewhere in the United States have been more aggressively eyeing the processed waste product as an alternative to pricey fertilizer. Farmers can get it for free in most places, and many are saving hundreds of dollars per acre as a result.
Troy Davis to Die Next Week: Will Georgia Execute an Innocent Man?
Friday, 19 September 2008 2:37 A GMT-05
In 1991 a jury sentenced Davis to death for the August 19, 1989, murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot. Without a weapon or any physical evidence, prosecutors relied largely on eyewitness testimony to persuade a jury that Davis was the killer. In the years since, seven witnesses -- including eyewitnesses -- have recanted or contradicted their earlier testimony. Some said they fingered Davis as the killer under pressure from police.
BREAKING NEWS: 'Alaska Women Reject Palin' Rally is HUGE!
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 5:22 A GMT-05
This was the biggest political rally ever, in the history of the state. I was absolutely stunned. The second most amazing thing is how many people honked and gave the thumbs up as they drove by. The Alaska Women Reject Palin rally was significantly bigger than Palin’s rally that got all the national media coverage! So take heart, sit back, and enjoy the photo gallery.
RussiaToday.com VIDEO of 9/11 Truth Protesters at Ground Zero on 9/11/08
Sunday, 14 September 2008 11:41 P GMT-05
Yea! We (9/11 Truth activists in NYC) made the news. Please see this glorious video filmed by an uncensored (oh, the irony) Russian news group yesterday at Ground Zero, and other locations nearby as we marched through the streets.
4th Annual 9/11 Film Festival at the Grand Lake Theater a Great Success!
Sunday, 14 September 2008 11:34 P GMT-05
Working Harder; Falling Further Behind
Sunday, 14 September 2008 11:24 P GMT-05
Two new books reflect the increasingly difficult lives of U.S. workers today. The forthcoming State of Working America 2008-2009, published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), marshals a mass of statistical material to show how workers are slipping further behind on virtually every score. Complementing the EPI study is The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker by New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse, who gives a voice to those who struggle mightily just to get by--and, all too often, fail. Together, the books portray a society in which class lines are more rigid than the nations of Western Europe, once dominated by a wealthy aristocracy. Some 26.4 percent of U.S. workers receive poverty wages, and--in the economic expansion just ended--workers' productivity grew by 11 percent, while real wage gains (after inflation is taken into account) amounted to nothing.
Nearly 2,000 brought to safety in Texas
Sunday, 14 September 2008 10:39 P GMT-05
Rescuers searching the waterlogged streets and splintered houses left behind by Hurricane Ike said Sunday they had saved nearly 2,000 people -- many of whom then boarded buses to shelters without knowing where they were going or when they could come home. More than 48 hours after the first direct hurricane hit a major U.S. city since Hurricane Katrina, authorities imposed a weeklong nighttime curfew on Houston, where electricity was scarce and downed trees and shattered glass made roads unsafe.
Change Ohio Finds Themselves In a Lebanon Twilight Zone
Sunday, 14 September 2008 7:29 P GMT-05
Dog Calls 911 After Owner Collapses
Sunday, 14 September 2008 5:20 P GMT-05
A dog specially trained to call 911 when his owner suffers seizures grabbed the phone Wednesday morning and whimpered for help when the dispatcher answered, police said.
9/11 Investigation Initiative Press Conference -- Cynthia McKinney
Sunday, 14 September 2008 3:35 P GMT-05
NYC Ballot Initiative Press Conference with Cynthia McKinney Green Party Presidential Candidate.
Doctor: Bubonic plague victim fully recovered
Sunday, 14 September 2008 2:22 P GMT-05
Physicians say a Connecticut Boy Scout who is believed to have caught bubonic plague while visiting Wyoming has fully recovered from the rare, potentially deadly illness. The 18-year-old, whose name and hometown has not been released, recovered after a course of the antibiotic medicine Cipro, according to a doctor who treated him at MidState Medical Center in Meriden.
Evacuee evicted
Saturday, 13 September 2008 2:14 P GMT-05
The Red Cross and Austin Independent School District have formally requested that I leave the shelter. At first, the Red Cross wasn’t quite sure what to do about me, as both an evacuee and a member of the media.
Although one helpful volunteer last night offered to let me come sleep at her house, other volunteers have suggested I need to leave. “It makes us very uncomfortable for a reporter to be inside,” one volunteer, who appears to be one of the ones in charge, told me.
Weather service warns of 'certain death' in face of Ike
Friday, 12 September 2008 3:34 A GMT-05
The unusually strong wording came in a weather advisory regarding storm surge along the shoreline of Galveston Bay, which could see maximum water levels of 15 to 22 feet, the agency said.
Suspended cop: Sex with prostitute wasn't fun, it was work
Wednesday, 10 September 2008 10:35 A GMT-05
Breiner is one of two officers suspended indefinitely without pay for engaging in sex acts during the undercover investigation. Breiner is the only officer trying to stop the city from suspending him, saying that because he did what he was asked to do, the punishment violated his constitutional rights.
Storm Troopers at the RNC
Tuesday, 9 September 2008 11:17 A GMT-05
Ten days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul, Minnesota — a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).
The shoppers have spoken!!! Obama 71% - McCain 29%
Sunday, 7 September 2008 2:38 P GMT-05
Government to wipe out Fannie/Freddie shareholders by Sunday
Sunday, 7 September 2008 2:27 P GMT-05
And now what could become history's biggest transfer of tax dollars to bail out bad lending begins. Last month Congress passed a bill that gave the Treasury Department $800 billion to bail out Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). And while it is unclear how much money will be used to bail them out, the general outlines of the soon-to-be-announced terms are becoming clearer than they were last night.
Physics Dept. Seminar on 9/10/2008 by Dr. Steven Jones at Utah Valley University
Sunday, 7 September 2008 2:01 P GMT-05
I have been invited to give a presentation at the Physics Dept. seminar of Utah Valley University on 10 Sept 2008, 4 pm, room PS-202. You are invited to participate. Here is the title and abstract:
Activist claims unmarked police vans abducted protesters
Saturday, 6 September 2008 4:49 P GMT-05
The strongest accusations were made by RNC Welcoming Committee co-founder William Gillis, who has been among those planning the protests for the last two years.
“Police kicked down doors with guns drawn on families with their children at dinnertime,” Gillis charged. “Reporters and the media at large have been repeatedly targeted for repression. Activists have been abducted off the street in unmarked vans and political prisoners held without access to medical attention."
Boston Premiere of "Zero - An Investigation Into 9-11"
Saturday, 6 September 2008 3:53 P GMT-05
“ZERO” will be exclusively screened at the Regent Theatre, 7 Medford St., Arlington Center on Thursday September 11, 2008 at 7:00pm.
Tickets are $10 at the door, $9 in advance. Free Parking.
Why We Were Falsely Arrested
Friday, 5 September 2008 11:00 A GMT-05
Behind all the patriotic hyperbole that accompanies the conventions, and the thousands of journalists and media workers who arrive to cover the staged events, there are serious violations of the basic right of freedom of the press. Here on the streets of St. Paul, the press is free to report on the official proceedings of the RNC, but not to report on the police violence and mass arrests directed at those who have come to petition their government, to protest.
Bush Extends 9/11 National Emergency Yet Again
Friday, 5 September 2008 5:09 A GMT-05
Oliver North, who worked on COG planning with Rumsfeld and Cheney in the 1980s, was asked in the Iran-Contra Hearings about his work on an emergency plan “that would suspend the American constitution.” Democratic Senator Inouye, who was presiding, pounded his gavel and interjected that this was a “highly sensitive and classified matter,” not to be dealt with in an open hearing.[7] Congress has never discussed COG plans publicly since that time.
"Bombs Not Food"
Friday, 5 September 2008 5:05 A GMT-05
Food Not Bombs has been peacefully participating in nonviolent protests for 20 years. They served meals to rescue workers at the World Trade Center after 9/11 and to nearly 20 communities in the Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina (see this). To think that they planned violence at the Minnesota convention is almost like saying that Gandhi secretly advocated violence. If the group had been called "Bombs Not Food", had advocated for waging war against Iran and other countries, and had argued that the U.S. cannot afford to fund social programs like feeding poor when we need every cent to fight the "war on terror" abroad, do you think they would have been targeted and charged with terrorism? I think, instead, they might be invited to speak on the tv news shows and perhaps even inside the Convention.
BREAKING: RNC 8 Charged with "Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism"
Friday, 5 September 2008 5:01 A GMT-05
The criminal complaints filed by the Ramsey County Attorney do not allege that any of the defendants personally have engaged in any act of violence or damage to property. The complaints list all of alleged violations of law during the last few days of the RNC -- other than violations of human rights carried out by law enforcement -- and seeks to hold the 8 defendants responsible for acts committed by other individuals. None of the defendants have any prior criminal history involving acts of violence. Searches conducted in connection with the raids failed to turn up any physical evidence to support the allegations of organized attacks on law enforcement. Although claiming probable cause to believe that gunpowder, acids, and assembled incendiary devices would be found, no such items were seized by police. As a result, police sought to claim that the seizure of common household items such as glass bottles, charcoal lighter, nails, a rusty machete, and two hatchets, supported the allegations of the confidential informants. "Police found what they claim was a single plastic shield, a rusty machete, and two hatchets used in Minnesota to split wood. This doesn't amount to evidence of an organized insurrection, particularly when over 3,500 police are present in the Twin Cities, armed with assault rifles, concussion grenades, chemical weapons and full riot gear," said Nestor. In addition, the National Lawyers Guild has previously pointed out how law enforcement has fabricated evidence such as the claims that urine was seized which demonstrators intended to throw at police.
In a Fascist State, Cameras Equal Terrorism
Friday, 5 September 2008 1:14 A GMT-05
Moreover, the protesters who were targeted in Minnesota were mainly those who were peacefully filming the protests. Indeed, a 2003 FBI memo describes protesters' use of videotaping as an "intimidation" technique, even though - as the ACLU points out - "Most mainstream demonstrators often use videotape during protests to document law enforcement activity and, more importantly, deter police from acting outside the law."
9/11 claims one more victim
Friday, 5 September 2008 1:10 A GMT-05
Johannemann was a part-time janitor assigned to clean rest rooms in the north tower on 9/11 and was, indeed, credited with saving a man. His family says that day changed him, that he became withdrawn and began drinking heavily, falling in and out of work. Twelve days before the seventh anniversary of the day he saved a life, Johannemann took his own.
Minnesota Monster Mash: Police-State Zombies in a Dead Republic
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 11:44 P GMT-05
Glenn Greenwald tells a harrowing tale of police-state tactics in Minneapolis, with armed security forces conducting Baghdad-like raids on the houses of activists, terrorizing many and arresting some for thought crimes — such as "planning to cause a riot" — and other bogus charges. The sweeps — guided and aided by the federal government — are designed to "ensure domestic tranquility" during the imminent Republican convention in the city. As Greenwald points out, not one of those who were shackled, arrested and hauled out at gunpoint had committed any crime whatsoever. Heinous indeed, and entirely worthy of the anger that Greenwald marshals in his reports from the scene. But we must disagree with him on one crucial point: his repeated declaration that these incidents are "extraordinary." On the contrary, there is nothing at all remarkable about them. They are all of a piece with the similar tactics employed to cleanse the city of Denver of any unseemly expressions of old-fashioned, long-gone American liberties during the Democratic convention, where any protests that escaped the grotesque official "cage" set aside for them were strangled by militarized police and mass arrests.
Man arraigned who allegedly hid $1.3M in cocaine
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 11:14 P GMT-05
A 33-year-old Boston man pleaded not guilty today in Lynn District Court to drug trafficking charges after police allegedly caught him during the weekend with $1.3 million worth of cocaine in his vehicle. When Yorgi Tejeda, 33, was arrested Sunday afternoon in Lynn, police allegedly found 14 kilograms -- or about 31 pounds -- of cocaine in a hidden compartment in his vehicle. Tejeda is charged with trafficking cocaine over 200 grams, Essex County prosecutors said.
Mass. foreclosure deeds push past 2007 levels
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 6:50 P GMT-05
Foreclosure activity has doubled so far this year, with 7,804 deeds filed through July 2008 compared with 3,902 filed during the same period in 2007, the Warren Group said in a new report.
Massive police raids on suspected protesters in Minneapolis
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 6:45 P GMT-05
Protesters here in Minneapolis have been targeted by a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying. Jane Hamsher and I were at two of those homes this morning -- one which had just been raided and one which was in the process of being raided. Each of the raided houses is known by neighbors as a "hippie house," where 5-10 college-aged individuals live in a communal setting, and everyone we spoke with said that there had never been any problems of any kind in those houses, that they were filled with "peaceful kids" who are politically active but entirely unthreatening and friendly. Posted below is the video of the scene, including various interviews, which convey a very clear sense of what is actually going on here.
Feds Wage Pre-Emptive War Against Political Dissent In Minnesota
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 5:43 P GMT-05
And here we come to one of the bedrock dichotomies (read: lies) of modern American politics: the politicians and pundits tell us that our freedom is dependent on political stability, but in fact political stability (or at least the kind they care about) can only be maintained at the expense of freedom -- your freedom. It's the old "we had to destroy it in order to save it" argument again, only this time we're not talking about a hamlet half a world away, but about your future, and the future of your children.
SOME THOUGHTS ON THE PALIN FIASCO
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 5:35 P GMT-05
Of course, it’s not so much about babies and pregnancies and who had whose child; it is, however, very much about hypocrisy and the ability of the Republican combination of John McCain and Sarah Palin to give the American people an honest accounting of themselves because if they can’t even do that, how are they going to be trusted to govern the US, the worlds most influential nation?
Amy Goodman and Two Democracy Now! Producers Unlawfully Arrested at RNC
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 5:35 P GMT-05
Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon. All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar's violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, "I'm Press! Press!," resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman's arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.
The Return of Superfly
Tuesday, 2 September 2008 4:57 P GMT-05
It was a matter of control, and trust. As the leader of the heroin-dealing ring called the Country Boys, Lucas, older brother to Ezell, Vernon Lee, John Paul, Larry, and Leevan Lucas, was known for restricting his operation to blood relatives and others from his rural North Carolina area hometown. This was because, Lucas says, in his down-home creak of a voice, "a country boy, he ain't hip . . . he's not used to big cars, fancy ladies, and diamond rings. He'll be loyal to you. A country boy, you can give him any amount of money. His wife and kids might be hungry, and he'll never touch your stuff until he checks with you. City boys ain't like that. A city boy will take your last dime, look you in the face, and swear he ain't got it . . . You don't want a city boy -- the sonofabitch is just no good."
