In a rare blistering attack on the Department of Justice, a career veteran of the agency recently told Raw Story that the Obama administration handing Bush-era officials "a get out of jail free card” sets “a dangerous precedent" that could encourage other offenses by future leaders.
Webmaster's Commentary:
And he is absolutely correct. If we as a civilization fail to punish the Hitlers, the Ceaucescus, the PolPots, the Mussolinis, etc. then we incentivize tyranny and genocide. Future leaders will see much to be gained and nothing to be lost by such crimes.
On the other hand, when the people have the moral courage to seize the war-criminals, the corrupt, and the liars in their governments (as has happened in Iceland and Tunisia) and make the cost of their crimes outweigh the benefits, then you will have good government, and sadly, you will not have good government until you do so.
The people must always give the government good reason to obey the laws of the land. Sovereign immunity only applies to sovereigns, and the only remaining divine right of sovereigns is abdication.
This has nothing to do with security, crimes or anything else of that nature. It is a snitch set up. This is community training. This is conditioning to get people comfortable with the idea of reporting on their neighbors; a concept repugnant to most free societies, but one very common to police states.
This month, when a group of New York City police officers showed up for their required counter-terrorism training, they got to watch a movie. And not just some diddly 20-minute educational film, either. It was a full-length color feature, with more explosions than a Transformers sequel and more blood-splattered victims than an HBO World War II series.
Junk science has long been the staple food feeding the AGW scam, from Climategate through to the fear fantasy that was the 2007 IPCC report, the science was found wanting. Now the Universal Ecological Fund have produced an AGW Fear text that is so ludicrous even the Guardian can see it for what it is, junk science.
Scientist Scott Mandia forwarded to AFP an email he said he sent to Hisas ahead of publication explaining why her figures did not add up, and noting that it would take "quite a few decades" to reach a warming level of 2.4 degrees Celsius.
"Even if we assume the higher end of the current warming rate, we should only be 0.2C warmer by 2020 than today," Mandia wrote.
"To get to +2.4C the current trend would have to immediately increase almost ten-fold."
Mandia described the mishap as an "honest and common mistake," but said the matter would certainly give fuel to skeptics of humans' role in climate change.
This gets a bit crazy for a minute. The protester is relentless. Video - Rockefeller gets confronted - Jan. 17, 2011
Text from Youtube page -- Together with his good-old friend Agustin Edwards Eastman, Mr. Rockefeller takes a quick vacation almost every year in the south of Chile. Both are well known for working with the CIA during the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende and manipulating public opinion through a newspaper called El Mercurio, leading to the rise of Pinochet.
Edwards is also known for being a descendant of (chilean elitist) AgustÃn Edwards McClure, who served as President of the League of Nations from 1922-23.
Seriously, do not hesitate...this is the best clip of 2011 so far...runs 1 minute
Reuters’ Emily Flitter asks in a recent column What is Plan B if China dumps its U.S. debt?
It is worth asking about U.S. officials’ Plan B just in case one day relations take a surprise turn for the worse and Beijing dumps its holdings of U.S. treasuries.
China is officially the United States’ biggest foreign creditor, with roughly $900 billion in Treasury holdings — or over $1 trillion with Hong Kong’s holdings included. That means it could do severe damage to U.S. debt markets if it suddenly started selling large amounts.This is not a “just in case” scenario...
(Reuters) - Home prices fell for the 53rd consecutive month, taking the decline past that of the Great Depression for the first time in the prolonged housing slump.
Home prices have fallen 26 percent since their peak in 2006, exceeding the 25.9 percent drop registered in the five years between 1928 and 1933, the housing data company said in a report.
Includes Video - Yale Professor Dr. Robert Shiller on the outlook for housing in 2011
Following the shootings in Arizona by a lunatic, there were calls to "tone down the rhetoric" politically, with references to the past year’s "vitriolic" anger and activism expressed by many among the Tea Party movement and by those who generally oppose the federal government’s agenda...
WASHINGTON (Marketwatch) — Federal regulators on Tuesday suggested that bank chief executives be forced to attest in writing that the lenders they run adhere to new rules limiting speculative trading.
"The current provision is more like the Volcker weak suggestion than the Volcker Rule."
"Will we see President Obama stand up against bank lobbyists or will he ultimately hide behind the political expediency and convenience of perpetuating this infinitely leveraged, non-transparent system because he's afraid to take the risk of actually fixing it?"
Let me state here that Palestine does not want martyrs. Palestine wants FREEDOM! Palestinians want STATEHOOD!!
Israel will and is doing everything in its power to prevent either from becoming a reality. Now the Israeli press is following suit by joining the chorus of lies being sung by the IDF and the government itself.
