"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -- James Madison, American president from 1809--1817, helped draft the Constitution
Stuart Littlewood views the British government's unwillingness - as evident from the statements of its ministers in Parliament - to support its citizens' right to go about their lawful business delivering humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza and to protect them from Israeli threats to slaughter them on the high seas.
Discussing the tribunal's investigations into Hariri's murder, Nasrallah said: "We mentioned the possibility of having Israel involved in the murder and the fact that [Israeli] agents were present at the murder scene one day before the murder.
"No one in the STL even asked the Israelis anything. This is normal, why? Because the tribunal, since its formation, had a precise goal and no one was allowed to talk to the Israelis ... Instead of investigating the Israelis, [the STL] gathered information from them."
Greek Coast Guard and Commandos Stopping US Boat to Gaza
Johnny Barber, a passenger, on the Audacity of Hope, was able to do this amazing recording as it happened.
Greece has somehow maneuvered itself (or been maneuvered) into a financial crisis which threatens the incumbent government, and the economic quality of corporate life in Greece if IMF and World Bank historical response are pursued. So, to whom will they turn for relief?
Is it any surprise that they have undertaken Israeli dirty work?
The EU and IMF bureaucrats overseeing the programme know that it’s preposterous, just as they know that the tax and spend forecasts are preposterous – and just as they know, deep down, that Greece can’t grow in the absence of a devaluation. The whole process is a farce, aimed at stringing out the crisis until the financial institutions exposed in Greece have shuffled off their liabilities on to the taxpayer. The moment governments and international institutions have taken over the banks’ debts, Athens will default. Everyone knows it. Why insult us with this choreography?
As Europe struggles to put together a second bailout of Greece, to supplement the rescue effort launched last year, the crisis may force a second bailout of another indebted country in the region: Ireland.
A threat to media diversity is a threat to democracy, which is why a commercial media organisation of this size, which would be even larger than the BBC, would not be permissible in most other democracies. But do not expect Mr Murdoch's Conservative friends to do anything about it. Nor will Ed Miliband, who is following the example set by his predecessors Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in courting the owner of the newspapers of which the Labour party has run scared for decades. For all Vince Cable's posturing about "declaring war on Murdoch", no mainstream politician can afford to make an enemy of a man who sits at the centre of such a vast media web. And that fact alone is the perfect illustration of the dangers of one man having so much media power.
“Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn.” — John Stockwell
“If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.” — Ludwig von Mises
Malcolm X's opinion was of course rooted in his strong sense of tribalism which he feared existed among the White Man and whom he perceived were collectively the oppressors of the black man. He noted in one of his speeches that: “We must have separation in order to be equal, we must have separation in order to have freedom, we must have separation in order to have justice.”
Tripoli, Libya At ten a.m. Tripoli time on 6/28/11 the Libyan Ministry of Health made available to this observer its compilation entitled “Current Statistics Of Civilian Victims Of Nato Bombardments On Libya, (3/19/11-6/27/11).
Before releasing their data, which will be made public this afternoon, it was confirmed by the findings of the Libyan Red Crescent Society and also by civil defense workers in the neighborhoods bombed, and then vetted by researchers at Tripoli’s Nassar University.
As of July 1, 2011, military casualties have not been officially released by the Libyan armed forces...
Is it reasonable to assume that committing lesser offenses eventually leads to a general diminishment of respect for the law - as in the "Broken Window Theory?"
"Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament, and his Constitution may not last very long." -- President Lyndon Johnson to Greek Ambassador, 1970s
“This shameful chapter in Greek history is symbolized by Prime Minister Netanyahu thanking his Greek counterpart Prime MInister Papandreou for his cooperation in helping thwart the flotilla, and by the fully-armed and masked Greek commandos at sea, pointing their guns at unarmed American civilians singing "We are a gentle, loving people," says passenger Medea Benjamin.
pers @ NY Greek Consulate told JVP supporter "It's your government [US] that ordered us not to let the ship sail!" link to twitter.com
The coordinator of Al-AMAN Network for Strategic Studies, Anees Naqqash, expressed that the internal and external harmony in relation to the indictment on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was obvious. He spoke of Zionist hands behind the indictment, and said they at least contribute to its drafting process.
In an exclusive interview with Al-Manar Website, Naqqash said the March 14 bloc didn’t find any opposition tool other than the indictment, expressing beliefs that the bloc would attack the government during the upcoming stage and accuse it of protecting the criminals, in an attempt to change the current majority.
Greece, the country that is ever revered as the cradle of democracy, philosophy and pretty much the entirety of Western civilization (no oxymoron jokes, please), is having a tough year. A recent economic near-collapse, European bailout, the difficult passage of a raft of unpopular austerity measures and, of course, angry demonstrations, protests and bloody riots in the streets have tested the country’s fortitude. The fact that the world is still forcing its high school kids to read Plato’s “Republic” can hardly be of any solace right now.
Now Greece finds itself squarely in the middle of yet another unwanted international crisis as the home base for the flotilla that has launched a thousand accusations and recriminations, but so far, no actual ships.
Israel attacks another US flagged ship, this time through their proxy, Greek privateers.