Police Using G.P.S. Units as Evidence in Crimes
Sunday, 31 August 2008 3:25 P GMT-05
Prosecutors in suburban Chicago analyzed data from the Garmin G.P.S. device to pinpoint where Mr. Hanson had been on the morning after his parents were fatally shot and his sister and brother-in-law bludgeoned to death in 2005. He was convicted of the killings this year and sentenced to death.
Reflecting Pool wins at Moondance Film Festival
Sunday, 31 August 2008 2:28 P GMT-05
We are proud to announce that our movie, "The Reflecting Pool," won the Columbine Award at the 2008 Moondance International Film Festival, in Boulder, Colorado.
When the Cure Is Worse Than the Disease by Bill Sardi
Thursday, 28 August 2008 1:46 A GMT-05
All too frequently, drugs substitute one disease for another. For example, most anti-psychotic drugs induce weight gain and diabetes. [11] , [12] This is so typical that many people believe a pudgy body always accompanies mental disorders. Another example of disease substitution is the treatment of high blood pressure with diuretics which can induce a vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency that results in heart failure. One study found a third of patients hospitalized for heart failure, who are often treated with diuretics, were vitamin B1 deficient. [13] Vitamin therapy is uncommon in hospital settings.
Government Biological Weapons Legislator: Anthrax Inside Job Cover Up Continuing
Sunday, 24 August 2008 3:55 P GMT-05
The Professor explained that the motive behind the attacks was clear: "I believe the first anthrax attack was designed to ram through the PATRIOT ACT because Senators Daschle and Leahy were holding it up and once the anthrax occurred it rammed right through, indeed, on the renewal of the USA PATRIOT ACT, Senator Feingold was holding it up and all of sudden out of nowhere some white powdered substance appeared at one of the Senate office buildings, and all of a sudden the renewal of the PATRIOT ACT went through." The evidence becomes more compelling when you take into consideration the fact that the White House was on anthrax fighting antibiotics weeks prior to the attacks.
Vietnam Veterans Against John 'Songbird' McCain
Saturday, 23 August 2008 9:26 P GMT-05
The slippery’s, the slimey’s and the sleezy’s. That is how McCain referred to the POWs that came home before him.
US concedes Kremlin's first military response in Georgia was 'legitimate'
Saturday, 23 August 2008 9:06 P GMT-05
The US ambassador to Moscow, endorsing Russia’s initial moves in Georgia, described the Kremlin’s first military response as legitimate after Russian troops came under attack. This was the first positive statement by an American official about Moscow’s first response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, after a string of condemnations from the heads of the Bush administration. It came from US ambassador John Beyrle, who arrived in Moscow last month, in an interview published by the Russian daily Kommersant Friday, Aug. 22.
How war hero John McCain betrayed the Vietnamese peasant who saved his life
Saturday, 23 August 2008 7:10 P GMT-05
On October 26, 1967, Mai Van On ran from the safety of a bomb shelter at the height of an air raid and swam out into the lake where Lieutenant Commander McCain was drowning, tangled in his parachute cord after ejecting when his Skyhawk bomber was hit by a missile.
In an extraordinary act of compassion at a time when Vietnamese citizens were being killed by US aerial bombardments, he pulled a barely conscious McCain to the lake surface and, with the help of a neighbour, dragged him towards the shore. And when a furious mob at the water's edge began to beat and stab the captured pilot, Mr On drove them back.
Illegal Immigrants Returning to Mexico in Record Numbers
Saturday, 23 August 2008 5:42 P GMT-05
The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools. "Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."
The cheapest place to buy
Friday, 22 August 2008 11:56 P GMT-05
According to the National Association of Home Builders, Indianapolis is currently the most affordable major US housing market. During the second quarter, 91.6% of the homes sold in that city were affordable to families that earn the area’s median income of $65,100. The least affordable major market was the New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.J., area, where 11.4% of the homes sold were affordable to families earning the area’s median income of $63,000, according to the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index released this week.
WTC 7's OEM Bunker Unmanned on 9/11
Sunday, 17 August 2008 8:37 P GMT-05
In 1999, NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani constructed a $13 million emergency command retreat on the 23rd floor of World Trade Center Building 7—an armored, self-contained facility designed to provide a safe haven for leadership in the event of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. But several first responders interviewed after 9/11 claim that the Office of Emergency Management’s Emergency Operations Center (OEMEOC) was empty and “deactivated” as early as 9AM on the morning of September 11th, a time when just such an emergency was in full swing.
Stop the Killer Horse Hormones
Friday, 15 August 2008 11:25 A GMT-05
The FDA admits that it granted Wyeth's request simply because Estriol has not endured the FDA's costly and time consuming approval process. But should the estrogen that naturally flows in a woman's body have to be approved by the FDA? Of course not. Neither then, should Estriol, which is chemically identical to that estrogen! Estriol is human estrogen.
Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials
Tuesday, 5 August 2008 1:48 A GMT-05
Abstract Investigators monitoring air quality at the World Trade Center, after the September 11th attacks, found extremely high levels of volatile organic chemicals as well as unusual species that had never been seen before in structure fires. Data collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency indicate striking spikes in levels of benzene, styrene, and several other products of combustion. These spikes occurred on specific dates in October and November 2001, and February 2002. Additionally, data collected by researchers at the University of California Davis showed similar spikes in the levels of sulfur and silicon compounds, and certain metals, in aerosols. To better explain these data, as well as the unusual detection of 1,3-diphenylpropane, the presence of energetic nanocomposites in the pile at Ground Zero is hypothesized.
Utah Congressmen Mailed "9/11 Conspiracies", Hand Them Over To Capitol Police
Sunday, 3 August 2008 2:18 P GMT-05
Apparently not accepting the government's version of events surrounding 9/11 may land you in trouble with the cops if you're writing from Utah. Questioning the collapse of WTC 7 for example, an incident that was totally ignored by the 9/11 Commission Report, could get you reported. Asking your elected representative how he or she thinks a man dying from kidney failure in a cave half way across the world was able to organize four breeches of U.S. air defenses in one day might embroil you in a police investigation.
Utah congressmen get mail on range of topics
Sunday, 3 August 2008 2:15 P GMT-05
Others have written in about 9/11 conspiracies, global takeovers or secret CIA mind-control techniques that "got so crazy we actually had to hand them over to Capitol Police," he said.
Student charged in Logan scare
Sunday, 3 August 2008 1:37 P GMT-05
Jason Robo, 26, a Worcester native who now attends college in California, was boarding flight 1165 to Salt Lake City at, Utah at Boston’s Logan Airport when multiple passengers observed that Robo was behaving nervously. Witnesses said that Robo left his seat and entered the plane’s lavatory. When a flight attendant entered the lavatory upon Robo’s exit, she found an adhesive address label that read, “9/11 was an Inside Job! PrisonPlanet.com” affixed to the sink area. The flight attendant also found a second sticker on the fold-down tray near his seat and informed the pilot. That is when Robo ran off the plane after telling another flight attendant, “I have to get off this plane right now.”
The end of Rakan's war
Sunday, 3 August 2008 1:21 P GMT-05
Rakan Hassan, the boy whose life Larry Ronan saved, the boy I sat with most days for five months, the boy who became my sons' friend, the boy who touched anybody and everybody he met, was killed in June when a bomb exploded at his family's home in Mosul. He was 14 years old. Two of his sisters - an infant and a teenager - were injured in the attack but are expected to recover. It happened June 16, but given the madness that is Iraq, it took us weeks to confirm. We got a death certificate the other day and so now we know for sure. The information is, like Iraq's future, sketchy at best. Through an interpreter, Rakan's brother-in-law and guardian, Nathir Bashir Ali, said he suspects insurgents put a bomb in or next to the house. He believes the house was targeted either because of his associations with the Iraqi government or because the family had accepted help for Rakan from Americans. But the truth is, we don't know why. We only know Rakan is dead.
Clarity At Last: Border Guards Don't Need A Reason To Seize Your Laptops, Cell Phones, Cameras, iPods, Tapes, Books, Handwritten Notes ...
Sunday, 3 August 2008 12:55 P GMT-05
And there you have it. Border guards can seize data storage devices of any kind, from laptops to handwritten notes, without any grounds. They are required to give seized items back to their owners in a reasonable time, but they get to decide what's reasonable. They can make copies of your data and share it with other government agencies, but if it turns out that you're not a terrorist they are supposed to destroy their copies of your data. How would you ever know whether or not they had done so? And what would prevent them from secretly adding your data to the Main Core database? Even more disturbingly, perhaps, this is the result of policies promulgated in secrecy, implemented without any publicity, and only now coming to light. Michael Chertoff says doing it any other way would be chilling and dangerous. And not a voice is raised in opposition -- at least not in the mainstream press.
Secret 'War on Terror' Prison on Diego Garcia Confirmed
Sunday, 3 August 2008 12:00 P GMT-05
These new revelations, of course, leave the U.S. administration looking like bald-faced liars and the British government looking like myopic dupes. Whether Michael Hayden was also duped is not known, but his strenuous denial, just five months ago, that a secret prison existed, which was manned by his own employees, will do nothing for the credibility of the U.S. administration, which likes to pretend that it does not torture and has nothing to conceal, but is persistently discovered not only being economical with the truth, but also behaving exactly as though it has guilty secrets to hide.
SWAT team kills 2 dogs in pot bust on Md. mayor's home
Sunday, 3 August 2008 3:36 A GMT-05
Yes, this is real: 36lbs of concealed pot get delivered to the home of the Mayor of Berwyn Heights, Md. by officers posing as couriers, and the box is left outside. As soon as it is taken inside, SWAT storms the house, seizes the pot, arrests the Mayor and his family, and kills 2 of their dogs. The Mayor maintains he had nothing to do with the box.
Injured, tasered teen: "At least I'm alive."
Sunday, 3 August 2008 3:24 A GMT-05
His family says what made his situation worse is that his surgery had to be postponed because he had been stunned by Ozark police 19 times. “At least I’m alive though.” Mace says he still can’t remember how he ended up at the bottom of the bridge. He says he knows he didn’t willingly jump. “I know I’m lucky to survive that far of a fall.” Police records say Hutchinson was aggressive with them, and tried to get up and get into traffic. Mace points out that he doesn’t weigh much and wonders why an officer didn’t just restrain him. Police also say he yelled threatening remarks about harming officers. Those things combined were why they used the electric stun gun on him. “He was saying things like, ‘Kill cops, shoot cops,’ Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset said on July 23. Mace says he doesn’t remember that and certainly doesn’t know how it would have been possible, with his injuries, for him to move toward the highway. “There’s no way I could stand up. I had a broken back and a broken foot,” he said. “I definitely want them to get punished, I don’t want them to get away with it.”
9/11 Truth and the Tuskegee 40 Year Coverup
Saturday, 2 August 2008 4:35 P GMT-05
The Tuskegee “experiment” victimized 399 black men and many suffered and died as a direct result. On 9/11, thousands of people of all colors, including white, were mass murdered, some dying horribly painful deaths. Thousands more will die as a direct result of Christie Todd Whitman and the EPA’s lies (OK’d by Condoleeza Rice) about the air being safe to breathe; if you’re white, your skin color will not save you, and neither will our “representatives”. Given that another massive terror attack- perhaps multiple dirty bombs in US cities- is a possibility and may be the pretext for instituting martial law and completely destroying the US Republic and our Constitution, is it not imperative that the 9/11 events be fully investigated, when what we’ve been told is so obviously not the truth? Given that the neocons keep threatening Americans with another attack and are lusting for war with Iran, can we afford to wait 40 years to find out if the truth about 9/11 is that it was an inside job and it’s being covered up? Should not all those responsible for the success of the attacks be exposed and held accountable? A truth and reconciliation commission may be the best way to reveal all parties who had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and facilitated their success, as well as institute the reforms that will be necessary to prevent future attacks being enabled by policy makers and elite power brokers. In an environment where whistleblowers and those who turn state’s evidence are the ones who have immunity and protection, instead of corrupt “elites”, it is likely more people will come forward. According to Sibel Edmonds, who has gone on to found the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, many of her colleagues in the field of national security want to testify, but they will not do so unless subpoenaed; if Congress cannot be counted on to be supportive of hearings, if the media cannot be counted on to publish and broadcast the unspun truth, if protection from retaliation is not offered, what incentive do they have to come forward with evidence of corruption and malfeasance by public officials and powerful private interests who can ruin their reputations and careers, even harm them and their families? The least the American People can do to show potential whistleblowers they have our support is with non-violent demands and actions, raising our voices in the streets and online, in support of public hearings, full disclosure and real accountability.
Chief suspect in US anthrax attacks found dead
Saturday, 2 August 2008 3:32 A GMT-05
Bruce Ivins, 62, one of America’s top biodefense researchers, had been told that he was going to be prosecuted for the attacks that killed five people and sent the country into panic in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers. He died in hospital on Thursday after taking a huge dose of prescription Tylenol, a painkiller, mixed with codeine. The scientist had worked at the the United States Army Medical Research Institute,(USAMRIID), the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories in Maryland for 18 years. He had played a pivotal role in research to improve anthrax vaccines, and during the attacks had helped the FBI analyse powdery material recovered from an envelope tainted with anthrax which had been sent to the Washington DC office of Tom Daschle, a US senator.
California judge rules early cell phone termination fees illegal
Friday, 1 August 2008 1:39 A GMT-05
In one of the most significant legal rulings in the tech industry this year, a Superior Court judge in California has ruled that the practice of charging consumers a fee for ending their cell phone contract early is illegal and violates state law. The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee.
Experts say woman was on knees when officer fired
Friday, 1 August 2008 1:13 A GMT-05
A police sergeant’s careless actions led to the fatal shooting of an unarmed woman holding her baby as she crouched down, possibly to obey his commands during a drug raid, a prosecution witness testified Wednesday. “It would seem to me, in that position, the deceased was probably complying with [Sgt. Joe Chavalia's] orders,” said John Foy, a tactical weapons trainer for the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy. Foy testified during the negligent homicide and negligent assault trial of Chavalia. Chavalia is on trial for the Jan 4 shooting death of Tarika Wilson, 26, inside her home at 218 E. Third St. Her infant son was wounded in the shooting. Police raided the home to get her boyfriend, Anthony Terry, who was a known drug dealer.
Exxon posts record $11.68 billion profit
Friday, 1 August 2008 1:10 A GMT-05
Exxon Mobil once again reported the largest quarterly profit in U.S. history Thursday, posting net income of $11.68 billion on revenue of $138 billion in the second quarter. That profit works out to $1,485.55 a second. That barely beat the previous corporate record of $11.66 billion, also set by Exxon in the fourth quarter of 2007.