HaAretz which is supposedly the voice of the Left in Israel has also joined in as has YNet which normally publishes opinions just left of centre. Perhaps this is a result of fear stemming from a Bill which most likely will pass in the Knesset today, a proposal by Yisrael Beiteinu to establish a parliamentary committee of inquiry into Israeli organizations it says participate in delegitimization campaigns against Israeli soldiers.
Webmaster's Commentary: When Israel's government turns on Israel's own people, the end is near.
As he stood near a tent on top of the place where he once lived, Muhammad Abu Eid, a youthful-looking 16-year-old, asked, “What would they feel if we demolished a Jewish home?”
Palestinian envoys on Wednesday stepped up lobbying for a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building but the United States spoke out strongly against the initiative. The United States warned at the United Nations that putting the resolution to a Security Council vote would "complicate" peace efforts.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Obama is trying everything he can to prevent this measure from coming to a vote at the Security Council, because Israel will order the US Government to veto this very necessary and legitimate measure and the US Government will once again be forced to whore itself to Israel before the eyes of the world. At a time when the US is wondering if they will soon take second place behind China's economy (and most global observers saying it has already happened), blocking yet another US Security Council Resolution condemning Israel's illegal actions will be the death knell for any illusions that the United States Government is anything other than a smoke-0screen and accessory to Israel's continued theft of other peoples' lands.
In a way, Israel's success in forcing the DC Bitch to protect Israel once more at the UN will by a Pyrrhic victory, as the US is losing all credibility on the international scene, which means Israel is losing their best propaganda tool. US comments on the rightness of Israel's actions lose all meaning when the world sees the US Government as Israel's slave. With so many nations recognizing Palestine with its 1967 borders, the reality on the ground is that Palestine exists and has a right to exist equal to that of Israel, and Israel's continued presence in Palestine is not an occupation but an invasion, with Palestinian reactions not terrorism but a legitimate attempt to oust the foreign conqueror, just as you or I would do in the same circumstance.
American wars will continue until the country's giant corporations, which pay the politicians in Washington's corridors of power, become financially unsustainable, says senior fellow at the Nation Institute, Chris Hedges.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Any second now...
:)
Like I have been saying, we are already in a wartime economy, and the US is losing.
Military officials are attempting to downplay the significance of the massive increase in suicides amongst Army National Guard and Reserve soldiers, insisting that the near doubling of the rate at which they make their lives has nothing to do with the military as such.
Webmaster's Commentary: One has to wonder, regarding those who have been deployed to places like Afghanistan and Iraq, whether for some of these soldiers, a moment of clarity had happened to cause them to realize that in these conflicts, the US is absolutely not on the right side of history?!?
Webmaster's Commentary: Keep in mind that the US Government has a vested interest in portraying Tunisia as anything but a genuine popular rebellion against the greedy and oppressive Tunisian government.
Saudi Arabian Foreign Ministry officials announced today that they are formally abandoning all mediation efforts in Lebanon, insisting that they can do no more in that regard and that the situation is getting more and more dangerous.
Reports have suggested the two sides did actually come to a deal, but it was rejected by Lebanese PM Saad Hariri, under pressure from the US.
Webmaster's Commentary: Saudi leadership knows what is most likely to happen next here, and wants no part of it; Israel will invade Lebanon, and this time, they will go all the Litani River. Hizbollah is supported by the governments of Iran and Syria. Hizbullah will be pushed into a military confrontation with Israel, and Israel may well use the invasion of Lebanon as an excuse to start a military conflict with Iran, into which Syria will be drawn, as it has a mutual defense pact with Iran.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton greeted the day before the beginning of the high profile P5+1 talks with Iran is Istanbul the way US officials so often have, by threatening yet more sanctions that will likely undermine what little good will remains.
The Obama Administration is going into the talks with even more onerous demands than the ones which were rejected previously, and Iranian officials still aren’t considering the abandonment of their civilian program.
Webmaster's Commentary: The US and Israeli governments want these talks to fail as an "excuse and justification" for a military strike against Iran. However, right now, the US has two wars going catastrophically badly, with our military stretched to the breaking point.
And unless the attack is an absolute blitzkrieg, the US doesn't have the capacity to handle a sustained war, because it has managed to offshore most of its manufacturing capabilities. Add to this lethal cocktail the very real possibility that China and Russia may well enter the fray on the side of Iran, and you have one very, very bad situation about to happen.
The most sought-after State Department document of the past several decades, the infamous Glaspie Memo, was recently released by WikiLeaks. The memo details a conversation between Ambassador April Glaspie and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on July 25, 1990, exactly one week before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and Glaspie’s reassurances to Hussein both of enduring American friendship and America’s disinterest in the Kuwaiti border dispute. In short, it confirmed decades of suspicion that Glaspie had, in the meeting, given Saddam Hussein the impression that the United States was giving him the green light for the invasion.