Greek people take note; your government serves a foreign master. You didn't accept that when the foreign master was Nazi Germany and you should not accept it when the foreign master is Israel.
"So sad that the Greeks are doing Israel's dirty work by not letting us sail," another activist lamented to the Israeli website. "I never knew the Mediterranean was owned by Israel."
Most of the Greek people are sympathetic to the Palestinians. Already rioting over the enforced poverty dictated by their government to please the banking cartels, the Greek people will view Papandreou's stopping of the aid ships is little more than privateering; with Papandreou granted letters of marque against the ships of other countries by Israel.
The Greek may have hoisted with their own petard here because whatever short-term gain Papandreou may have received for his piracy, this will only further enrage the Greek people against the obvious tyranny under which they live, and will turn world opinion even further against Papandreou.
The government considers a family of four to be impoverished if they take in less than $22,000 a year. Based on that standard, and government projections of unemployment, it is estimated the poverty rate for kids in the U.S. will soon hit 25 percent, the report said. Those children would be the largest American generation to be raised in hard times since the Great Depression.
In Seminole County, near Orlando, Fla., so many kids have lost their homes that school buses now stop at dozens of cheap motels where families crowd into rooms, living week to week.
American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs and millions of foreclosures means a lot of folks are homeless and hungry for the first time in their lives.
These numbers should shock any American with a conscience.
But what is every more shocking, is that this has been done deliberately to destroy the US's middle class.
In the past year, Netanyahu has met with his Greek counterpart several times - in fact, George Papandreou is the first Greek prime minister to have visited Israel in 30 years.
Meanwhile, at least two vessels planning to take part in the flotilla this time round have been sabotaged, putting the lives of innocent men, women and children at risk yet again.
But that isn't surprising, Israel's willingness to kill indiscriminately is not new; what is astonishing, is the morally bankrupt alliance between Greece and Israel.
Greece stands to gain nothing from joining the "lets bend over backwards for Israel and be complicit in occupation and killing" club.
Via Twitter @MaxBlumenthal 40-50 Americans being held in a barbed wire pen in Greece at behest of Israeli and (apparently) US governments http://t.co/2o8L5vc #flotilla
Okay, so here is where we are. Hillary is saying "We" (meaning you) must see the mission in Libya through to the end, by which she means force a private central bank onto those people, and the US is invading Somalia ostensibly to recover the dead bodies of militants. But Israel issues letters of marque to the Greek privateers who capture a US-flagged ship and take the crew and passengers hostage, and the US Government does absolutely nothing?
The NATO mission in Libya is on track, with pressure on leader Moammar Gadhafi mounting and the rebel forces growing stronger, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Saturday.
"We need to see this through, and we are in complete agreement that we will," she said, speaking alongside Spanish Foreign Minister Trinidad Jiminez in Madrid.
Please forgive me, but has this woman gone absolutely barking mad, to make such a statement?!?
The military campaign is in an absolute stalemate, and without the dispatch of NATO ground troops, cannot be won at this time.
There are reports (unconfirmed at this time, but credible) that the US is getting ready to send those ground troops Obama swore would never be deployed to fight in Libya.
"New, unconfirmed reports out late last week suggest that the US is preparing to deploy ground forces to Libya this fall in direct contradiction to all public assurances that the conflict was merely a “kinetic military action” and would not involve boots on the ground. The reports, citing military sources at Ft. Hood, indicate that additional Special Forces will be sent to the region in July, with the 1st Calvary Division and three corps to be deployed in the country in October or November. In total, nearly 30,000 troops are said to be preparing for this escalation.
These reports are further bolstered by recently-released video showing what appear to be NATO military advisers directly interfacing with rebel forces on the front lines of the ground conflict."
"Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters earlier this month after France and Britain had deployed attack helicopters to Libya for the first time that the prospect of land operations in Libya was against Moscow's wishes. "We consider that what is going on is either consciously or unconsciously sliding toward a land operation," he said. "That would be very deplorable."
Lavrov's comments came just days before NATO agreed to extend its mission in Libya for a further 90 days and less than a week after French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and US President Barack Obama agreed on the fringes of the G8 summit at the end of May that Gadhafi could not be negotiated with and that "the shadow of tyranny" must be lifted."
The US and NATO are, in no uncertain terms, slouching toward another ground war, this time against Libya. The reasons are myriad (including Gadaffhi's reticence to establish a central bank under the thumb of the IMF), oil, gold,and water resources)but there is another factor in play here.
The continuing catastrophe, 10 years on, from the US and NATO invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is beginning to be understood by even the most thick-headed, jingoistic American: we never could win, militarily, in Afghanistan.
The collective, hubristic egos involved in the power structures in the US and NATO can't deal with the very public (and well deserved) shellacking of their image, and ability to "win" in Afghanistan, so what do they do?!?
They pick a war which might be winnable, to bring back the "luster" of credibility of their military "manliness" against a country which cannot begin to compare to them militarily.
I cannot begin to predict the cost in American blood and money this geopolitical "dick-measuring" contest will cost; but I can assure you that it will be brutal.
