Le Café Politique De Camus De Café

The Romney Money Trail...Lobby, Lobby, Lobby....

2012-03-19T15:08:00.004-07:00

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2012/03/eleven-dla-piper-lobbyists-give-money-to-romney-campaign.html

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/lobbyistcontributorstoromney-2.pdf

http://firststreetresearch.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/first-street-research-group-gop-report1.pdf

http://www.opensecrets.org/usearch/index.php?q=mitt+romney&searchButt_clean.x=28&searchButt_clean.y=30&searchButt_clean=Submit&cx=010677907462955562473%3Anlldkv0jvam&cof=FORID%3A11

Lobbyist	Law Firm
Charles Baker	DLA Piper
Berl Bernhard	DLA Piper
Matthew Bernstein	DLA Piper
James Blanchard	DLA Piper
Thomas Boyd*	DLA Piper
John Merrigan	DLA Piper
James Miller*	DLA Piper
William Minor	DLA Piper
Steven Phillips*	DLA Piper
Ignacio Sanchez*	DLA Piper
John Zentay	DLA Piper
Judy Black	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Norman Brownstein	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Alexander Dahl	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Makan Delrahim	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
Timothy Gilmore	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
William Moschella	Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck
James Christian	Patton Boggs
Carolina Mederos	Patton Boggs
Darryl Nirenberg	Patton Boggs
Travis Seegmiller	Patton Boggs
Stephen Kho	Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Zachary Paulsen	Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Barney Skladany Jr.	Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

*Romney donors confirmed by Loud.

Romney Lobby Money

LIMBAUGH OVER PLAYS HIS HAND; JOIN THE CONSEQUENCES CLUB AND BRING THE BASTARD DOWN!

2012-03-02T15:11:00.002-08:00

LIMBAUGH OVER PLAYS HIS HAND; JOIN THE CONSEQUENCES CLUB AND BRING THE BASTARD DOWN!

Limbaugh Thinks the Sandra Flike Incident is “HILARIOUS. ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS!”

by malialitman

In an effort to begin my research on sponsors of Limbaugh’s show, I went to Limbaugh’s web site. To my amazement they featured a transcript of his show yesterday. He was responding to the shock and outrage of a variety of people who had taken offense at his attack on Sandra Fluke from the previous day, when he called her a “slut” and a “prostitute.” Limbaugh’s reaction to the “left” expressing outrage over his personal attack on this third-year law-student, was not to apologize, or even to suggest that he got a little carried away.

Instead of trying to explain away his comments or to mitigate the insulting remarks, he laughed. He said “I think this is hilarious. Absolutely hilarious.”

We know the Limbaugh generates listeners by saying outrageous things. However, when he does get out of control, and has time to reflect on what he has said, there is no excuse for this wanton disregard of civility. After 24 hours he had the opportunity to apologize or to at least act like he was sorry. He laughed. His lack of remorse, or at least creating the appearance of remorse indicates he deserves to feel the wrath of his sponsors, his station, and the public.

Here is the testimony of Ms. Fluke.

http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/81978568?access_key=key-1dleuqqvhevbw8ucdzkz

Testimony - Sandra Fluke

Having watched this articulate woman giving her testimony before Congress, I am even more outraged by Limbaugh’s remarks. Ms. Fluke, the past President of the LSRJ (Law Students for Reproductive Justice) was speaking on behalf of all female law students at Georgetown. She was not speaking about personal matters of sexual encounters or personal finances. She gave an example of a law student who had a need for birth control pills not for prevention of pregnancy, but as a treatment to prevent the growth of tumors on her ovaries. That student had polycystic ovarian syndrome. When she was unable to get her necessary birth control medicine, the student developed a tennis-ball sized ovarian tumor that required surgery and removal of her ovary. At age 32, this surgery was devastating, as it occurred during final exams, and she may be unable to have children.

This specific example of the hardship experienced by a Georgetown student was not a personal example, and not an example of a woman asking for health care coverage for birth control pills so she could have sex. She was in need of the coverage to prevent an ovarian tumor, to prevent surgery, and to prevent infertility. Ms. Fluke wasn’t testifying about her personal hardship, but that of many other women at Georgetown Law School. For Mr. Limbaugh to lodge such a personal attack at Ms. Fluke is unforgivable. In posts to come I will set forth ways we can all make our voices heard about the need to silence this pathetic example of a human being.