Father wanted for murder arrested in New York; children unhurt
Thursday, 31 July 2008 1:05 A GMT-05
A 25-year-old father who is accused of fatally stabbing a woman in the face in Lynn and then kidnapping his estranged wife and four young children was arrested today in New York, law enforcement officials said. Rodlyn Petitbois was arrested without incident at Franklin Avenue and Union Street in Brooklyn at about 6:15 p.m., said Detective Kenny Anderson, a New York police spokesman. The wife and four children were found safe in a Brooklyn apartment, said Steve O'Connell, a spokesman for prosecutors in Essex County, Mass. The arrests came after a massive and frantic manhunt. Officials had activated an Amber Alert at 10:44 a.m., seeking the public's help in finding the family. The search included federal immigration officials, the FBI, and authorities in New York, where Petitbois once lived.
GOP operative nabbed in prostitution sting
Saturday, 26 July 2008 2:54 P GMT-05
Peter Hong, 41, of Minneapolis, was one of 19 men picked up Wednesday afternoon after police say he responded to an ad for sex put out in newspapers and online by the St. Paul Police Department's vice squad. He was booked into the Ramsey County Jail at about 5 p.m. the same day on suspicion of engaging in prostitution.
The Real Reason that the U.S. Tortures People
Saturday, 26 July 2008 2:37 P GMT-05
The U.S. government is carrying out acts of terrorism on innocent victims - including children - in order to scare people into being compliant, into being too scared to demand their rights to liberty and justice guaranteed by the rule of law, into not challenging the powers-that-be. Those who created, implemented or covered up the U.S. torture policy are not only war criminals, they are also terrorists.
ACLU: Memos authorized CIA torture
Thursday, 24 July 2008 11:24 P GMT-05
The documents were heavily redacted. For example, the government blacked out 10 full pages of the 18-page August 2002 memo, written by then-Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, before releasing it in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Most of the text on the remaining pages was similarly blacked out, but the released version of the Bybee memo does provide some insight. Bybee outlined the definition of torture in Section 2340A of the United States code, focusing in part on its caveat that an act be "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering." Elaborating on his definition of the "specific intent" provision, Bybee narrows the definition to the point where it become functionally meaningless. All that is required to avoid prosecution is a CIA agent's "good faith belief" that his actions will not cause torturous pain and suffering. Such a belief "need not be reasonable," Bybee writes.
Facing foreclosure, Taunton woman commits suicide
Thursday, 24 July 2008 1:13 A GMT-05
The housing crunch has caused anguish and anxiety for millions of Americans. For Carlene Balderrama, a 53-year-old wife and mother, the pressure was apparently too much to bear. Police say that Balderrama shot herself Tuesday afternoon 90 minutes before her foreclosed home on Duffy Drive was scheduled to be sold at auction. Chief Raymond O'Berg said that Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company at 2:30 p.m., telling them that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead."
LA bans plastic bags
Thursday, 24 July 2008 12:58 A GMT-05
THE city of Los Angeles will ban plastic bags from retail stores from July 1, 2010, following similar regulations already enforced in San Francisco. Los Angeles, the second-largest US city behind New York, would ban plastic bagging in all supermarkets, grocery and retail stores, the Los Angeles City Council said.
California foreclosures up 261% from '07 levels
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 11:17 A GMT-05
Breaking: DataQuick reports today that foreclosures in California soared 33% from the first quarter to the second quarter of 2008, and are running 261% ahead of year-ago levels.
Food stamp use soars in Mass.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 11:00 A GMT-05
More than 500,000 people statewide received food stamps in April, a 67-percent increase from 2003 and 11 percent more than last year, according to state records. Food-stamp participation increased across the country between 2003 and 2008, with the exception of Hawaii and Wyoming. In New England, New Hampshire saw the next-fastest growth, with a 41-percent rise from five years ago, and Rhode Island saw the smallest change, with a 13-percent increase over that period. In Massachusetts, residents received about $48 million in food stamp benefits in April 2008, more than double the $22 million they received in April 2003. The figures reflect a drastic change for the state, which had the lowest food stamp participation in the country from 2000 to 2002.
The IRS vs. Robert Kahre
Wednesday, 23 July 2008 12:25 A GMT-05
Reborn MLB Slugger Josh Hamilton Is One Lucky Former Drug Addict
Monday, 21 July 2008 4:42 A GMT-05
Recent developments in criminal justice indicate the emergence of a national movement in favor of treating, rather than incarcerating people charged with a nonviolent drug possession offense. These developments include drug courts, local policies which favor treatment, and statewide ballot initiatives that divert nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of incarceration. But instead of following this trend, the federal government continues to turn a blind eye toward this movement and steadfastly sticks to zero-tolerance when it comes to illegal drug use. Witness the get-tough policies of ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy) under the direction of John P. Walters. In fact, the ONDCP is so hell-bent on controlling the so-called drug plague that their policies have turned from overly intrusive to downright war-like at times. From suspicionless student drug testing to mandatory minimum sentencing laws that dish out extraordinarily long sentences for small amounts of drugs, the drug war continues be the government's national moral obsession. It is one thing to try to shield society from the harms associated with the drugs, but another when its solutions become worse than the original problems.
GOP whistleblower names Karl Rove in Ohio's 04 election theft
Monday, 21 July 2008 2:57 A GMT-05
This case has the potential to put some of the most powerful people in the country in jail, according to Arnebeck, as he was joined by a well-respected, life-long Republican computer security expert who charged that the red flags seen during Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election would have been cause for "a fraud investigation in a bank, but it doesn't when it comes to our vote." "This entire system is being programmed in secret by programmers who have no oversight by anybody," the expert charged, as Arnebeck detailed allegations of complicity by a number of powerful GOP operatives and companies who had unique access both to the election results as reported in 2004, as well as to U.S. House and Senate computer networks even today.
I Am An American!
Monday, 21 July 2008 1:30 A GMT-05
Lady Liberty is walking very gingerly these days, and the path she treads is laden with traps and quicksand. The globalists have their handpicked puppets positioned to take up where The Three Amigos (George Bush I, Bill Clinton, and George Bush II) have left off. The pieces of the puzzle are almost all in place. 2010 just might be the year that Lady Liberty lowers her torch, folds her arms, and falls fast asleep. For what it is worth, however, I pledge no loyalty to this emerging New World Order. Neither will I let Lady Liberty die without a fight. I will say it again: the battle today is not between conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats. It is a battle between Americans and globalists. And, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am an American!
Taser death ignites racial tensions
Monday, 21 July 2008 1:26 A GMT-05
What happened in the 39 minutes in between — during which Pikes was handcuffed by local police and shocked nine times with a Taser, while reportedly pleading for mercy —is now spawning fears of a political coverup in this backwoods Louisiana lumber town infamous for backroom dealings.
Mopeds' uncharted ground
Sunday, 20 July 2008 11:29 P GMT-05
Long thought of as nifty toys that happened to get you from Point A to Point B, mopeds are finally getting their due respect as gas-saving wunderkinds that motor up to 100 miles on a single gallon. But as more and more mopeds hit Boston's streets, it's becoming clear that the majority of owners don't know all there is to know about driving them. Police say that moped owners routinely break driving laws such as speeding (mopeds aren't supposed to exceed 25 miles per hour), passing illegally and not wearing appropriate helmets. Parking is a huge conundrum, as cities and towns, unprepared for the recent explosion in moped popularity, almost uniformly fail to mention them in parking rules and regulations. And as for safety training, it's virtually nonexistent.
America First
Sunday, 20 July 2008 11:15 P GMT-05
Politicians and celebrities with an urge to see poverty only need to visit the Mississippi Delta or some of the neighborhoods in American cities. If they yearn for more exotic poverty, all they have to do is visit the Indian reservations that do not have casinos. Any disease they are hot to trot to cure can be found right here in the good old U.S.A. Depressed economic conditions? We have them. Crumbling infrastructure? We have that, too. Hunger? Yes, that too. Inflation and weak currency? Present right here. Corruption? Our politicians can hold their own in that dubious category. Orphans? There are plenty of those, too. There is simply no need to travel. Any bad or sad thing you wish to see you can see here in the U.S.
How Long Will Your Doctor Continue Accepting Private Insurance?
Sunday, 20 July 2008 10:37 P GMT-05
A story in a New Jersey newspaper describes how physicians in Northern Jersey have begun following in the footsteps of "elite Manhattan doctors and are withdrawing from all insurance plans." The article compares fees with and without insurance. On the right, the fees that insurers typically pay for these services; on the left, the fees that Jersey doctors who don't take insurance charge:
Md. Police Infiltrated Groups Opposed to War and the Death Penalty
Sunday, 20 July 2008 9:11 P GMT-05
Max Obuszewski is a seasoned, nonviolent peace activist in Maryland. But to the Maryland State Police, he is suspected of committing the "primary crime" of "terrorism -- anti-war protestors" and the "secondary crime" of "terrorism -- anti-govern." That is how the Maryland State Police designated him in internal documents that the ACLU of Maryland obtained through a lawsuit and released on July 17. The documents also show that the Maryland State Police entered his name into a database dealing with "high intensity drug activity." These documents reveal an elaborate undercover operation against peace groups and anti-capital-punishment groups.
'Justifying' Torture: Two Big Lies
Sunday, 20 July 2008 8:42 P GMT-05
The sense of pressing urgency conjured up by Bush administration folks to justify torture does not square with Coleen Rowley’s direct personal experience in the FBI. As some will remember, the FBI's joint terrorism task force in Minneapolis had detained Zacarias Moussaoui on Aug. 16, 2001. Flight school pilots acting as whistleblowers had notified the FBI, against the wishes of their airline employer, of detailed information making Moussaoui the most suspicious student they had ever encountered. French intelligence soon supplied further background confirming Moussaoui's fighting for a “foreign power” — Chechnyan rebels, whose leader was connected to al-Qaeda. By Aug. 23, the case was deemed so suspicious, it went all the way to the top of the intelligence community, to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, in a PowerPoint presentation entitled: "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly.” As Rowley revealed in her letter of May 21, 2002, to FBI Director Robert Mueller, there was considerable frustration in her FBI unit in Minneapolis over the inability of FBI headquarters to get its act together and present these facts pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to obtain the secret FISA Court’s permission to search Moussaoui’s personal effects and laptop computer in the days before 9-11.
SD 9/11 Truth at Obama rally
Sunday, 20 July 2008 8:20 P GMT-05
A couple days ago Obama was in San Diego at the La Raza convention. We stood toward the Obama supporters with our banners for a couple hours and proceeded to give them dvds and flyers. They were pissed and just kept shouting "TALK TO BUSH" & "OBAMA" to us.
Justice Or A Joke?
Sunday, 20 July 2008 8:00 P GMT-05
Given that these military tribunals are so "secretive," how on Earth do they expect us to believe that they have proven those being held at Guantanamo are "indeed the guilty parties?" Is this Justice or a joke? If it is the latter, it is not funny.
I Was a Victim of the TSA
Sunday, 20 July 2008 5:25 P GMT-05
Which brings me to the real question: Why do we have all this pointless and easily breached security, not to mention a list that contains an astonishing one million names of suspected “terrorists”? Clearly, the security program is not about protecting the flying public, or the nation’s tall buildings. That could be done much more cheaply by putting air marshals on all flights, the way they do at El Al, the Israeli airline that has never had a successful hijacking. No, this is all about heightening the fear level of the American people, to routinize us to living in a police state.
7/7 Mastermind Allegedly Worked for British Intelligence, Deena Burnett -- Additions to the 9/11 Timeline as of July 20, 2008
Sunday, 20 July 2008 5:05 P GMT-05
Most of the new entries in the 9/11 Timeline this week are about the 7/7 London bombings, and in particular the alleged mastermind, Haroon Rashid Aswat. Aswat recruited militant fighters in London in the late 1990s, when his activities were known to British intelligence. He also attempted to set up terrorist training camps in the US, but the Justice Department blocked his indictment on these charges in 2002. He was falsely thought to have been killed in Afghanistan in 2003, monitored meeting the leaders of another British plot in 2004, and the British prevented the US from capturing him in South Africa in 2005. He called the bombers shortly before the attacks, and the US may have monitored these calls. Some reports, apparently incorrect, said he had been arrested in Pakistan following the bombings, although he was actually captured in Zambia shortly after, at which point the British authorities showed a surprising lack of interest in him. A counterterrorism expert then said he had been a long-term British intelligence asset, and the British failed to charge him upon his return to Britain, although a British court approved his extradition to the US in 2006. Other entries about the London bombings cover Mohammad Sidique Khan, the lead bomber, who worked with al-Qaeda leaders and received explosives training in Southeast Asia in 2001, when another of the bombers was reportedly monitored by the FBI on a visit to the US. Khan was allegedly stopped from entering the US in 2003, but there is some dispute over this, and he talked to a key alleged al-Qaeda operative shortly after. British intelligence monitored Khan and another of the bombers meeting with another al-Qaeda operative, and Khan again attended a militant training camp in Pakistan in the winter of 2004-5.
Tragedy. Audacity. Trouble.
Sunday, 20 July 2008 4:38 P GMT-05
From his wheelchair, Michael Pelletier led a multimillion-dollar drug ring, paying swimmers to smuggle marijuana from Canada into Maine
GOP cyber-security expert suggests Diebold tampered with 2002 election
Saturday, 19 July 2008 2:53 P GMT-05
A leading cyber-security expert and former adviser to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) says he has fresh evidence regarding election fraud on Diebold electronic voting machines during the 2002 Georgia gubernatorial and senatorial elections. Stephen Spoonamore is the founder and until recently the CEO of Cybrinth LLC, an information technology policy and security firm that serves Fortune 100 companies. At a little noticed press conference in Columbus, Ohio Thursday, he discussed his investigation of a computer patch that was applied to Diebold Election Systems voting machines in Georgia right before that state’s November 2002 election. Spoonamore is one of the most prominent cyber-security experts in the country. He has appeared on CNN’s Lou Dobbs and ABC’s World News Tonight, and has security clearances from his work with the intelligence community and other government agencies, as well as the Department of Defense, and is one of the world’s leading authorities on hacking and cyber-espionage.
US urged Red Line trains to cut speed
Saturday, 19 July 2008 2:27 P GMT-05
Even while they swarmed the Longfellow Bridge to test steel beams and replace rusty supports, state workers failed to inspect concrete that supports the train tracks on the span, prompting the Federal Highway Administration to demand this summer's frustrating Red Line slowdown. The 10 mile-per-hour speed limit for the Red Line trains - which is a crawl compared with their usual speed of up to 40 miles per hour on the bridge - will continue at least through the end of this month while the test borings on the concrete are analyzed, officials said.