The missing fact in most of the controversy is that TSA is neither truly designed nor institutionally structured to protect us. We are not really surrendering our gels, forgoing our bottled water, or taking off our shoes for our own good. That’s all a ruse. The TSA is an agency whose function, if not intended purpose, is to condition obedience and subservience into the population. It is an arm of the federal police state and cannot be reformed into anything else. It must be abolished totally and nothing short of that will bring liberty back to air travel.
Brown shirts or blue shirts, it's the same Gestapo mentality.
Greece’s coast guard said the captain of the “Audacity of Hope” faces charges of trying to leave port without permission and of endangering the lives of the boat’s passengers. The latter charge is a felony.
Under International law, Greece can forbid a ship from docking in their territory but it cannot forbid a ship from leaving based on that ship's destination. Greece is doing Israel's dirty work, and essentially acting as a privateer, granted letters of marque by Israel to attack another US flagged ship.
Any world sympathy the government might have had for its self-induced economic woes has just evaporated. Global public opinion will now shift to the Greek people, who like Iceland and Egypt, struggle to free themselves from the slavery of private central banks and debt-based currencies.
The mistranslating of Gaddafi’s speech is even being regurgitated in ALTERNATIVE media, who are simply repeating – without questioning – the DISINFORMATION of the mass media.
The stage is being set for another Mossad/CIA/MI6 FALSE FLAG TERRORIST ATTACK on European civilians – just like Lockerbie. They can then intensify their illegal war against Libya’s interest-free money system and blame Gaddafi for something else he did not do. (See my post: MEGRAHI FRAME-UP)
Gaddafi calls for peace – the Banksters want war, war, and more war – war for their debt-money system of PRIVATE – not PUBLIC – Central Banks.
Why doesn’t our “free” press report this speech accurately?: (Click Here) More than ONE MILLION LIBYANS show support for Gaddafi in a country with a population only slightly larger than Orange County, California
Let’s take a look at what will happen if Israel does lose that eternal status that has kept it alive for the past 63 years; THE BUCK $TOPS THERE! No more 3.5 BILLION DOLLAR$ a year from Uncle Sam.. NADA!!! No way, no how will Israel allow that to happen….
A National Lawyers Guild delegation to Gaza after the December 27, 2008 Israeli attack there found overwhelming evidence of violations of international law by the Israeli military, and the Guild reiterated its call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, as well as calling for an immediate investigation of the actions of the Israeli military and prosecution of the perpetrators of these latest crimes against humanity, after the May 2010 assault on the first Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.
ACTIONS:
Please contact the Greek Embassy immediately and ask that the US Boat delivering letters to Gaza be granted passage out of Greek waters at (202) 939-1300.
Wait a moment. The Greek economy is in a state of immediate crisis –the people are literally destroying central Athens. The Greek Ministry of Finance is in flames. Subway cars and shop windows are being smashed. Trashcans are being lit on fire. Ambulances are unable to enter what has quickly become a civilian war zone, due to the cloud of tear gas and chemicals. Protestors are fainting, bleeding, and in desperate need of absent medical attention. Not to mention the reasons that they are protesting –despite months of protesting, the Papandreou government has passed heinous austerity measures. These will translate to budget cuts imposed on a country where forty-two percent of the youth are unemployed and twenty-five percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Is there any nation that Israel does not hold in an economic chokehold? Oh, yeah; that;s right. The ones your kids are dying trying to invade and conquer to PUT ion that chokehold.
If I could publicly ask our beloved president one question, it would be this: "Mr. President, in your short time in office you've waged war against six countries; Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and Libya. This makes me wonder something. With all due respect: What is wrong with you?
If any foreign power fired missiles at the United States would Barack Obama regard that as an act of war? If the US firing hundreds of missiles at Libya is not an act of war, as Obama insists (to avoid having to declare war as required by US law), then the deaths resulting from the missile attacks are murder. That's it. It's either war or murder.
Federal regulators want to make certain Nebraska's flood-threatened nuclear reactors have adequate safety measures in place if a dam breaks upstream, so they have asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for its latest analyses on the risks of dam failure. Six dams constituting one of the nation's largest reservoir systems sit above Fort Calhoun and Cooper Nuclear Stations.
Traditionally Greece always had a good relationship with all Arab countries, but this episode might change all of this. Greece government acted in a short sighted manner to ignore Arab countries and the street in particular in the area. Bibi must have been planning this for sometime, and with Greece current financial problems, it worked for him.
Thus far, thirty senators are sponsoring legislation that would give the National Guard a voice in final resource decisions at the Pentagon.
Despite the name "National", the guard is supposed to be the armies of the states, answerable to the state governors. But following operations CABLE SPLICE and GARDEN PLOT, President Bush (the elder) federalized the National Guard to strip the state of their right to defend themselves against inappropriate invasion by the Federal Government (such as the TSA). This move to put the head of the National Guard in the Joint Chiefs is the last step in transforming the state armies into yet another Federal Force, transferring their control from the governors to the President.