Webmaster's Commentary: This is very old news, but aptly proves a point: the US government will double deal and set up a country for a military confrontation when it thinks it is in the US's best interests, and that is a problem.
How can any governmental officials in their right mind trust the US to do what they say they are going to do?!? And more importantly, how can any thinking American trust their government, knowing these kinds of scurrilous activities are considered a "normal" part of their government's functioning?!?
North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.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. Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered technically recoverable oil and gas resources.
Palestinian envoys on Wednesday stepped up lobbying for a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement building but the United States spoke out strongly against the initiative. The United States warned at the United Nations that putting the resolution to a Security Council vote would "complicate" peace efforts. It has still not said though whether it would veto the measure.
Webmaster's Commentary: Memo to the White House: there are no concrete peace efforts; there is simply Israeli stonewalling.
Bringing this issue up at the UN Security Council, where the US is almost sure to veto, will only demonstrate that the US is Israel's lackey, with no real interest in a peace process going forward which will result in a Palestinian state.
Banks in recent weeks have been dropping hundreds of their Southwest Florida foreclosure lawsuits instead of facing defendants at trial, according to local attorneys and court records. Opinions varied sharply on whether that means banks are just taking a breather before refiling with stronger evidence - or giving up for good on hopelessly flawed cases.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Hopefully the banks will realize that the American people have figured out that the government and bankers working together created a job situation which allowed banks to confiscate homes to bail themselves out of the fraudulent mortgage-backed security scandal, and that maybe Americans no longer believe that it is their own fault they are losing their homes. And that taking a home when the owner knows it is all a scam is fraught with peril! :)
South Korea said Thursday it accepted a North Korean proposal to hold high-level defense talks a day after the leaders of the U.S. and China called for better communication between the two Koreas.
Webmaster's Commentary: This at least is a hopeful sign, if followed through on.
This will do much to tamp down the possibilities of a military conflict between North and South Korea, which would almost inevitably lead to a military conflict between the US and China.
BILLINGS, Mont. — Ed Chlapowski, the man who notified the world that Pearl Harbor was being bombed by the Japanese, has died at 88. The former Navy radio man died Sunday at his home in Billings a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer, his family said.
A new study provides disturbing answers to questions about how much students actually learn in college – for many, not much – and has inflamed a debate about the value of an American higher education. The research of more than 2,300 undergraduates found 45 percent of students show no significant improvement in the key measures of critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.
Webmaster's Commentary: This is not by accident: it is by design.
People without the capability for critical thinking are far more likely to go along with every policy their government adopts without saying a word; like for example, the continued immoral and illegal wars the US is fighting in places like Afghanistan and Iraq (remember that one?!?).
As an attorney, I help people legally vanish parts of their life from public view. Of all the things you want to vanish from public view, the top on your list is probably your genitals. There’s a reason they call them privates. But the TSA wants to see and touch genitals whenever they are in the mood. Here are some ideas to help protect the privacy of your junk. How to keep your privates.....well private!
Ron Holland Freedom Matters This is Part 2, of Ron Holland's speech "Down Argentine Way."
There is nothing very complicated or prophetic about forecasting how Washington plans to steal much of the remaining private wealth of most American citizens over the next decade or so...
Who is Rahm Emanuel? How did he get into politics? The Emanuel family; just how powerful are they? What influence do they have on lobbying, and power politics? His workings with the Chicago Democratic Machine, how did he get started, is there a shady past he is trying to hide? Is Rahm being blackmailed because of his past with Obama on Chicago's North Side? The Blago trial; why was he and others never questioned about Obama, Valerie Jarret, and Jesse Jackson Jr. What role did he play in the attempt to bring the Olympics to Chicago? What is the connection to key players in Chicago and Washington DC winding up dead? Are there secret video tapes waiting to surface? If he is Mayor, what will the city of Chicago look like? Could he become another Rudy Giuliani?
We have crossed the threshold into a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime will propel the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. The Silent Generation (1925-1942) is dying off, Baby Boomers (1943-1960) are entering elder hood, Generation X is entering midlife, Millenials are entering young adulthood—and a new generation of child Artists are being born. Strauss & Howe have documented that a long human life of 80 to 100 years makes up a social cycle of growth, maturation, entropy, and death (and rebirth) known as a Saeculum. Within each cycle, four generations proceed through their four stages of life. Every 15 to 25 years a new Turning surprises those who only think of history in a linear way.
Pauline Jelinek Asociated Press WASHINGTON — Suicides among active duty soldiers dropped slightly in 2010 after five years of record increases, Army leaders said Wednesday...