Airport Gestapo
Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:57 P GMT-05
The Bush Regime’s “terrorist” protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the “terrorist” watch list.
One of them is that of former Assistant US Attorney General Jim Robinson, whose top security clearances are current. Every time Mr.Robinson flies away on business, he is delayed by a totally incompetent “terrorist” protection racket that cannot tell a person named Jim Robinson, who served in the highest echelons of the US government, from a Muslim terrorist.
Greens Nominate McKinney for President
Sunday, 13 July 2008 3:16 P GMT-05
The Green Party of the United States today nominated truth activist and seasoned politician Cynthia McKinney for U.S. President. In her 12 years in Congress, McKinney distinguished herself for questioning Donald Rumsfeld under oath about missing trillions at the Pentagon. She introduced articles of impeachment and asked questions about the 9/11 attacks, in 2002, when such skepticism was not tolerated from public figures. McKinney's story includes many accomplishments as a legislator. She has been the conscience for a misguided nation. But the other half of her story is not what she has done, but what has been done to her. She took the blows of fierce reaction when the political establishment and corporate centrist media attacked her for violating the taboo that demanded silence about 9/11. In 2002, GOP strategists used a special "crossover" strategy to get their voters to vote in the Democratic primary for a fake Democrat substitute for McKinney. She came back in 2004. After introducing articles of impeachment and holding congressional hearings into 9/11, Capitol Police pretended not to recognize her, which sparked a confrontation with a frustrated McKinney. The media claimed she punched a cop. McKinney lost re-election in 2006.
Gas tanker crashes, burns on Route 128
Saturday, 12 July 2008 5:43 P GMT-05
A gas tanker truck crashed, burst open, and erupted into flames on Route 128 South in Needham early this morning, but the driver escaped with only minor injuries, state police said. Kevin Power, 59, of Watertown swerved his tanker to the right in an attempt to avoid hitting a large piece of metal road debris, state police said in a statement. Power lost control of his 2001 Peterbilt tractor and struck the guardrail on the right side of the road. The tanker-trailer attached to the tractor overturned, and the 11,500 gallons of gasoline inside ignited, engulfing the vehicle in flames.
Yeah, What ABOUT that Anthrax Terrorist?
Saturday, 12 July 2008 1:11 P GMT-05
Call me crazy. But after viewing this very creepy exchange between Patrick Leahy and Michael Mukasey regarding the anthrax killer, I got the feeling that both of them know exactly who sent those anthrax-laden letters almost seven years ago.
Military fires public affairs official for refusing to limit press at funerals
Saturday, 12 July 2008 12:44 P GMT-05
When Gina Gray, a media specialist with a long history of working with the military, became public affairs director at Arlington National Cemetery earlier this year, she found that officials there had started hampering media coverage even in cases where the families gave permission. When she tried to uphold the existing regulations, she was harassed by her supervisor, demoted, and then fired.
WTC 7 Emergency Head Was Building Collapse Specialist
Friday, 11 July 2008 11:31 A GMT-05
The former New York City chief emergency manager Jerome Hauer, whose office was on the 23d floor of WTC 7, was also a building collapse specialist, according to a recently uncovered New York Times article. Hauer has attracted suspicion from the 9/11 truth movement because of his zeal to push the official story in the hours after the attack when details were still sketchy. Hauer was also Managing Director of Kroll Associates - the company that provided security for the WTC complex on 9/11 - and he also betrayed advance knowledge of the anthrax attacks a week before they happened.
NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative 20,000 & Gravel Press Release Thursday, July 10th, 2008 --- 12 noon
Thursday, 10 July 2008 10:26 A GMT-05
On Thursday, July 10th at 12 noon, at Foley Square in New York City, former Senator Mike Gravel, speaking on behalf of the New York City 9/11 Ballot Initiative Campaign, will call for a new and far reaching investigation of the crimes of 9/11. Advocating for the creation of an independent 9/11 Commission, Gravel states, “We’re trying to change the paradigm of human democracy, of human governance, and that's what this [NYC 9/11 Ballot Initiative] is all about, changing the paradigm of human governance right here in New York City by asserting that you saw something wrong that took place, and you want to address it through using the tool of the Initiative, the legislative power of citizenry to go after that fundamental change.” Accompanying Sen. Gravel will be 9/11 family member Bob McIlvaine who lost his son in the south tower, Tony-award winning actress Christine Ebersole, and former NSA analyst turned investigative reporter Wayne Madsen. Mr. Madsen, has recently voiced his support, stating many current and retired intelligence professionals as well as members of foreign intelligence agencies would testify what they know about 9/11 in the venue provided by this new investigation. This campaign comes in the wake of several developments which underscore the need for a truly independent, thorough, fact-driven investigation into the events of 9/11. Consider the recent book by NY Times veteran reporter Philip Shenon titled “The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation”, the book by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton titled “Unprecedented”, and Articles of Impeachment nos. 33-35 by Dennis Kucinich which list hard evidence showing dereliction of duty, obstruction of justice, and malfeasance by the Bush administration. Consider the revelation of the destruction in 2004 of CIA tape recordings of suspects in Guantanamo Bay which were requested by the 9/11 Commission. The list goes on and on…
U.S.: New Orleans is nation's fastest growing big city
Thursday, 10 July 2008 10:16 A GMT-05
The Census Bureau said New Orleans' population rose 13.8%, to 239,124, in the year ended July 1, 2007. That was a faster growth rate than any other city with a population of 100,000 or more.
9/11 Workers Refute NYC's Claim Of Incomplete Medical Records
Thursday, 10 July 2008 10:01 A GMT-05
Attorneys representing more than 10,000 Ground Zero workers including police, firefighters and other rescue, recovery and debris clean-up personnel who became ill after working at the World Trade Center site after 9/11 refuted the city’s claims that the plaintiffs produced inadequate medical records for the case. At a May 29 court conference, the city claimed that most plaintiffs had not produced all of their medical records. The plaintiffs' co-liaison counsel, Worby, Groner, Edelman, Napoli & Bern LLP, however, reported that they had delivered more than 800,000 pages of medical records. The plaintiffs also exchanged an additional 58,451 pages comprising 1,548 individual records since the court conference.
Serbian basketball player sought in assault on fellow student
Thursday, 10 July 2008 9:57 A GMT-05
Serbia agreed to cooperate in the case of Miladin Kovacevic, 20, who fled the United States in early June after he was charged in the May 4 assault of a fellow Binghamton University student at a bar in Binghamton, New York.
The fight started May 4, when Bryan Steinhauer, 22, tried to dance with the girlfriend of one of Kovacevic's friends. Witnesses said Kovacevic, who is 6-foot-9, 280 pounds, kicked the 5-foot-9, 130-pound Steinhauer repeatedly in the head as he lay on the ground. Three men, including Kovacevic, were charged with assault and gang assault and held on $100,000 bail, according to police. Kovacevic, who had been recruited to play basketball for the university, managed to flee the United States after his mother flew to New York to post bail and a Serbian consular official provided him with a temporary passport.
Opposition to Iraq War Hits 68% in U.S.: Angus Reid Global Monitor
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 1:36 A GMT-05
Two-thirds of American adults are disappointed with the coalition effort, according to a poll by Opinion Research Corporation released by CNN. 68 per cent of respondents oppose the United States war in Iraq.
The Tale of the Two Wallets
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 1:31 A GMT-05
Students of the assassination are familiar with the chain of events. First, Oswald reportedly takes his three shots from the sixth floor. He is then seen in the second floor lunchroom calmly drinking a Coke. Next, he’s off to the rooming house via bus and taxi to retrieve a .38 revolver. In a typically odd Oswald scheme, he heads off to the movie theater where he is apprehended in a scuffle with Dallas police officers. Along the way he runs into officer J. D. Tippet who is allegedly murdered by Oswald. I say allegedly, because eyewitness testimony on the murder of Tippet is a controversy all of its own. I’ll leave that for a future post. Meanwhile, after Oswald is arrested at the movie theater he refused to identify himself. After searching him, his wallet is retrieved, containing an ID for Lee H. Oswald and a second ID for the Alek Hidell alias. Here comes the rub. Back at the Tippet murder scene the wallet is now in the hands of Dallas police captain W. R. Westbrook. FBI agent Robert M. Barrett appears and is asked by Westbrook if he knows whom Lee Oswald or Alek Hidell is. Apparently Capt. Westbrook examined the contents. Barrett says no. You would think this would be a damning piece of evidence to put Oswald away for the Tippet murder, but that is not the case. The wallet seems to fade in out of the story.
Continental airliner buzzed by enthusiast model rocket?
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 1:18 A GMT-05
Domestic Continental Airlines Flight 1544 was climbing through 5,000 feet as it departed Houston for Cleveland with 148 passengers onboard when it was buzzed by the object. The plane did not alter its course heading as the pilot reported the incident, and continued on safely to its final destination.
Don't underestimate Iran
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 1:15 A GMT-05
It is too early to predict who would inflict more pain on the other - Israel or Iran - if war were to erupt in what remains of 2008. What we do know is that neither Israel nor the US have accurate information about Iran's arsenal. One reason is that the Americans have not had an embassy in Tehran since 1979. That is a major mistake given that the best way - throughout history - of gathering information about another country has been through diplomatic exchange.
Latest Local Actions Taken Re Michael Reagan
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:52 A GMT-05
1 Sentence Rebuttal to NIST
Wednesday, 9 July 2008 12:18 A GMT-05
NIST claims in its soon-to-be released report on WTC 7 that fires alone brought down the building. People like Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan, Gordon Ross and others will - in the near future - definitively demolish that claim in numerous ways. In the meantime, here's a one-sentence rebuttal to NIST, which links to a New York Times article:
BBC's "The Third Tower"
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 11:32 P GMT-05
Police: Trooper's son gained access to his gun
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 7:46 A GMT-05
A state police officer has been placed on restricted duty after the officer's 12-year-old son allegedly got access to his father's gun and pointed it at a neighbor.
US planned nerve gas tests on Australian soldiers
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 7:36 A GMT-05
The Defence and Prime Minister's office files show that the US was strongly pushing then prime minister Harold Holt's government in the 1960s to allow tests of two of the deadliest chemical weapons ever developed -- VX and GB, better known as Sarin nerve gas. The revelation airs this morning on the Nine Network's Sunday program.
Boston Activists Blast 4th of July Celebration with the Truth
Tuesday, 8 July 2008 12:12 A GMT-05
It wasn’t the flashiest Truth action ever, nor did it make the evening news, but 20 or more dedicated Boston911Truth activists hit the pavement at Boston’s 4th of July Pops concert and fireworks display and accomplished something just short of miraculous, for us anyway. Armed with only a smile, new Patriots Question 911 postcards and WeAreChange informational flyers, our hearty “Info Warriors” were able to distribute 7,000 pieces of literature at a rate of 1,000 per hour for seven hours among the crowds lining the Charles River waiting for the festivities to begin.
dc911truth.org Float in Fourth of July Parade
Monday, 7 July 2008 1:24 A GMT-05
dc911truth.org first participated in the Takoma Park Maryland 4th of July parade in 2006 with an information table. That effort was so successful that we decided to enter a float in the parade the following year, 2007. This is our second year to have a float in the parade and we have found it to be a great way to reach a large audience with a minimum of effort and expense (and it is a lot of fun!)
U.S. deserter could qualify as refugee: court
Sunday, 6 July 2008 4:15 P GMT-05
In a decision that may have an impact on dozens of refugee claimants in Canada, Federal Court Justice Robert Barnes said Canada's refugee board erred by rejecting the asylum bid of Joshua Key. He ordered that a new panel reconsider the application. Key was sent to Iraq in 2003 as a combat engineer for eight months where he said he was responsible for nighttime raids on private Iraqi homes, which included searching for weapons. He alleged that during his time in Iraq he witnessed several cases of abuse, humiliation, and looting by the U.S. army. When Key was back in the U.S on a two-week leave, he said he was suffering from debilitating nightmares and that he couldn't return. A military lawyer told him that he could either return to Iraq or face prison. Instead, Key took his family to Canada and applied for refugee status.
The buck doesn't stop here; it just keeps falling
Sunday, 6 July 2008 3:35 P GMT-05
The limp greenback has had one big benefit to the U.S. economy: Since it makes American goods cheaper overseas, it has helped manufacturers who export and other U.S. based companies with international reach. Exports have been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise darkening U.S. economy.
The little girl they couldn't see
Sunday, 6 July 2008 3:30 P GMT-05
The police officers had seen it all, but never anything like this. Last December, they stood inside a bedroom in a Brighton rehabilitation facility, visiting with Haleigh Poutre, a 13-year-old girl once deemed so hopelessly brain-damaged that judges approved the removal of her life support. But now Haleigh was not only breathing, but also communicating. And it wasn't just any conversation. She was answering questions about who might have delivered a near-fatal blow to her head nearly three years ago.
Lawn-chair balloonist drifts from Oregon to Idaho
Sunday, 6 July 2008 2:51 P GMT-05
This was Couch's third balloon flight. He realized it would be possible after watching a TV show about the 1982 lawn chair flight over Los Angeles of truck driver Larry Walters, who gained folk hero fame but was fined $1,500 for violating air traffic rules.
Cheney and the Oil Bigs Planned U.S. War Policy Before 9/11
Saturday, 5 July 2008 6:27 P GMT-05
You may have heard that the Energy Task Force chaired by Dick Cheney prior to 9/11 collected maps of Iraqi oil, Saudi and United Arab Emerates fields and potential suitors for that oil. And you might have heard that the oil bigs attended the Task Force meetings. But you probably haven't heard that a secret document written by the National Security Council (NSC) on February 3, 2001 directed NSC staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the “melding” of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy:
Even Fort Detrick Scientists Themselves Think the Killer Anthrax Came from their Facility
Saturday, 5 July 2008 6:07 P GMT-05
"In an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.
"Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"
911 Truthers - 4th of July Peace Action In Santa Monica
Saturday, 5 July 2008 5:38 P GMT-05
Support the troops!