Standing in front of more than seventy journalists from around the world, the thirty-five passengers called on the Greek government to allow their boat to sail. The idea was that if the government were to continue its efforts—coming after intense Israeli lobbying—to prevent the boat from sailing, it would be forced to do so in front of the world media, and thus might back down. But just one hour before the press conference was set to begin, the captain of the US boat announced that he was abandoning the mission, saying that he risked losing his maritime license and could face jail time if he didn’t.
Actually, under international law, Greece can prevent a ships from docking in their territorial waters but they have no legal right to stop a ship from leaving port or arrest the Captain based on his destination, unless a state of war exists between Greece and the destination. The Greek Coast Guard, acting under orders resulting from what is now known to have been economic pressure from Israel and the US (a bribe) functioned as privateers, granted letters of marque against a United States flagged ship. The Greek government are pirates who have attacked an American ship, and the sooner the Greek people fire those bastards, the better for all the world.
Israel is on a list compiled by US immigration authorities of countries that might harbor terrorists, it was reported this week.
The Department of Homeland Security list of 36 nations does not fault government policies and instead recognizes the likelihood that a suspect traveler from that country might have terrorist ties.
An ICE spokeswoman, Gillian Christensen, told CNS that appearance on the list did not suggest a country backs terrorism.
I love the smell of irony in the morning, and the incredibly Orwellian weasel-wording of Christensen's quote here gave me quite a giggle.
Israel is one of the greatest purveyors of state-sponsored terrorism in the world, and well-deserves its place on this ICE watch list!
Come to discover the Patriot Act has proven most valuable for legalizing government deceptions. When the government desires to hide from the people, the Patriot Act provides a framework for arresting those who know too much of the truth, and might expose government fraud and corruption. Leaders are thus protected from the consequences of their decision-making.
The greatest lesson of the still young 21st century is proving to be that governments are the primary source of systemic risk to the economy, our standard of living, and our liberty.
U.S. military commanders have said in recent months that they feared such an increase in violence would accompany the planned withdrawal of most American troops by the end of the year. Military officials in Baghdad and at the Pentagon blamed the mounting death toll on the growing sophistication of weapons that insurgents and Iranian-backed militia groups are using, including powerful rockets, armor-piercing grenades and jam-resistant roadside bombs suspected of coming from Iran.
Yes, folks, when in doubt, BLAME IRAN, AND OFFER NO HARD EVIDENCE.
(Ahem). Of course, the US government takes absolutely zero responsibility for having destroyed Iraq's infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, and sanitation facilities.
The US government takes no responsibility for the huge number of dead, maimed, disabled and displaced Iraqis as a consequence of its invasion and occupation.
The US government takes no responsibility for the US use of depleted uranium, which has caused horrendous spikes in exotic cancers and horrendous deformities in Iraq's kids in places like Fallujah.
The US government takes no responsibility for having installed its tinpot dictator, Al-Maliki, who ordered his army to shoot protestors in cold blood earlier this year. (warning: very graphic images)
The corruption of al-Maliki's government is even worse than it ever was under Saddam Hussein, and rampant poverty has enveloped Iraq.
The US-generated Sunni-Shiite tensions are still smoldering beneath the surface.
I do not want to see one hair harmed on the head of any of our military. But having said that, I can understand the rage of an occupied people, wanting their country back, and wanting some semblance of normalcy to return to their lives. That rage and fury cannot help but culminate in violence.
And trust me, with all that the US has done to destroy this once proud country on a completely false premise, to blame Iran for the fury of Iraq's citizens for what has been done to them misses the point entirely.
Carle writes in the book how he came to believe that CAPTUS was in fact innocent, and how it was not necessarily what the CIA wanted to hear.
He left the 'black site' after 10 intense days but feared his psychological manipulation of CAPTUS meant he was in fact a torturer.
Supporters of torture like to wave around this TV show scenario of a nuclear bomb in the Empire State Building set to go off in thirty minutes and they need to torture the mastermind to get the codes to shut the bomb off. Now, of course, this scenario has never happened outside the fantasy world of propaganda shows like "24" and it never will, because anyone planting such a bomb won't bother with an "off" switch, for the obvious reason that once activated, there is no reason to shut the bomb off from the point of view of the CIAMossad terrorist, is there?
Now, of course, we have the opposite scenario, one which we know for a fact has happened time and time again. An innocent person gets shopped to the US for the reward money, and is tortured, sometimes to death, to find Saddam's nuclear weapons which turned out never to have existed.
The verification lists my card data and address etc. correctly but I need to keep entering the card security number.
Support keep telling me to delete and re-enter my car info which does not help. Anyone else seen this issue?
Seems to be something to do with a new security check they have put in the system that does not work correctly and support is totally incapable of helping me out.
I also experience this same problem with my iPhone account where it is constantly re-verifying payment info even for free downloads. I was concerned that iPhone had fallen victim to phishing-ware, but apparently the problem is wide spread and Apple, in the best traditions of post-Fukushima GE, is simply ignoring the problem and hoping we will all get used to the new normal of having to re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and re-enter and ....
So, I figure I'll make this bug public, if for no other reason to remind the holier-than-windows MAC crowd that Apple's software quality isn't what the TV ads say it is.