One of the great ironies revealed by the global recession that began in 2008 is that Communist Party-ruled China may be doing a better job managing capitalism's crisis than the democratically elected U.S. government. Beijing's stimulus spending was larger, infinitely more effective at overcoming the slowdown, and directed at laying the infrastructural tracks for further economic expansion.
On Tuesday, by a vote of 5-4, agriculture committee members rejected the Wyoming Food Freedom Act which would have exempted some food products from government inspections and would have encouraged the sale and consumption of homemade foods. Sue Wallis, who introduced the measure, told the Billings Gazette its defeat was “disappointing.”
Ethan A. Huff Natural News Thousands of cattle recently turned up dead in various Vietnamese provinces, reportedly due to the long cold spell that has hit the area in recent weeks...
U.S. Central Command policy allows troops a 90- or 180-day supply of highly addictive psychotropic drugs before they deploy to combat, reports Nextgov. The CENTCOM approved drug list is a mixture that includes drugs like Valium and Xanax, used to treat depression, as well as the antipsychotic Seroquel, originally developed to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, mania and depression. CENTCOM policy does not permit the use of Seroquel to treat deploying troops with these conditions, but it does allow its use as a sleep aid, and allows deployed troops to be provided with a 180-day supply.
Until the 1970s, US capitalism shared its spoils with American workers. But since 2008, it has made them pay for its failures Richard Wolf Guardian
One aspect of "American exceptionalism" was always economic. US workers, so the story went, enjoyed a rising level of real wages that afforded their families a rising standard of living...
"If China becomes the world's No. 1 nation ... ." That was the headline in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, The People's Daily, on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to Washington. The article went on to boast how "China's emergence is increasingly shifting to debate over how the world will treat China, which is the world No. 1 and has overtaken the U.S."
Through these tough economic times, we've kept some hefty bills artificially low. The day to pay up is coming soon. Big hikes in long-suppressed property insurance and electric rates, as well as in business taxes to replenish benefits for the state's unemployed, are just around the corner. Florida's predicament reminds me of the Popeye comic strip character Wimpy, best known for his give-me-now, pay-you-later line: "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."...
Every year after Christmas, retailers take stock of store performance and shake off those shops that are dragging down earnings. Some have long-term leases at Citadel Mall that expire at the end of January and have elected not to renew their rental agreements, according to mall spokeswoman Leigh Burnett. Leaving the West Ashley mall at the end of the month are F.Y.E. , an 8,000-square-foot video and music store near Belk that has been there for more than a decade, and the shorter-term Books for Less near Target, which had a one-year agreement for the 7,900-square-foot space.
Hollister clothing store left the second weekend of January after about seven years, leaving a 6,500-square-foot space vacant...
Today, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the country's first and largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released the following statement in response to the Department of Defense (DoD) announcement that suicides in the National Guard doubled in 2010: “The National Guard and active duty suicide rates should be a wake-up call for every American. A service member commits suicide on average every 36 hours in this country, and the rate of suicide among National Guardsmen and Reservists nearly doubled in the last year alone,” said IAVA Founder and Executive Director Paul Rieckhoff. “As a nation, we aren’t doing nearly enough to ensure suicide prevention methods reach every service member. Even as casualties climb in Afghanistan, we are losing service members to this suicide crisis at home at shocking and unprecedented rates.” Rieckhoff continued,
House Republicans passed a bill to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care plan Wednesday, taking their first major step toward rolling back the massive overhaul that has dominated the American political landscape for almost two years.
US was Cheerleader for Massacre Wikileaks Cables on Israel's Gaza Onslaught
The cables make clear, were any further disclosure needed, exactly where the United States stands with respect to Israel’s unprovoked attacks on Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors. Although Operation Cast Lead took place in the last days of the Bush administration, ending two days before Barack Obama was inaugurated, every Obama policy in the succeeding two years – including the administration’s repudiation of the Goldstone Report detailing Israeli atrocities and war crimes during Cast Lead – has demonstrated a striking continuity of support for Israeli actions.
On Tuesday, some 15,000 Christian pilgrims marched between two fenced-in mine fields to reach the Epiphany ceremony led by the Greek Orthodox patriarch on the Jordan River, 5 miles (8 kilometers) east of the oasis town of Jericho at the edge of the West Bank./strong>
UN governance needs drastic change: UNSC veto power should be dissolved, there should be a permanent UNSC seat for a representative of the Islamic world, and the power to authorize sanctions or military expeditions should be handed over to the UN General Assembly.
The Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister Ali al-Shami recently urged the UN Secretary General to prevent Israel from exploiting the offshore energy reserves located in Lebanese territorial waters. Minister Uzi Landau claimed instead that the reserves are in Israeli waters and warned that his country will not think twice about employing force to protect them
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