Sunday, 8 June 2008 4:12 P GMT-05
Iraq War veteran Darrel Anderson talks about his experiences in Iraq and his views on 9/11.-BE
Hungry For Truth - Day 13
Sunday, 8 June 2008 3:05 P GMT-05
Today is Day 13 of Blair's fast. It was 101 degrees in Phoenix today, and I can assure everyone that it was hot!! Blair is doing very well. He has lost 17 pounds total but still insists he's fine. As he says, he's not running any races, but he's still walking and conversing with all who come to see him. We had a lively discussion on theology for about an hour while I was there. Blair is as sharp as a tack and eager to debate! Today a couple who live in San Diego drove to Phoenix on their way to the Grand Canyon and stopped to say hi to Blair. We all thought that was pretty nice of them. Members of the local 9/11 Truth group came and went all day long.
It's gratifying to see all the support that Blair is getting. The media continues to follow Blair. A TV station came by this morning and filmed for about 15 minutes. He has radio interviews scheduled for Monday morning and evening. Also, yesterday a plane flew overhead with a banner reading "Google Hunger strike for truth. Check for that on Hungry4Truth.com
Please continue to keep Blair in your thoghts. He is very appreciative of everyone and expresses his thanks for all of your supportive email messages and good wishes.
Gloucester lawyer to challenge Kerry - The Boston Globe
Sunday, 8 June 2008 2:25 P GMT-05
A defiant Gloucester lawyer Ed O'Reilly garnered enough support yesterday from party officials to ensure that he will give US Senator John F. Kerry his first Democratic primary challenge in 24 years. At the state Democratic Party convention, O'Reilly got 22.5 percent of the 2,574 ballots cast, more than the 15 percent he needed to secure a spot on the primary ballot. Because Kerry received a majority of the votes, he will get the party's official endorsement. "Party officials said this campaign is a nuisance. And it is. It's a total nuisance," O'Reilly said at the convention, held at the Paul E. Tsongas Arena in downtown Lowell. "Democracy is a nuisance. People said the American Revolution was a nuisance - and it was."
Use of credit shows steady increase
Saturday, 7 June 2008 5:14 P GMT-05
Total consumer credit rose $8.9 billion for the month to $2.56 trillion, the Federal Reserve said yesterday. In March, credit rose $13.1 billion, previously reported as an increase of $15.3 billion. The Fed's report doesn't cover borrowing secured by real estate.
Clinton suspends campaign, endorses Obama
Saturday, 7 June 2008 5:13 P GMT-05
Hillary Rodham Clinton is ready to swing her full support behind Barack Obama and ask her backers to follow along, while thanking them for sticking with her on a roller coaster ride from sure thing to also-ran. The former first lady was ending her historic quest to become the first female president with a speech Saturday at the National Building Museum. Her husband, former President Clinton, and other family members were expected to be at her side.
Chinese illegal immigrants discovered in Texas border town
Saturday, 7 June 2008 3:43 P GMT-05
Local police are accustomed to dealing with illegal border crossings but were astounded by the video of 15 Chinese immigrants unfolding themselves from the back of a sport-utility vehicle near this small border town.
Jobless rate jumped to 5.5 percent in May
Saturday, 7 June 2008 3:32 P GMT-05
With employers worried about a sharp slowdown and their own prospects, they clamped down on hiring in May, said Friday’s report from the Labor Department. The unemployment rate soared from 5 percent in April to 5.5 percent in May. That was the biggest one-month jump in the rate since February 1986. The increase left the jobless rate at its highest since October 2004.
US Economy is a National Security Crisis: 'US Needs to Raise $6 Trillion and It is Simple,' Says Visionary William Glynn
Saturday, 7 June 2008 3:30 P GMT-05
"Right now, China, Russia, India and Saudi Arabia basically own the United States. Our economy is the real target of terrorists and this is our potential downfall," says Glynn. His solution is transparent and uncomplicated... a 10% solution. "If we are to prevent another Great Depression we need to pass one simple law: All pension plans, endowments, 401(k)s and the like will be required to allocate 10% of their portfolios to buy back U.S. debt and currency." With more than 40 trillion dollars currently invested in these types of accounts, Glynn asserts that some four trillion dollars could be freed up in a matter of days to wipe out the national debt, buy back the $1.6 trillion in U.S. debt currently owned by China and more. He suggests that approximately one trillion dollars go into a 10-year Zero Coupon Bond with the proceeds ultimately going back to the endowments and pension plans. "Rather than seeing this as simply giving money back to the government, it's really a 10-year interest-free loan that has incredible benefits," he explains.
Surveillance Video Captures Graphic Hit-and-Run
Friday, 6 June 2008 3:38 A GMT-05
Hartford police released a surveillance video that shows a 78-year-old man, wh...o was struck by a car, lying motionless on a busy city street as pedestrians gawk but do nothing.
Graphic: Police Release Video Of Hartford Hit-And-Run
Friday, 6 June 2008 3:23 A GMT-05
Hartford police are looking for help from the public to find the driver police said struck a 78-year-old man in Hartford on May 30. Police found Angel Torres, of Hartford, on the ground in front of 33 Park St. Friday, May 30, at approximately 5:45 p.m. Torres had suffered head injuries when he was hit by a car, police said. He was taken to Hartford Hospital, where he is in critical condition and is paralyzed from the neck down.
Judge critical of Guantanamo war crimes case is dismissed
Sunday, 1 June 2008 3:30 P GMT-05
A judge hearing a war crimes case at Guantanamo Bay who publicly expressed frustration with military prosecutors' refusal to give evidence to the defense has been dismissed, tribunal officials confirmed Friday. Army Col. Peter Brownback III was presiding over the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr. Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, in his role as chief judge at Guantanamo, ordered the dismissal without explanation and announced Brownback's replacement in an e-mail this week to lawyers in Khadr's case.
Hungry For Truth - Day 6
Sunday, 1 June 2008 3:21 P GMT-05
We are approached by walkers routinely, most of whom take time to read our materials and ask us a few questions. We pass out “Hungry for Truth” fliers, AE911Truth evidence cards, numerous DVD's, and even gave away a few ‘hungry’ t-shirts to high school kids. We can also report that we noticed our first official surveillance vehicle that seemingly tried to be covert, but was easy for us to spot simply because we are now quite familiar with our surroundings. We eventually approached the unmarked car and were met by a uniformed officer, badge ID – Montoya. He moved his ‘unmarked’ vehicle around to several different parking lots, but eventually disappeared.
The False Logic of Hopelessness (Why the Elephant Should Stand Up to the Mouse)
Saturday, 31 May 2008 2:19 A GMT-05
You find a black widow spider in your garage. You are afraid of it, so you decide to stay out of the garage and park your car out front. You hope that if you ignore it, it will go back outside and leave you alone. Smart decision? Not if it raises a family, and not if they move into the main part of your house. By ignoring the small threat (one spider), you might soon have a much bigger threat: a whole bunch of black widow spiders infesting your house.
Top Source Says Bush To Strike Iran By August
Tuesday, 27 May 2008 11:59 P GMT-05
The impending invasion of Iran has been on the grapevine for the past three summers running and many are beginning to fear that the "boy who cried wolf" mentality is starting to discredit those who repeatedly warn of the coming attack. However, rhetoric has notably heated in the past few months. During Bush's recent visit to Israel, an Israeli official claimed that a senior member in Bush's entourage had stated in a closed meeting that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney had resolved to attack Iran before they left office.
A portrait honors last-known US veteran of WWI
Monday, 26 May 2008 3:57 P GMT-05
Frank Woodruff Buckles, the last known living American-born veteran of World War I, was honored yesterday at the Liberty Memorial during Memorial Day weekend celebrations.
Press Release: Phoenix 9/11 Truth Activist to Start Hunger Strike at McCain's Office
Monday, 26 May 2008 2:51 P GMT-05
Gadsby says he will fast until McCain agrees to give him and the Phoenix 9/11 Truth group two hours of time: one hour for presentation of evidence and facts followed by one hour of debate between leading investigators and scientists on both sides of the issue. Other 9/11 truth groups in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and New Mexico are organizing events in solidarity with Gadsby's hunger strike. More information about Professor Gadsby is available at: http://patriotsquestion911.com/professors.html
Safety Lapses Raised Risks In Trailers for Katrina Victims
Sunday, 25 May 2008 6:13 P GMT-05
"The most likely source of formaldehyde in the Katrina trailers and in all travel trailers are composite wood products . . . [and] the most likely source for those materials are imported products," primarily from China, said Elizabeth Whalen, director of corporate sustainability for Columbia Forest Products, of Portland, Ore., the association's largest U.S. plywood manufacturer.
'No justification' for raid on Texas Mormon ranch
Sunday, 25 May 2008 6:01 P GMT-05
The Third Court of Appeals, acting on a suit brought by lawyers on behalf of 38 mothers, said in a unanimous decision that the state did not have the evidence of ongoing sexual abuse necessary to justify the summary removal of the children and the separation from their mothers.
MAJESTIC MEMORIES
Sunday, 25 May 2008 12:40 A GMT-05
Looking back on that time, while the US Government declared political victory in the war, and the "Captains of Industry" grew rich turning looted war material into corporations that could hardly fail in competing with nations whose industrial bases had been bombed into rubble, I recognize that the town I grew up in had been defeated in that war. It had been eviscerated. It had had its very heart cut out of it; a gaping hole that never healed, but could only be forgotten. The government may declare victory in wars started in foreign lands, but for the people who live in small towns in this land the results are barely distinguishable from defeat. Lives are lost, families destroyed, futures shattered, hopes destroyed; all this is the price paid by the people for the "foreign entanglements" we were long ago warned to avoid. The real price of war is paid not just by those who died in it, but by those who are left behind who bury their dead and pay the bills.
Snitch
Sunday, 25 May 2008 12:17 A GMT-05
Deanna Johnson testified against a murderer to save her son. But in the projects, truth comes at a price.
Truth Emergency US
Saturday, 24 May 2008 11:03 P GMT-05
We are spun, mislead, propagandized and amused to death by our media conglomerates and as a result the US has become the best entertained and least informed society in the world. There is a literal truth emergency in the United States, not only regarding distant wars, torture camps, and doctored intelligence, but also around issues that most intimately impact our lives at home. For example, few Americans know that there has been a thirty-five year decline in real wages for most workers in the country, while the top 10% now enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens.
CIA Protects Al-Qaeda Group From Extradition
Saturday, 24 May 2008 6:33 P GMT-05
The fact that the highest echelons of the U.S. intelligence apparatus are meeting, advising and funding Sunni Al-Qaeda groups as a means of facilitating terrorist bombings and regime change in Iran completely invalidates the "war on terror" as a fabled fraud and renders ludicrous Bush administration rhetoric about fighting Al-Qaeda cells in Iraq. Neo-Cons drooling at the prospect of an invasion of Iran have hardly been shy about their support of terror attacks aimed against Iran by means of Jundullah, MEK and other groups listed as terror organizations by the State Department.
Unmarked chopper patrols NY city from high above
Saturday, 24 May 2008 6:26 P GMT-05
Police say the chopper's sweeps of landmarks and other potential targets are invaluable in helping guard against another terrorist attack, providing a see-but-avoid-being-seen advantage against bad guys. "It looks like just another helicopter in the sky," said Assistant Police Chief Charles Kammerdener, who oversees the department's aviation unit. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said that no other U.S. law enforcement agency "has anything that comes close" to the surveillance chopper, which was designed by engineers at Bell Helicopter and computer technicians based on NYPD specifications.
No Paper Trail Left Behind: the Theft of the 2004 Presidential Election
Saturday, 24 May 2008 4:30 P GMT-05
In the Georgia governor's race Republican Sonny Perdue upset incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Barnes by a margin of 52 to 45 percent. This was especially strange given that the October 16-17, 2002 Mason Dixon Poll (Mason Dixon Polling and Research, Inc. of Washington, D.C.) had shown Democratic Governor Barnes ahead 48 to 39 percent, with a margin of error of ± 4 points. The final tally was, in other words, a jaw dropping 16-point turn-around! What the Cleland “defeat” by Saxby and the Barnes “defeat” by Perdue both have in common is that nearly all the Georgia votes were recorded on computerized voting machines, which produce no paper trail. In Minnesota, after Democrat Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane crash death,34 ex-vice-president Walter Mondale took Wellstone’s place and was leading Republican Norm Coleman in the days before the election by 47 to 39 percent. Despite the fact that he was trailing just days before the race by 8 points, Coleman beat Mondale by 50 to 47 percent. This was an 11-point turn around! The Minnesota race was conducted with paper ballots, read by optical scan readers, but Mondale never bothered to ask for a recount.35 Welcome to a world where statistical probability and normal arithmetic no longer apply!36 The Democrats, rather than vigorously pursuing these patently obvious signs of election fraud in 2004, have nearly all decided that being gracious losers is better than being winners,37 probably because – and this may be the most important reason for the Democrats’ relative silence - a full-scale uncovering of the fraud runs the risk of mobilizing and unleashing popular forces that the Democrats find just as threatening as the GOP does.
Biofuel 'home brewers' raid grease barrels
Thursday, 22 May 2008 2:34 A GMT-05
A few years ago, drums of used french fry grease were only of interest to a small network of underground biofuel brewers, who would use the slimy oil to power their souped-up antique Mercedes. Now, restaurants from Berkeley, California, to Sedgwick, Kansas, are reporting thefts of old cooking oil worth thousands of dollars by rustlers who are refining it into barrels of biofuel in backyard stills. "It's like a war zone going on right now over grease," said David Levenson, who owns a grease hauling business in San Francisco's Mission District. "We're seeing more and more people stealing grease because it lets them stay away from the pump, but it's hurting our bottom line."
Celebration Of Americans Turning In Their Neighbors, Family Members
Tuesday, 20 May 2008 1:41 A GMT-05
Lest we forget that from this same wellspring of tyranny emerged Operation TIPS, which was supposedly nixed by Congress, a DOJ, FBI, DHS and FEMA coordinated program that would have recruited one in twenty-four Americans as domestic informants, a higher percentage than was used by the Stasi in East Germany.
Unarmed Pilots, Unsafe Skies - Thanks to TSA
Tuesday, 20 May 2008 12:37 A GMT-05
I met the pilot for coffee. Let’s call him Captain X. A veteran pilot for a major air carrier, he is licensed to fly DC9s, 727s, Airbus 320s, and 757s. Captain X has logged over 18,000 hours of accident- and incident-free flying time in twenty-one years of service. Presently, he flies thousands of people back and forth across the Pacific Ocean each week. Captain X faces a conundrum. As a volunteer for the Federal Flight Deck Officer’s (FFDO) program — pilots fly armed for free — the TSA gave him a psyche test and failed him. In other words, according to the TSA, Captain X is psychologically unfit to carry a gun. “At first I thought there was something wrong with me,” Captain X told me over coffee. “Now I think there is something wrong with the way the TSA runs the program.” What struck me as equally bizarre about Captain X’s predicament is that in addition to being an airline captain, he’s a firearms instructor in his home state. He’s been handling and using guns since he was old enough to hunt. And in order to keep his skills current, he maintains rigorous training with a personal firearms coach who is the number one competitive pistol shooter in the state. Captain X owns guns, he trains people to shoot guns, and his state licenses him to carry a gun. But the TSA says he can’t carry a weapon in a lock box in the cockpit of the aircraft he’s flying on any given day because he’s psychologically unfit to carry that gun.