"But now I am going to tell of another action the Spaniards engage in which is perhaps even more ferocious and infernal than the one I have just recounted, and it still goes on at the present time. As has been said, the Spaniards train their fierce dogs to attack, kill and tear to pieces the Indians. It is doubtful that anyone, whether Christian or not, has ever before heard of such a thing as this. The Spaniards keep alive their dogs' appetite for human beings in this way. They have Indians brought to them in chains, then unleash the dogs. The Indians come meekly down the roads and are killed.
China’s largest oil company has begun operations at Al-Ahdab oil field in Iraq, making the field the first major new area to start production in Iraq in 20 years, according to an official news report on Tuesday.
Operations began June 21, and the field is expected to produce three million tons of crude oil per year, reported China Daily, an official English-language newspaper. The oil field was discovered in 1979 and is believed to contain a billion barrels of crude.
One has to appreciate the irony here. China has been going about its search for energy resources without firing a shot, by making deals.
How has the US gone about its search for energy? Through wars without end. And who has come up the winner in its approach to acquiring energy?!? CHINA.
In a recent decision, the Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that an investor in a Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit ("REMIC") lacked standing to object to the sale of a chapter 11 debtor's real property, despite that the property served as collateral for loans held in trust by the REMIC for the benefit of its investors.
This one is important. The banks can’t foreclose, the investor can’t collect.
Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone apparently thinks so, after proposing that the county lead a campaign for as many as 13 Southern California counties to secede from the state.
If the law passes the full Knesset, any Palestinian whose home is destroyed by the Israeli military will have to pay thousands of dollars to cover the cost of the demolition. Already, many Palestinian homeowners, mainly in Jerusalem, have been forced to pay for the forced demolition of their homes.
Congratulations to the Israeli government for having taken the title, in 2011, as the most wretchedly racist and apartheid governments on this planet! WOW, that really took some work, but you did it!
Even as thousands of Japanese workers struggle to contain the ongoing nuclear disaster, low levels of radiation from those power plants have been detected in foods in the United States. Milk, fruits and vegetables show trace amounts of radioactive isotopes from the Fukushima Daichi power plants, and the media appears to be paying scant attention, if any attention at all.
Note how FOX News smugly points out that the rest of the corporate media has been slow to pick up on this story (which FOX only got around to over the holiday weekend when Americans are distracted) but neglects to mention that the alternative media has been headlining this story for months now!
U.S. military forces landed in Somalia to retrieve the bodies of dead or wounded militants after a U.S. drone strike targeted a group of insurgents, Somalia's defense minister said Friday
" to retrieve the bodies of dead or wounded militants." There is absolutely no logic to this statement, and it strikes me as an excruciatingly idiotic excuse as to why the US military has boots on the ground in Somalia.
I mean, just think how bizarre this is. Aid workers are forbidden from taking food and medicine into the living people of Gaza, who want the aid workers to come, but recovering dead bodies is justification for a forced invasion of Somalia?
If there is previously undisclosed footage from the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI's investigation case files are so massive, it would be impossible to find, a top FBI official told a Utah federal judge this week.
In a declaration filed in U.S. District Court, the FBI's top records manager, David M. Hardy, stated that his agency had conducted a reasonable search for video footage requested through a Freedom of Information Act by Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue.
One has to wonder, so many years after the Oklahoma City bombing, what the FBI is terrified Trentadue might discover in their records, if those records have not, in fact, been destroyed.
Riverside County Supervisor Jeff Stone apparently thinks so, after proposing that the county lead a campaign for as many as 13 Southern California counties to secede from the state.
Stone said in a statement late Thursday that Riverside, Imperial, San Diego, Orange, San Bernardino, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo, Madera, Mariposa and Mono counties should form the new state of South California.
The creation of the new state would allow officials to focus on securing borders, balancing budgets, improving schools and creating a vibrant economy, he said.
As someone who has lived in So Cal for a lot of years, I certainly have sympathy for what these counties are attempting to do.
However, Sacramento will be looking at this proposal with a very jaundiced eye because of tax-loss implications, and such a move would probably be tied up in the California judicial system for years, if not decades.
A mentally-handicapped teenager Jesse Kersey in Ohio was stopped by police and when the teenager who also has a speech impediment tried to explain his condition to the officer Willie Hooper, well the cop thought he was being disrespected by Kersey. The teenager was not only beaten and pepper sprayed, but he was also tased.
The US boat Freedom Flotilla-2 sailing en route to Gaza was stopped by a Greek coastal guard and turned back 20 minutes off the coast. This comes a year after Israeli commandos killed 9 Turkish activists on a flotilla, challenging the naval blockade of Gaza on open seas.
What have you heard about tickborne Lyme for the last 30 years? That it’s rare, scary, acute, treatable… The government warns about its spread and implores people to go to a doctor upon seeing the telltale bulls-eye rash. What happens when they actually do?
Many have researched the controversial beginnings of Lyme disease, but this article focuses on what happens to victims when they contract it and what they can do now.
Under Our Skin is a documentary that lends a voice to the many who in fact suffer from chronic Lyme and are victims of a greater abomination.
The Environmental Working Group knows that you care about the affordability and availability of healthy food and clean drinking water. So we wanted to make sure you know as much as you can about the massive piece of legislation that guides federal agriculture policy...
The reports that two of the foreign flagged ships planning to be part of the ten vessel Freedom Flotilla II experienced similar forms of disabling sabotage creates strong circumstantial evidence of Israeli responsibility.
See that man standing in the bleachers? That’s me—I’m an American, dammit! Every time I hear that “Star Spangled Banner” played over the loud speakers, I set my $7 cup of beer down here on the seat and proudly place my right hand over my heart. See that tear in my eye? That’s what you call patriotism.
Moscow has raised concern over France supplying weapons to Libyan rebels and over ambiguous interpretations of the UN Security Council resolution on Libya.
On Wednesday, the Obama Justice Department issued a new memo to all U.S. Attorneys clarifying the DOJ's position on federal prosecutions of state-sanctioned medical marijuana use. It's not good news.
According to Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, the new Obama DOJ policy states that only medical marijuana patients and caregivers should be left alone by federal prosecutors. But those who cultivate or distribute marijuana are fair game. Cole writes:
[p]ersons who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities […] regardless of state law […] are subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution.
In the 10 years since the Sept. 11th attacks, the FBI has expanded its powers, transforming into a massive domestic spying agency.
Kevin Gosztola AlterNet
In 2010, the FISA court approved all 1,506 requests by the FBI to electronically monitor suspects. They were also generous with granting “national security letters," which allow the FBI to force credit card companies, financial institutions, and internet service providers to give confidential records about customers’ subscriber information, phone number, email addresses and the websites they’ve visited. The FBI got permission to spy on 14,000 people in this way.
Do they really think there are 14,000 terrorists living in the US?
Every year when July 4th rolls around, Americans from coast to coast celebrate July 4th with cookouts, outdoor concerts and fireworks. We love celebrating Independence Day and yet we are deeply enslaved to debt. We like to think of ourselves as “free” and yet we have rolled up the biggest pile of debt the world has ever seen. The people that we have borrowed all of this money from expect to be paid. Sadly, instead of addressing the problem, we have been loading more debt on to the backs of future generations with each passing year. What we are doing to our kids and our grandkids is so immoral that is almost defies description.
John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. After managing U.S. involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies, a book which remains the only detailed, insider's account of a major CIA "covert action."
Our oh-so-moral international community, always poking its democracy-loving nose into any trouble spot that might threaten western security (whatever that means) and always eager to mobilize its mighty weapons of war, is still reluctant to operate on the cancer it foolishly implanted into the Holy Land 63 years ago and which now menaces the world
One of the American intelligence community's biggest operations and initially considered a major success was the funding of the Mujahedeen (Islamist fighters) in Afghanistan and their training, arming, and supplying. The program was initiated under President Jimmy Carter and greatly expanded following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. Under Reagan funding reached levels of $600 million/year.
The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip.
Back in 1941, there was this foreign nation, Japan, which was illegally occupying other peoples' lands in China and Indonesia. There were Americans in close proximity to that foreign nation, in the then-territory of Hawaii, and even though the Americans had not actually done much of anything, that foreign nation decided it had the right to attack and kill Americans just on the off chance that somewhere down the road, they might be in inconvenience.
Thus came about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Now, just for a moment imagine that instead of declaring immediate war on those who attacked Americans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had rushed over to the League of Nations to explain why Japan's attack on Americans was really no big deal, and that Japan had good reason to attack and kill Americans! Imagine if Roosevelt, instead of the "Day of Infamy" speech, had made countless excuses why Japan was perfectly right to attack and kill Americans. Imagine that the US Congress, instead of voting war against the nation that attacked Americans decided to punish those who criticized the nation that attacked Americans?
Quite an amazing fantasy isn't it? Yet this is exactly what we have seen the present government do over the last year ever since Israel's attack on the aid flotilla!
Israel, citing grounds of national security, occupies the lands of Palestine, just as Japan, citing national security, occupied China. The Americans in the aid flotilla had not actually done anything to threaten Israel, just like the Americans sitting in Pearl Harbor had done nothing to threaten Japan.
1941 Japan attacks Americans in the middle of an ocean and the US goes to war against Japan.
2010 Israel attacks Americans in the middle of a sea and the US Government protects the attacker.
In 1904, American businessman Ion Perdicaris was taken prisoner by Mulai Raisuli. Now, from Raisuli's point of view, he had good reason to take Perdicaris prisoner as Raisuli was fighting against foreign occupation of his homeland. Even Perdicaris conceded that Raisuli was acting from what Perdicaris considered justifiable motives.
But President Roosevelt did not view the affair from Raisuli's point of view. He viewed it from the point of view of a President of the United States. Under the slogan "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" Roosevelt sent 7 US Battleships with orders to destroy Morocco if Perdicaris was not released. Perdicaris was sent home.
Today is different. Today we have a President and a Congress that, even as the United States crumbles around them, are obsessively concerned with protecting Israel, no matter what it does.