Texas assesses whether sect 'girls' are adults
Sunday, 18 May 2008 1:34 P GMT-05
When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex. But in the past week, the state has twice been forced to admit "girls" who gave birth while in state custody are actually adults. One was 22 and claims she showed state officials a Utah birth certificate shortly after she and more than 400 minors were seized from the west Texas ranch in an April raid. The state has in custody two dozen other young mothers and others whose ages are in dispute. If most of them also turn out to be adults, it would be a severe blow to the state's claim of widespread sexual abuse. If it turns out the other 24 disputed minors are adults, the number of actual 14- to 17-year-old girls with children could drop to as low as five or six. That would amount to about one-fifth of the girls that age found at the ranch -- substantially higher than the average rate of teen pregnancies in Texas but a far cry from 60 percent.
Sex And The American Mom: 1 In 3 Report Having Affairs on the Side
Saturday, 17 May 2008 11:11 P GMT-05
You or someone you know is having an affair. We know, it sounds surprising, shocking even, but apparently that is the case. Cookie Magazine and "AOL Body" did a survey on the subject and 30,000 people responded. As far as surveys go, that is a big number, and it's even bigger when you consider that their questions were aimed solely at married women with children. Yep, lots of mommies are getting action on the side.
1933 Bush Coup
Saturday, 17 May 2008 8:35 P GMT-05
A BBC Radio 4 investigation sheds new light on a major subject that has received little historical attention, the conspiracy on behalf of a group of influential powerbrokers, led by Prescott Bush, to overthrow FDR and implement a fascist dictatorship in the U.S. based around the ideology of Mussolini and Hitler. In 1933, Marine Corps Maj.-Gen. Smedley Butler was approached by a wealthy and secretive group of industrialists and bankers, including Prescott Bush the current President's grandfather, who asked him to command a 500,000 strong rogue army of veterans that would help stage a coup to topple then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. According to the BBC, the plotters intended to impose a fascist takeover and "Adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression."
35-year sentence for HIV-positive spitter worries someking News for Dallas-Fort Worth | Dallas Morning News
Saturday, 17 May 2008 8:17 P GMT-05
Mr. Campbell's sentence was nearly double that given the same day to a man being tried in a courtroom next door. That man, De Leon Vanegas Jr., was sentenced to 18 years in prison for giving "cheese" heroin to a 15-year-old boy who died after using the drug. The jury in that case declared heroin a deadly weapon. Mr. Campbell had served time in prison twice, labeling him a habitual offender and starting his sentence time at 25 years. While in prison awaiting trial for this case, evidence showed, Mr. Campbell bit two inmates and attacked other officers.
US property foreclosures up 65%
Saturday, 17 May 2008 8:14 P GMT-05
The wave of misery caused by America's sub-prime mortgage crisis engulfed more homeowners in April as foreclosures leapt by 65% year-on-year, adding to pressure on the White House to provide relief for stricken borrowers. Banks filed foreclosure papers on 243,353 US properties last month according to RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for repossessed homes. The figure was up 4% on March and experts suggested that the rate of increase would be higher were it not for a logjam at courtrooms in some areas, with over-burdened clerks taking several months to process paperwork. "Although only 2% of households nationwide are in foreclosure, these properties contribute to already bloated inventories of homes for sale and put downward pressure on home values," said James Saccacio, chief executive of RealtyTrac.
Cleared by DNA, man tries to reclaim his life
Saturday, 17 May 2008 7:55 P GMT-05
The only time James Woodard sounds angry about his experience, spending half of his life in prison, is when he talks about the man who prosecuted him. "I think he should pay a penalty. I paid 27 years," Woodard said. "He took my life away from me. What's the difference if it's by a gun, by words or by lies. What's gone is gone."
Is the U.S. the World's Largest State Sponsor of Terrorism?
Saturday, 17 May 2008 3:48 P GMT-05
No wonder the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here). So next time the warmongers accuse a foreign country of sponsoring terrorism, remind them that - even if that is true - the U.S. is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.
Programs Which the Government Claims Are Aimed At Foreign Enemies are being Used Against American Citizens within the United States
Friday, 16 May 2008 7:30 A GMT-05
Actions which the government claims were launched against non-U.S. citizens have in the past been used against Americans within the United States. Why should we believe any differently about its new, even more tyrannical programs?
Drugged Immigrants and Lying to the Public? So?
Friday, 16 May 2008 7:24 A GMT-05
At this point in our history, America is like a victim of Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs, held captive in a pit, softened up, and then murdered for our supple skin so that the batshit killer can prance around and imagine he's the belle of the ball. If you're living the end of your days in a chamber of horrors, then, really, nothing awful is surprising anymore. The gruel you're fed has maggots in it? Yeah, okay. You're blasted with cold water every now and then? Sure, sure, whatever. You're in a goddamn dirt pit, a pseudo-grave, fer fuck's sake. Waiting to be skinned. What the fuck else is gonna be worse? So it is with the endless streams of revelations of how nightmarish and cynical the Bush administration actually is. The Pentagon was manipulating the media through the placement of ex-military members as "analysts" on the news networks and programs in order to hype the war? Fine, fine. What else ya got? Homeland Security is doping up immigrants for deportation? Really, what would have been shocking is if the Bush administration hadn't been shooting drugs into detainees.
Who Are You Going To Believe: The Government or Your Thinning Wallet?
Friday, 16 May 2008 6:16 A GMT-05
The government really does like to mess with its numbers, although the Bureau of Labor Statistics did state in their report that the price of gasoline was up, when it came time to record the price change for gasoline in their seasonally adjusted index, they recorded a decline in the price of gasoline.
Gag on 2nd Amendment Is City's Aim in Guns Suit
Friday, 16 May 2008 6:09 A GMT-05
Lawyers for Mayor Bloomberg are asking a judge to ban any reference to the Second Amendment during the upcoming trial of a gun shop owner who was sued by the city. While trials are often tightly choreographed, with lawyers routinely instructed to not tell certain facts to a jury, a gag order on a section of the Constitution would be an oddity. “Apparently Mayor Bloomberg has a problem with both the First and the Second amendments,” Lawrence Keane, the general counsel of a firearms industry association, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said. The trial, set to begin May 27, involves a Georgia gun shop, Adventure Outdoors, which the city alleges is responsible for a disproportionate number of the firearms recovered from criminals in New York City. The gun store’s owner, Jay Wallace, says his store abides by Georgia and federal regulations and takes steps to avoid selling firearms to gun traffickers. Mr. Wallace’s store is one of 27 out-of-state gun shops sued by New York City, and the first to go to trial.
Woman indicted in Missouri MySpace suicide case
Friday, 16 May 2008 5:59 A GMT-05
Lori Drew, 49, of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn't exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else's computer. Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.
Was it self-defense or firearms offense?
Friday, 16 May 2008 5:35 A GMT-05
"Freeze," he screamed. Crest believed he had finally caught the culprit who had taken thousands of dollars in meats, alcohol, and equipment from the shop. But when he flicked on the lights, still aiming his shotgun, and saw the intruder, he felt betrayed like never before: It was, he said, his head chef. "How many times have you broken in here before?" Crest demanded. The man ran out the door, and Crest fired several warning shots. He was determined, he said, to protect his property. But police say he went too far by trying to take the law into his own hands. Now there are two defendants. Crest, 39, of Marshfield will be arraigned next week before the same court that arraigned John F. O'Connor, 43, the man accused of stealing from him. Crest is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling.
New England 9/11 Symposium Final Update/Press Release
Thursday, 15 May 2008 11:34 P GMT-05
With the symposium only a few days away, we are working very hard for a large turnout and press coverage. I implore all of you to please participate in the week of truth and call C-SPAN to ask for media coverage of this event. Also, there have been two changes to the line up. Unfortunately, Daniel Sunjata will no longer be hosting the event due to conflicts with his schedule. The event will now be hosted by myself and Michael Jackman. Jason Bermas, because he has been working very hard on his new film, will not be able to join us. Instead, Korey Rowe will appear in his place to screen 15 minutes from their upcoming release, "Fabled Enemies." We're looking forward to seeing you all at the event! With that said, here is the latest press release...
Federal report: Danvers 2006 explosion could have been prevented
Thursday, 15 May 2008 11:14 P GMT-05
The 2006 Danversport factory explosion that destroyed a neighborhood here could have been prevented if one company involved had better safeguards inside its facility, according to a US Chemical Safety Board report released today.
Backing my claims about 9/11 questions
Wednesday, 14 May 2008 2:17 A GMT-05
The mainstream media parrot the less-than-credible conclusions of the 9/11 Commission without giving any thought to the many omissions and inconsistencies. In a truly free country, the press would ask hard questions and do real investigating, but this is not happening. Only the alternative media, such as Internet news sites, have done any solid investigating. The events of 9/11 led immediately to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and passage of the Patriot Act (what double-speak), both of which deprive us of Constitutional rights and have brought us to the brink of becoming a police state. Homeland Security is currently trying to force a national ID card down our throats, although some governors have politely (or not so politely) told Secretary Michael Chertoff where he can go. If we’re going to sacrifice our freedom, there ought to be a very good reason, and we have a right to know what that is. It isn’t enough for government to say, “Trust me.” It’s way past time for Congress to authorize an independent investigation of 9/11 that will consider the mass of new evidence that has been gathered in the past seven years. The longer they stall, the more suspicions grow.
Hawaiians sit in at palace, reject U.S. occupation
Wednesday, 14 May 2008 1:04 A GMT-05
Rejecting the continued U.S. occupation of the sovereign nation of Hawaii, a group of Native Hawaiians has re-established its own government, named the Hawaiian Kingdom Government. On April 30, that government reclaimed the Iolani Palace, home of the last Hawaiian monarchs before they were overthrown by U.S. interests in 1893. The palace is now run as a museum. About 70 members of this Hawaiian government arrived at the palace at 5:30 a.m. on April 30 and posted “No Trespassing” signs on the gates. Guards with the government, posted at the entrances, explained the action to visitors. They held the palace for six hours, while employees of the palace museum were sent home.
Justice for Tracy Ingle
Sunday, 11 May 2008 3:48 P GMT-05
Tracy Ingle was asleep in his house when armed police using a no-knock warrant burst in. Unsure about what was happening, he reached for a non-functioning pistol, but began to drop it as soon as he realized who they were. The gesture was too late -- officers shot him 5 times. Mercifully, he survived, but despite not finding any drugs in his house, Tracy is being charged with two felony counts of Aggravated Assault, drug paraphernalia and running a drug premises. He is in very poor physical shape and obviously not doing well psychologically, due to the incident. Many people in his town and even family find it easier to believe the police would not make such a big mistake. Of course Tracy's neighbor -- who saw the whole thing -- believes him, but the police have intimidated him to near silence. Everyone who speaks to his neighbor privately hears his story, but after the police "questioned" him for 4 hours and "advised" him not to get involved, he has refused to testify or go on the record.
NYPD disciplines white officer who stopped black commander
Sunday, 11 May 2008 2:51 P GMT-05
The Rev. Al Sharpton, who has been leading demonstrations in the city to protest the acquittal of three police officers in the shooting death of an unarmed man as he left his bachelor party, took note of the Zeigler incident while speaking at his weekly rally in Harlem. "You can't make this stuff up!" he said. "The problem isn't that they didn't recognize him. It is that they don't recognize our rights!" Also, a New York man has filed a lawsuit claiming that he was taunted and falsely arrested by police officers after they learned that he had the same name as a West African immigrant shot to death by other officers in 1999. Amadou Diallo said a group of officers confronted him over a broken headlight in February, then searched his vehicle for weapons. Once the officers learned his name, it became "a source of much amusement, laughing and inappropriate joking amongst the officers, with crude and disgusting comments," Diallo's lawyer said in the suit.
Guantanamo detainees spead word to boycott trials
Saturday, 10 May 2008 3:02 P GMT-05
Six detainees currently at Guantanamo have appeared before a military judge, and five of those have joined the boycott, which is expected to spread as more suspected terrorists are arraigned. The mass action threatens to give America's first war-crimes trials since the World War II era the appearance of perfunctory proceedings and reduce the image of justice being served.
State Says Hundreds Of 9/11 Rescue Workers Now Dead, Admits Undercount
Saturday, 10 May 2008 2:51 P GMT-05
New York State health officials have released statistics indicating that 360 9/11 rescue workers have since died, but have also admitted that there is an overall undercount. The New York Daily News reports that of those deaths 154 have been explained and 80 have died of various forms of cancer, mostly impacting the lungs and digestive system while others were related to blood cancers and heart and circulatory diseases. "It's the tip of the iceberg," said David Worby, who is representing 10,000 workers - 600 with cancer - who say they got sick after working on rescue and recovery efforts. "These statistics bear out how toxic that site was," Worby said.
"Continuity of Government Planning has ... Already Superseded the Constitution as a Higher Authority"
Saturday, 10 May 2008 2:48 P GMT-05
Well, in the summer 2007, Congressman Peter DeFazio, on the Homeland Security Committee (and so with proper security access to be briefed on COG issues), inquired about continuity of government plans, and was refused access. Indeed, DeFazio told Congress that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the plans by the White House (video; or here is the transcript). The Homeland Security Committee has full clearance to view all information about COG plans. DeFazio concluded: "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”. Professor Scott's point that COG planning may have already superseded the Constitution can be summarized by making an analogy. Let's assume that the police are not supposed to seize and sell a suspect's house unless a court has held a full trial and found that person guilty of a certain offense. And let's say that the police seize and sell somebody's house, but that the suspect's relatives cannot find any record that there has been a trial, let alone a finding of guilt by the court. Let's say they go to the City Council (which is the local counterpart of the U.S. Congress -- that is, part of the legislative branch), and the City Council asks the police if the suspect was found guilty by the court. If the police refuse to even answer the City Council's question, that shows that the rule of law has broken down. In other words, whether or not there was a trial and a guilty verdict, the failure of the police to answer the question shows that the police (part of the executive branch) are acting outside of the law by failing to respect the separation of powers between the police and the City Council.