Israel attacked foreign flagged ships in international waters (the very activity the 6th fleet is killing Somali coastal patrol crews for), hijacked a US-flagged ship, and kidnapped 12 Americans, shooting one of them in the head 4 times.
A real President, who remembers that his job is to take care of America and Americans, would not rush to the UN to protect the nation that just attacked Americans.
A real Congress, who remembers that their job is to take care of America and Americans, would not hand Israel a license to murder more Americans anywhere in the world Israel decides they are an inconvenience!
No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot serve the American people.
A friend to Israel is no friend of America.
America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third.
As you know, earlier today the U.S. Boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard. After a stand off that unfolded over several hours a 2nd Greek Coast Guard boat arrived. This boat carried heavily armed Greek commandos and this shifted the dynamic. Soon after a decision was made to bring the boat back to a dock in Athens, not the same one the boat had previously been at.
A former Republican PR person named Lisa Baron who once worked for Ralph Reed has written a lascivious memoir that has the word "tart" on the cover along with a sexy photo and includes an anecdote about fellating Ari Fleischer. Michelle Goldberg has reviewed the book at Daily Beast (link above), and she does a truly wonderful thing: she calls the author to find out what she was even doing in Republican circles.
Michelle Goldberg does not know Republicans as well as she likes to imagine she does!
For the 12th week in a row, initial claims for unemployment benefits in the U.S. were above 400,000 last week, the Labor Department said. The seasonally adjusted figure fell slightly to 428,000. The four-week average has remained at 426,000 for a month, the department said
Israel has threatened Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad with death following deployment of Syrian troops close to the border of the Jewish state, reported Arabic daily Al-Jarida of Kuwait.
According to the paper, a letter with threats was passed to Syria through pro-Israel Middle East state. This decision was taken when the Israeli reconnaissance groups spotted the redeployment of troops in southern Syria.
The Israelis fear that Assad would start attack on the Israeli positions in occupied Golan Heights in an attempt to mobilize the Syrians and the Arabs to support Damascus in the present critical phase.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- The Las Conchas Fire near Los Alamos is now estimated to be more than 103,842 acres, making it the largest wildfire in the history of New Mexico.
The containment is still very low at 3 to 4 percent, and that is why State Gov. Susana Martinez said the Las Conchas fire is the top priority fire in New Mexico now.
Back in 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein co-wrote a paper titled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures” proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and “independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups that have “anti-government conspiracy theories” and his primary target is the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Cass Sunstein now works for the Obama Administration. This brings us back to today.
The founder of the Love Police Charlie Veitch has released a new video where he says he no longer believes 9/11 was an inside job.
On Wednesday, the Obama Justice Department issued a new memo to all U.S. Attorneys clarifying the DOJ's position on federal prosecutions of state-sanctioned medical marijuana use. It's not good news.
According to Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, the new Obama DOJ policy states that only medical marijuana patients and caregivers should be left alone by federal prosecutors. But those who cultivate or distribute marijuana are fair game. Cole writes:
[p]ersons who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities […] regardless of state law […] are subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution.
In the 10 years since the Sept. 11th attacks, the FBI has expanded its powers, transforming into a massive domestic spying agency.
Kevin Gosztola AlterNet
In 2010, the FISA court approved all 1,506 requests by the FBI to electronically monitor suspects. They were also generous with granting “national security letters," which allow the FBI to force credit card companies, financial institutions, and internet service providers to give confidential records about customers’ subscriber information, phone number, email addresses and the websites they’ve visited. The FBI got permission to spy on 14,000 people in this way.
Do they really think there are 14,000 terrorists living in the US?
Every year when July 4th rolls around, Americans from coast to coast celebrate July 4th with cookouts, outdoor concerts and fireworks. We love celebrating Independence Day and yet we are deeply enslaved to debt. We like to think of ourselves as “free” and yet we have rolled up the biggest pile of debt the world has ever seen. The people that we have borrowed all of this money from expect to be paid. Sadly, instead of addressing the problem, we have been loading more debt on to the backs of future generations with each passing year. What we are doing to our kids and our grandkids is so immoral that is almost defies description.
John R. Stockwell is a former CIA officer who became a critic of United States government policies after serving in the Agency for thirteen years serving seven tours of duty. After managing U.S. involvement in the Angolan Civil War as Chief of the Angola Task Force during its 1975 covert operations, he resigned and wrote In Search of Enemies, a book which remains the only detailed, insider's account of a major CIA "covert action."
Our oh-so-moral international community, always poking its democracy-loving nose into any trouble spot that might threaten western security (whatever that means) and always eager to mobilize its mighty weapons of war, is still reluctant to operate on the cancer it foolishly implanted into the Holy Land 63 years ago and which now menaces the world
One of the American intelligence community's biggest operations and initially considered a major success was the funding of the Mujahedeen (Islamist fighters) in Afghanistan and their training, arming, and supplying. The program was initiated under President Jimmy Carter and greatly expanded following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. Under Reagan funding reached levels of $600 million/year.
The Obama administration appears to have given a green light to an Israeli attack on an unarmed flotilla carrying peace and human rights activists — including a vessel with 50 Americans on board — bound for the besieged Gaza Strip.
Back in 1941, there was this foreign nation, Japan, which was illegally occupying other peoples' lands in China and Indonesia. There were Americans in close proximity to that foreign nation, in the then-territory of Hawaii, and even though the Americans had not actually done much of anything, that foreign nation decided it had the right to attack and kill Americans just on the off chance that somewhere down the road, they might be in inconvenience.
Thus came about the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Now, just for a moment imagine that instead of declaring immediate war on those who attacked Americans, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had rushed over to the League of Nations to explain why Japan's attack on Americans was really no big deal, and that Japan had good reason to attack and kill Americans! Imagine if Roosevelt, instead of the "Day of Infamy" speech, had made countless excuses why Japan was perfectly right to attack and kill Americans. Imagine that the US Congress, instead of voting war against the nation that attacked Americans decided to punish those who criticized the nation that attacked Americans?
Quite an amazing fantasy isn't it? Yet this is exactly what we have seen the present government do over the last year ever since Israel's attack on the aid flotilla!
Israel, citing grounds of national security, occupies the lands of Palestine, just as Japan, citing national security, occupied China. The Americans in the aid flotilla had not actually done anything to threaten Israel, just like the Americans sitting in Pearl Harbor had done nothing to threaten Japan.
1941 Japan attacks Americans in the middle of an ocean and the US goes to war against Japan.
2010 Israel attacks Americans in the middle of a sea and the US Government protects the attacker.
In 1904, American businessman Ion Perdicaris was taken prisoner by Mulai Raisuli. Now, from Raisuli's point of view, he had good reason to take Perdicaris prisoner as Raisuli was fighting against foreign occupation of his homeland. Even Perdicaris conceded that Raisuli was acting from what Perdicaris considered justifiable motives.
But President Roosevelt did not view the affair from Raisuli's point of view. He viewed it from the point of view of a President of the United States. Under the slogan "Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!" Roosevelt sent 7 US Battleships with orders to destroy Morocco if Perdicaris was not released. Perdicaris was sent home.
Today is different. Today we have a President and a Congress that, even as the United States crumbles around them, are obsessively concerned with protecting Israel, no matter what it does.
Israel attacked foreign flagged ships in international waters (the very activity the 6th fleet is killing Somali coastal patrol crews for), hijacked a US-flagged ship, and kidnapped 12 Americans, shooting one of them in the head 4 times.
A real President, who remembers that his job is to take care of America and Americans, would not rush to the UN to protect the nation that just attacked Americans.
A real Congress, who remembers that their job is to take care of America and Americans, would not hand Israel a license to murder more Americans anywhere in the world Israel decides they are an inconvenience!
No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot serve the American people.
A friend to Israel is no friend of America.
America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third.
As you know, earlier today the U.S. Boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard. After a stand off that unfolded over several hours a 2nd Greek Coast Guard boat arrived. This boat carried heavily armed Greek commandos and this shifted the dynamic. Soon after a decision was made to bring the boat back to a dock in Athens, not the same one the boat had previously been at.
A former Republican PR person named Lisa Baron who once worked for Ralph Reed has written a lascivious memoir that has the word "tart" on the cover along with a sexy photo and includes an anecdote about fellating Ari Fleischer. Michelle Goldberg has reviewed the book at Daily Beast (link above), and she does a truly wonderful thing: she calls the author to find out what she was even doing in Republican circles.
Michelle Goldberg does not know Republicans as well as she likes to imagine she does!
For the 12th week in a row, initial claims for unemployment benefits in the U.S. were above 400,000 last week, the Labor Department said. The seasonally adjusted figure fell slightly to 428,000. The four-week average has remained at 426,000 for a month, the department said
Israel has threatened Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad with death following deployment of Syrian troops close to the border of the Jewish state, reported Arabic daily Al-Jarida of Kuwait.
According to the paper, a letter with threats was passed to Syria through pro-Israel Middle East state. This decision was taken when the Israeli reconnaissance groups spotted the redeployment of troops in southern Syria.
The Israelis fear that Assad would start attack on the Israeli positions in occupied Golan Heights in an attempt to mobilize the Syrians and the Arabs to support Damascus in the present critical phase.
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- The Las Conchas Fire near Los Alamos is now estimated to be more than 103,842 acres, making it the largest wildfire in the history of New Mexico.
The containment is still very low at 3 to 4 percent, and that is why State Gov. Susana Martinez said the Las Conchas fire is the top priority fire in New Mexico now.
Back in 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Cass Sunstein co-wrote a paper titled “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures” proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and “independent” advocates to “cognitively infiltrate” online groups and websites, as well as other activist groups that have “anti-government conspiracy theories” and his primary target is the 9/11 Truth Movement.
Cass Sunstein now works for the Obama Administration. This brings us back to today.
The founder of the Love Police Charlie Veitch has released a new video where he says he no longer believes 9/11 was an inside job.
"Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament, and his Constitution may not last very long." -- President Lyndon Johnson to Greek Ambassador, 1970s