"We Are Workers, Not Criminals"
Monday, 5 May 2008 1:25 A GMT-05
In the big immigrant marches that swept the country on May Day in 2006 and 2007, one sign said it all: "We are Workers, not Criminals!" Often it was held in the calloused hands of men and women, who looked as though they'd just come from working in a factory, cleaning an office building or picking grapes. The sign stated an obvious truth. Millions of people have come to this country to work, not to break its laws. Some have come with visas, and others without them. But they are all contributors to the society they've found here, not people who mean it harm. Again this May Day, immigrant workers are filling the streets, making the same point.
Will America become one huge tent city?
Monday, 5 May 2008 12:40 A GMT-05
Just how close are we to the homeless that we help, but hope like hell we never to have to live their lives? What happens to us, the USA, as a family? Will America become one huge tent city, manned by armed gunmen? Or a fighting, biting, screaming free for all-citizens running wild-dirty and hungry and ruthless? Let's hope the changes that come turn us back into a family-united and prepared. I shudder to think too much about the alternative.
Limbo debate: How low can these candidates go?
Monday, 5 May 2008 12:33 A GMT-05
Similarly, both Democratic Party candidates pledged not to raise capital gains taxes above 20%, which amounts to a mere 5% increase over the Bush rate of 15% for long term capital gains. Since 20% is far below the current 28% maximum earned income (payroll wages), both Clinton and Obama just pledged to treat millionaires and gazillionaires far better than people who work for a living.
The Next Slum?
Monday, 5 May 2008 12:13 A GMT-05
For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.
Probe of USS Cole Bombing Unravels
Sunday, 4 May 2008 6:54 P GMT-05
To this day, al-Qaeda trumpets the attack on the Cole as one of its greatest military victories. It remains an improbable story: how two suicide bombers smiled and waved to unsuspecting U.S. sailors in Aden's harbor as they pulled their tiny fishing boat alongside the $1 billion destroyer and blew a gaping hole in its side. Despite the initial promises of accountability, only limited public inquiries took place in Washington, unlike the extensive investigations that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Basic questions remain about which individuals and countries played a role in the assault on the Cole.
"Homeland security" high school gets approval
Sunday, 4 May 2008 5:19 P GMT-05
The process to find and fund a site for as many as six-hundred young men and women in Wilmington's inner city is underway. Curriculum choices for students, who are to be called Cadets, range from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) through prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, professional demolition and emergency response operator, according to a Board statement.
9/11 theorist not curtailing his research
Sunday, 4 May 2008 3:08 P GMT-05
Jones wants NIST to look at new evidence he found in Ground Zero dust samples since leaving BYU. The dust is full of iron-rich spheres and red-gray chips with the chemical signatures of high-tech cutter-charge explosives that he said could explain the collapsed towers. The spheres come from molten metal that Jones said could be caused by cutter charges. "It's like when you spray water into the air, you get droplets," Jones said. "These spheres are evidence of extremely high temperatures beyond what the fires could have reached." He's offered samples to NIST and invited NIST to visit one of his group's labs. A NIST spokesman has said that would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, though Jones said the cost would be less than $5,000.
Researchers race against time to solve deadly bat illness - The Boston Globe
Sunday, 4 May 2008 2:58 P GMT-05
For more than four months, perplexed scientists have struggled to understand why upwards of a half-million bats may be at risk of dying in the dark caves and mines of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and New York. Last year, thousands of dead bats were found in four caves within 7 miles of one another. This year, at least 25 caves and mines spread across 135 miles were found to have sick or dying bats. Homeowners from Hanover, N.H., to East Canaan in northwest Connecticut have reported dead bats on lawns, decks, and roofs, a sign the animals might be affected in an even wider area. But so far, no one has found an infectious agent or any other cause. It is a race against time. Bats are now migrating as far as 250 miles to their summer roosts, where they will mix with bats from other far-off caves and mines. By fall, they will travel back to their hibernation site to mingle and mate with still other bats. If the sickness is contagious, millions more of the animals around the country could be at risk next year.
Showered with hugs and kisses, soldiers return after tour in Iraq
Sunday, 4 May 2008 1:21 A GMT-05
The 186 men and women assigned to Delta Company, 1st Battalion of the 181st Infantry Regiment of the Massachusetts Army National Guard were returning after a one-year tour. The largest unit of Massachusetts troops deployed during the Iraq War had been surrounded by danger in Baghdad, but no one was killed or wounded.
Overwhelming Evidence Points To Murder Of DC Madam
Saturday, 3 May 2008 8:09 P GMT-05
"She had one white paper file box that she told me had some important paper with her and then she just kind of raised her eyebrows like you're supposed to think oh yeah, that's all the information that she had on her business in Washington," her building manager said. If Palfrey was planning to commit suicide just three days later then why did she leave with several suitcases and a box of files? According to an AP report, "Blanche Palfrey (her mother) had no sign that her daughter was suicidal, and there was no immediate indication that alcohol or drugs were involved, police Capt. Jeffrey Young said," On at least four previous occasions, both in the past and more recently, Palfrey publicly stated that she would never commit suicide. Twice on The Alex Jones Show, the most recent example being less than two months ago, Palfrey made clear her intention never to kill herself (Click here for MP3). "No I'm not planning to commit suicide," Palfrey told The Alex Jones Show on her last appearance in March, "I'm planning on going into court and defending myself vigorously and exposing the government," she said. "Not to be concerned, I have no intention of letting anyone buy me off or make any kind of a deal with me....and I'm not planning to commit suicide either," said Palfrey on a separate occasion. Alex Jones also talked directly to Palfrey during show breaks and she re-stated her intention never to commit suicide and made it clear that if she was found dead to consider it murder. GCN Live radio board operators are also witnesses to these statements.
New Video: Dr. Steven Jones at the Boston 9/11 Conference - 12/15/07
Saturday, 3 May 2008 7:35 P GMT-05
Dr. Steven Jones presents new evidence in the ongoing investigation of the collapse of the WTC Towers at the Boston 9/11 Conference (12/15/07). This is the complete presentation. Special thanks to Dr. Jones for his materials, assistance, (and patience...) in preparing this video. It was an excellent talk. Great work Dr. Jones!
New England 9/11 Symposium - Reminder - May 17
Saturday, 3 May 2008 2:28 A GMT-05
The New England 9/11 Symposium:
Family Members, Whistleblowers and Researchers Speak Out Saturday, May 17th, 9:30 am-6 pm Keene High School, Keene, NH
General Admission: $15 Students and Seniors: $ 10 Coffee and registration at 9:O0 a.m.
Was 10:45 a.m. the Originally Planned Demolition Time of WTC 7?
Friday, 2 May 2008 11:14 A GMT-05
At 11:07 a.m. in the morning of September 11, 2001, a CNN correspondent in New York reported that a third tower had possibly collapsed. While this report was incorrect, it is interesting to note that the reporter's description could have applied to World Trade Center Building 7. This huge skyscraper was indeed the third tower to collapse on 9/11. However it did not come down until late in the afternoon, more than six hours after this report. CNN correspondent Allan Dodds Frank reported by phone from Lower Manhattan. He described: "[J]ust two or three minutes ago there was yet another collapse or explosion. I'm now out of sight, a Good Samaritan has taken me in on Duane Street. But at a quarter to 11, there was another collapse or explosion following the 10:30 collapse of the second tower. And a firefighter who rushed by us estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." [1] WTC 7 was a 47-story tower, so would have fitted the description of the estimated "50 stories" described by Frank. And it did indeed collapse completely. One could in fact accurately describe its demise with Frank's words: "The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." However, this collapse did not happen until 5:20 that afternoon. What could have led Frank to make his incorrect report? Surely, even in the chaos of that morning, it would have been quite difficult for a mistaken report of another massive skyscraper coming down to have emerged out of nothing. Could the reason be that WTC 7 had originally been scheduled to be brought down (with explosives) at 10:45 a.m.? The incorrect information Frank reported had therefore been put out, by persons unknown, on the assumption that this would be the case. However, something--as yet unknown to us--happened that meant the demolition had to be delayed, and so Building 7 was not ready to be brought down until late that afternoon.
Cindy Sheehan For Congress
Friday, 2 May 2008 11:02 A GMT-05
She is running against Nancy Pelosi. -BE
Unemployment plummets after crackdown on illegals
Friday, 2 May 2008 10:58 A GMT-05
Unemployment rates are rising across the United States, except Oklahoma. That state is experiencing the most dramatic reduction in unemployment since 2007, an improvement many in Oklahoma attribute to the passage last year by the state legislature of a strong employment-focused immigration reform law.
The Palfrey-Cheney Connection
Friday, 2 May 2008 10:47 A GMT-05
Is it possible that facing of a 55-year sentence, Ms. Palfrey was going to do some talking, in hopes of a reduced sentence? Were some persons concerned that an angry or vindictive Palfrey might write tell-all?
Elderly man drives through airport security and onto runway
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 9:52 P GMT-05
Authorities are questioning a 73-year-old driver who sped through a security gate at Miami International Airport and ended up on one of the main runways. The man has not been identified. Police say he may have been disoriented when he drove passed security Friday morning. He was quickly detained by police.
Arizona Senator: I Want To Find Out The Truth About 9/11
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 11:31 A GMT-05
"There are so many unanswered questions regarding 9/11 and there never ever would have even been a Commission called for by Mr Bush and the Federal Government if it hadn't have been for the Jersey Girls." Johnson said, referring to the activist group of widowed mothers and wives from New Jersey and New York who have continued to question the events of 9/11.
Boston firefighter on disability leave faces drug charges
Monday, 28 April 2008 2:51 A GMT-05
A Boston firefighter on disability leave will face charges that he illegally bought $200-worth of Oxycontin painkillers from a known drug dealer. The firefighter, William Boyle, 58, allegedly bought the pills at the Broadway MBTA station Friday afternoon. Detectives handcuffed Boyle and brought him into the police station for questioning but did not arrest him. They released him and issued a criminal summons for him to appear in court on possession charges.
Bailing Out Banks
Monday, 28 April 2008 2:41 A GMT-05
Worst of all, the Treasury Department has recently proposed that the Federal Reserve, which was responsible for the housing bubble and subprime crisis in the first place, be rewarded for all its intervention by being turned into a super-regulator. The Treasury foresees the Fed as the guarantor of market stability, with oversight over any financial institution that could pose a threat to the financial system. Rewarding poor-performing financial institutions is bad enough, but rewarding the institution that enabled the current economic crisis is unconscionable.
Amnesty unveils shock 'waterboarding' film
Sunday, 27 April 2008 12:05 A GMT-05
An American expert in torture techniques has denounced his government for allowing "waterboarding" to be practised against terror suspects, just as a graphic advertisement showing the brutal reality of the technique is unveiled to British cinema-goers. Malcolm Nance, who trained hundreds of US servicemen and women to resist interrogation by putting them through "waterboarding" exercises, demanded an immediate end to the practice by all US personnel. He said: "They seem to think it is worth throwing the honour of 220 years of American decency in war out of the window. Waterboarding is out-and-out torture, and I'm deeply ashamed President Bush has authorised its use and dragged the US's reputation into the mud."
RALLY FOR THE NYC 9/11 BALLOT INITIATIVE
Saturday, 26 April 2008 11:50 P GMT-05
RALLY FOR THE NYC 9/11 BALLOT INITIATIVE When: Wednesday April 30, 7:30 pm Where: St. Mark's Church, 2nd Avenue @ 10th Street
The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke
Saturday, 26 April 2008 6:13 P GMT-05
The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room" -- the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination. As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries. Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay or repudiate. This fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.
The Real Matrix: The Pentagon Invades Your Life
Saturday, 26 April 2008 6:09 P GMT-05
During Ike's time, when civilian firms like Ford and AT&T were the big military suppliers, the payroll showed an utter lack of cool companies. Now, the Pentagon is reaching into virgin territory in new ways with new partners. Today, hip firms like Apple, Google, and Starbucks are also on DoD contractors' lists. And while Ike's complex was typified by brass bands and patriotic parades, today's variant is a flashy digitized world of video games, extreme sports, and everything cool that appeals to potential young recruits. Steven finally shuts down Tropico: Paradise Island - a nation-building simulation video game where the player, as "El Presidente," attempts to lure tourists to his/her fun-in-the-sun resort. Neither father nor son is remotely aware that the software maker, Breakaway Games, does taxpayer-funded work for such military clients as DARPA, the Joint Forces Command, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the United States Air Force - as well as having developed 24 Blue, a simulator used to improve aircraft carrier-based operations. They are blissfully unaware of even the existence of Breakaway's Pentagon-funded video game that could conceivably lead to more effective bombing of targets abroad. Steven grabs his iPod MP3 player (from DoD contractor Apple Computer) and heads downstairs to leave with his father. On his way to the door, Rick goes to his bookshelf and scans a selection of progressive texts whose publishers just happen to be DoD contractors, including a reissue of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin), Bushwhacked: Life in George W. Bush's America by Lou Dubose and Molly Ivins (Random House), and Jon Stewart's America (The Book) (Warner Books), before choosing the Hugo Chavez-approved Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky (ahem, Metropolitan Books from Macmillan publishers). As the last one out, Donna sets the ADT alarm system. (ADT took in more than $16 million from the Pentagon in 2006, while its parent company, Tyco International, cleaned up to the tune of over $187 million.)
The High Crimes of John Yoo
Saturday, 26 April 2008 4:41 P GMT-05
Among other criteria, it stated that “[p]hysical pain amounting to torture must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”
Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of 'Fear'
Saturday, 26 April 2008 4:01 P GMT-05
What happened to the whole "serve and protect" thing? -BE
Outspoken Arizona Senator Questions 9/11 Official Version Of Events
Saturday, 26 April 2008 2:14 P GMT-05
A senator that actually cares about constitution law and US sovereignty, questions big corporate infested government and promotes freedom? Karen Johnson is undoubtedly kooky and most possibly evil.
Student 'Twitters' his way out of Egyptian jail
Saturday, 26 April 2008 2:05 P GMT-05
Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator, Mohammed Maree, were arrested April 10. On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter. The message only had one word. "Arrested." Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt -- the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier -- were alerted that he was being held. Twitter is a social-networking blog site that allows users to send status updates, or "tweets," from cell phones, instant messaging services and Facebook in less than 140 characters.
Dangerous pattern emerges as activists are framed, calls for violence are declared for Denver DNC
Saturday, 26 April 2008 2:03 P GMT-05
As this current pattern unfolds, peaceful groups need to be wary of provocateurs attempting to incite violence or frame peaceful activists for committing criminal acts. Keep your cameras rolling and stand strong. Attempts to frame and provocateur peaceful groups only serve to demonstrate the frustration and fear the establishment is feeling.
If violence does ensue at the DNC or elsewhere, the expanding police state will be empowered even further. The provocateurs' goal is to fulfill the image that the mainstream media is attempting to create surrounding peaceful activists as being violent anarchists who damage America's image. Violence will only tighten the grip of the already tightening system.
BUSH BASHER SMASHES DISABLED TEEN: COPS - New York Post
Friday, 25 April 2008 2:37 A GMT-05
"He began yelling about Iraq and Iran at Jenna Bush. She was waving at the crowd. I told the guy, 'What are you doing? Shut up. This is about a child and books,' " said John Lovetro. "He was unperturbed. I said, 'Get out of here! You're being a moron!' " The next thing he knew, Talis was allegedly punching Maureen - a fan of the first lady since meeting her in 2004.
NY Post Smears Activist For "Wheelchair Assault"
Friday, 25 April 2008 2:35 A GMT-05
The NY Post is facing a lawsuit after it brazenly smeared a 9/11 truth activist for attacking a wheelchair-bound woman in New York last night, when in fact it was the activist himself who was beaten up by the girl's father according to eyewitnesses.
Snipes gets the max -- 3 years -- in tax case
Friday, 25 April 2008 1:55 A GMT-05
A jury convicted Snipes on the misdemeanor charges February 1, but he was acquitted of more serious felony charges of tax fraud and conspiracy. Jurors accepted his argument that he was innocently duped by errant tax advisers. Defense attorneys in court documents suggested that to sentence Snipes harshly would be to disregard the jury's verdict. But prosecutors, in their sentencing recommendation, said the jurors' decision "has been portrayed in the mainstream media as a 'victory' for Snipes. The troubling implication of such coverage for the millions of average citizens who are aware of this case is that the rich and famous Wesley Snipes has 'gotten away with it.' In the end the criminal conduct of Snipes must not be seen in such a light."
WAC-Job Video of Laura Bush Event
Thursday, 24 April 2008 10:50 A GMT-05
I know that some of the 9/11 "debunkers" are decent people honestly believing the official narrative of 9/11, but I do have to say that many are simply fascistic sycophants and make little effort to hide that. This post - especially the comments section - is, in my opinion, a very strong illustration to that effect. -BE
Former prosecutor says new spy case shows that Pollard case was bigger than thought
Thursday, 24 April 2008 1:21 A GMT-05
A former US attorney says the arrest of a US Army veteran on charges he spied for Israel confirms that the 1985 case of Jonathan Pollard was bigger than suspected. Joseph DiGenova oversaw the Pollard case. He says 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish is alleged to have had the same Israeli handler as Pollard, a former US Navy analyst serving a life sentence for espionage. DiGenova says the similarities are eerie. He says it clearly indicates the case is bigger than these two.
Los Angeles 'is a Third World city'
Thursday, 24 April 2008 1:12 A GMT-05
"The question is are we going to be a 21st century city with shared prosperity, or a Third World city with an elite group on top and most on near poverty wages?"
Court Again Clears EPA in 9/11 Toxic Dust Ruling
Tuesday, 22 April 2008 11:04 P GMT-05
An EPA whistleblower, Dr. Cate Jenkins then wrote a letter to Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and other members of the New York congressional delegation blasting the EPA for hiding dangerous toxins from Ground Zero workers in the aftermath of 9/11. The Letter claimed that EPA-funded research on the toxicity of breathable alkaline dust at the site “falsified pH results” to make the substance appear benign, when it was, in reality, corrosive enough to cause first responders and other workers in lower Manhattan to later lose pulmonary functions and, in some cases, to die. In an even more shocking development it was revealed that Whitman apparently had financial interests in reassuring the public that all was well and that lower Manhattan could safely be reoccupied.
Evidence is Growing: Continuity of Government Plan is Currently in Effect
Sunday, 20 April 2008 8:42 P GMT-05
Remember that Continuity of Government plans -- that is, the measures that go into effect in case of emergency -- suspend the Constitutional form of government, cut elected officials out of the loop, and may even allow the government to tell the media what it can and cannot report. Remember also that the entire Homeland Security Committee of the U.S. Congress has been denied access to the government's Continuity of Government Plans even though it has clearance to view such plans (video; or here is the transcript). Indeed, a member of that Committee has said "Maybe the people who think there’s a conspiracy out there are right”.
In Boston, protesters know how to make a splash
Sunday, 20 April 2008 7:35 P GMT-05
These days, for environmental reasons, protesters cannot make a splash with impunity - they must retrieve things they throw in the water. When 911truth.org tossed copies of the 9/11 Commission Report from the Moakley Bridge in 2006 and 2007, the group had to hire a boater to retrieve the detritus. In 2000, third-party supporters lobbed their televisions into the channel - then pulled them back by attached ropes.
Feds to collect DNA from every person they arrest
Sunday, 20 April 2008 6:55 P GMT-05
The government plans to begin collecting DNA samples from anyone arrested by a federal law enforcement agency — a move intended to prevent violent crime but which also is raising concerns about the privacy of innocent people.
Congresswoman tries to yank Carter's passport
Sunday, 20 April 2008 6:12 P GMT-05
He no longer travels aboard Air Force One; now former President Jimmy Carter could be restricted to domestic flights. It's not likely to happen, but Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., wants Carter's U.S. passport pulled because he met Thursday with members of Hamas in the Middle East.
Experts: Sirhan Sirhan Did Not Kill RFK
Sunday, 20 April 2008 5:52 P GMT-05
The other evidence was the Pruszynski recording. This is the only audio recording of the assassination. Another scientist analyzed it and concluded that at least 13 shots were fired from two different guns. Philip Van Praag, a forensic engineer, said he made three discoveries. The first two demonstrate that there must be more than one shooter, he said. The third conclusion is that the shots fired by the second shooter matched the firearm a security guard behind Kennedy carried. Joling and Van Praag presented their findings together, although the two investigated the Kennedy shooting independently. They had never met until last year. During a seminar, they realized their separate findings were perfectly wed.
Sometimes your friends end up duct-taped and suicided
Sunday, 20 April 2008 5:45 P GMT-05
Riad ran the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund (PCWF), a radical Gaza-based "charity" that helped children in Gaza and that we tried to help. Several of you sponsored children from his organization for the measly sum of $10/month that makes such a huge difference in their lives by paying for schoolbooks and medicine. Those of you who did, I honor from the bottom of my heart. Riad was doing such good work that right wing Likud organizations slandered him by linking him and his charity to Islamic fundamentalist terror in newspaper and Internet articles. He had court cases against several of them including that slimey rat David Horowitz. Shortly before Riad was suicided, his home had been raided by the feds and his computers were confiscated. It sent shockwaves through the pro-Palestinian community because it was one of the last organizations you could use to help people. My friend is dead. Found floating in a lake, ductaped by "suidice". Other friends of mine are being persecuted too but they're not suicided yet.
Who Killed Martin Luther King?
Sunday, 20 April 2008 5:16 P GMT-05
Six-oh-one p.m., April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King has been felled by a single shot. In 1977 the family of Martin Luther King engaged an attorney and friend, Dr. William Pepper, to investigate a suspicion they had. They no longer believed that James Earl Ray was the killer. For their peace of mind, for an accurate record of history, and out of a sense of justice they conducted a two decade long investigation. The evidence they uncovered was put before a jury in Memphis, TN, in November 1999. 70 witnesses testified under oath, 4,000 pages of transcripts described the evidence, much of it new. It took the jury 59 minutes to come back with their decision that Loyd Jowers, owner of Jim’s Grill, had participated in a conspiracy to kill King, a conspiracy that included J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the Memphis Police Department (MPD), and organized crime. That verdict exonerated James Earl Ray who had already died in prison. The news of the verdict, in one of the most important national security trials in modern history, was suppressed. And to this day — with very, very few exceptions — the public does not know that this trial took place and what the outcome was.
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand -NYT April 20, 2008
Sunday, 20 April 2008 4:26 P GMT-05
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world. Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found. The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess
on air.
April 19 -- Day of remembrance
Sunday, 20 April 2008 2:16 A GMT-05
It is with great sadness that we honor today the victims of the Waco massacre, April 19, 1993, and the Oklahoma City bombing, April 19, 1995.
Police, Media Say FBI Target Found Dead In Lake, Bound & Gagged, Committed Suicide!
Sunday, 20 April 2008 1:52 A GMT-05
Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.
Man's guilt doubted after 26 years in prison
Sunday, 20 April 2008 1:46 A GMT-05
Two attorneys recently revealed that their former client, Andrew Wilson, admitted committing the crime that sent Logan to prison, but attorney-client privilege had kept them from coming forward. Wilson's death last year allowed the attorneys to unseal an affidavit stating that Logan was not responsible for the fatal shooting of security guard Lloyd Wickliffe at a McDonald's restaurant in January 1982.
Exclusive! RON PAUL @ DC Freedom Rally / Tax Day Protest
Saturday, 19 April 2008 3:23 P GMT-05
Ron Paul speech on 4/15/2008 Tax Strike, Freedom Rally, Washington DC, nationwide protest.
Controversy: Mercenaries Training US Local Police Officers
Saturday, 19 April 2008 2:01 P GMT-05
For example, Kentucky’s Lexington Police Department contracted Blackwater Security International to provide what’s described as homeland security training. Meanwhile that city’s Mayor Jim Newberry and its chief of police Anthony Beatty refused free training provided by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement federal program that prepares police officers to enforce immigration and border security as part of their duties. Lexington is on the nation’s list of so-called Sanctuary Cities in which police officers are prohibited from working with ICE or Border Patrol agents in the United States. Critics are angry over the use of local tax dollars to hire Blackwater personnel to train the police.
Ex-marshal: Air marshal training 'a national disgrace'
Thursday, 17 April 2008 9:14 P GMT-05
In July 2006, the Federal Air Marshal Service sent out a memo saying that new hires would no longer face mandatory psychological testing, unless the recruit admits that he or she has been treated for a mental condition.
Portland Couple Has Refused to Pay Taxes for 30 Years to Protest Military Funding
Thursday, 17 April 2008 9:06 P GMT-05
We have traditionally redirected the money to some other cause. And now, since 2002, our decision has been to take the money that the federal government says we owe and to pay it directly to our local Multnomah County government. And so, day after tomorrow, we're going to go down to the Multnomah County Commission meeting, their weekly meeting, with a check in hand, and we'll give the reasons why we cannot support the federal government, and we'll thank them for not having a military department, and we'll give them the money to be used however they wish. But we have in mind that our county government has a heavy cost to pay for healthcare for people, including people who are in the position they are because of their involvement in the war and the suffering from the war.
Why Shouldn't We Be Bitter?
Thursday, 17 April 2008 8:35 P GMT-05
With the critical Pennsylvania primary a week away, this is the Obama sentence that, as Thurber would say, has torn up the peapatch: "It's not surprising then that they [small town people] get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations." The response to this by the media and the attempts to exploit Obama's words by Senators Clinton and McCain have been mind shattering in their hypocrisy and cynicism. As political operative Bob Shrum wrote in The Huffington Post, "Ironically, Obama's the one raised by a single mother. He's the one who only recently finished paying off his student loans. He doesn't know what it's like to have $100 million. The opponents who are attacking him are the ones who inhabit that financial neighborhood."
Lethal Injustice: No New Trial for Death Row Prisoner Troy Davis
Thursday, 17 April 2008 7:58 P GMT-05
In a 4-3 decision, the court decided that not even the seven recanted testimonies were enough to merit a new trial. "We simply cannot disregard the jury's verdict in this case," wrote Justice Harold Melton. Never mind that the jury was working with hopelessly tainted evidence -- and that two of the jurors have declared that if they knew then what they know now, they would never have voted to convict Troy Davis. As Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote in her dissent: "If recantation testimony … shows convincingly that prior trial testimony was false, it simply defies all logic and morality to hold that it must be disregarded categorically." But logic and morality have little say in a system that straps people to a gurney, outfits them with intravenous lines and murders them with a lethal cocktail. Once again, Troy Davis confronts this fate.
The Supreme Court Brings Back the Death Penalty
Thursday, 17 April 2008 7:52 P GMT-05
Baze represented a critical development in death penalty litigation, the first time the Court has considered a specific method of execution since it upheld the firing squad in 1878. Ever since the Supreme Court's last-minute intervention in the case of Florida death row prisoner Clarence Hill -- he was strapped onto a gurney with intravenous lines in his arms -- in January 2006, the stage had been set for a showdown on lethal injection. When the Court ruled later that year that prisoners could appeal their death sentences based on the possibility that lethal injection is cruel and unusual, a wave of appeals swept the country. Now, those prisoners have lost significant legal footing and with it, very possibly, the right to live. "While the opinion appeared to leave open a chance that some further challenges could be made to the use of lethal drugs under a specific procedure in another state," explained Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog, "...The opinion also appeared to mean that the three drugs now used in all of those jurisdictions do not, alone or in combination, fail the Court's new standard."
Tent city highlights US homes crisis
Thursday, 17 April 2008 7:24 P GMT-05
We are on the outskirts of Ontario, a functionally pleasant commuter-city in southern California. Last summer, local officials established this camp as a temporary base for the city's homeless population, then around two dozen. But word spread and now some 300 people live here. It has an air of scruffy permanence, and indeed, city officials say there are no current plans to close it down.
Terrorism case ends in second mistrial in Miami
Thursday, 17 April 2008 7:02 P GMT-05
"The entire situation was concocted by the government. The warehouse was paid for by the FBI, and the defendants moved their operations there at the suggestion of an undercover informant who was also paid by the FBI. The swearing-in ceremony was led by the informant — who at another point also suggested a plan to bomb FBI offices in Miami. "The case was written, produced and directed by the FBI," defense attorney Albert Levin said in his closing arguments."
TRAITOR'S GATE
Sunday, 13 April 2008 5:13 A GMT-05
Brought to you by the Project for the New American Century, War Profiteers and Chicken Hawks.
Cat dies when artillery round hits home
Sunday, 13 April 2008 4:52 A GMT-05
The Army is suspending outdoor weapons testing at a northern New Jersey base after a wayward artillery shell fragment crashed through the roof of a home miles away, fatally injuring a pet cat, the base's commanding officer said Saturday.
The Man Banned by Digg
Saturday, 12 April 2008 4:25 P GMT-05
Dale Williams interviews Mike Rivero, webmaster of WhatReallyHappened.com. Most of the content on Mike's site has been banned by Digg. Why the censorship? Find out with this in-depth interview. H.R. 1955 - the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 and the Truth and Freedom Movements are just a few of the topics discussed.