President Obama Calls Sandra Fluke

by malialitman

President Obama place a phone call to Sandra Fluke today to convey his appreciation to Ms. Fluke for her courage in offering her testimony before Congress. He made a point of mentioning to Ms. Fluke that her parents would be very proud of her. This was especially important to her, since Limbaugh mentioned in a second show howembarrassed her parents should be. The amazing thing is that Limbaugh heard about the President's call, and again repeated his feelings that Ms. Fluke's parents should be embarrassed. Rush Limbaugh is not sorry for his remarks. He is not embarrassed by his lack of understanding of how birth control pills work. He is not apologizing for calling Ms. Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute." He is only repeating his remarks, and making them more hurtful. I hope Ms. Fluke does sue him for slander!

Limbaugh is Already Paying the Price

by malialitman

Huffington Post reports this am that "Sleep Train" one of the companies that advertises on Limbaugh's show has pulled any commercials, and will no longer be advertising on the show. Pro Flowers is receiving a deluge of Twitter comments, and is contemplating pulling their ads too. I'm working on a list of all the companies who advertise, and will update this information. Please join the conversation with Pro Flowers to get them to pull their ads.

Rush continues personal attacks on Sandra Fluke, says she should have less sex

Georgetown faculty condemns 'personal attacks on our student, Sandra Fluke'

President Obama calls Sandra Fluke, thanks her for speaking out

Poll: Does Rush Limbaugh have the character to apologize for his sexist remarks?

Sort by: Relevance

Filter

Sandra Fluke Opening Statement (C-SPAN)

Opening statement from Georgetown Law Center student Sandra Fluke before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committe on women's health and ...

The Testimony Chairman Issa Doesn't Want You to Hear

the testimony Chairman Issa rejected at today's hearing: Sandra Fluke, who would have been the Minority's witness and the only female ...

Rush Limbaugh 'Slut' Attack On Georgetown Student Sandra Fluke

Via Politico: "Rush Limbaugh is under fire for calling a Georgetown University law student who testified on Capitol Hill about contraception a ...

Sandra Fluke Speaks: The Republican War on Women's Health

Sandra Fluke, Law Student at Georgetown University, was banned from testifying to an audience of 5 Angry, White, Christian, Republican Congressmen ...

I Have a Say: Sandra Fluke

Sandra Fluke, Past President of Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice, was invited to testify before Congress on the importance of ...

How Religious Exemptions Cost One Woman an Ovary

Georgetown student Sandra Fluke testifies on behalf of her fellow female students who have struggled to receive contraceptive care under ...

Cummings & Sandra Fluke on Contraception

Ranking Member Elijah Cummings appears on CNN with Soledad O'Brien

Sandra Fluke Gets A Call From Obama, 3/2/12

Interview with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC Read more here: huff.to

Sandra Fluke gets Pwned by Drew Pickles

It's been a long time since I made a pwning video but this one was just begging to be done! NEW

Leftist Sandra Fluke testifies, "Birth Control Is a Medicine... Religious Schools Should Pay"

Sandra Fluke is a student at Georgetown Law. She's also a "reproductive rights activist" who agrees wholeheartedly with the Obama administration's ...

Rush Limbaugh Calls a Female Georgetown Student, Sandra Fluke, a 'Slut'

The social issues debate re-ignited on Capitol Hill today when senators killed a proposal to throw out President Obama's contraception mandate ...

Rush Limbaugh Gives You The Reason Sandra Fluke Is Going To A Catholic College

Rush Limbaugh Gives You The Reason Sandra Fluke Is Going To A Catholic College

Rush Limbaugh - Snerdley Would Agree We Will Happily Buy Sandra Fluke All The Aspirin She Needs

Rush Limbaugh - Snerdley Would Agree We Will Happily Buy Sandra Fluke All The Aspirin She Needs

Rush Limbaugh VS Sandra Fluke, crossed the line in his radio broadcast.

Rush Limbaugh VS Sandra Fluke, crossed the line in his radio broadcast.

Dems hold mock hearing on women's health, contraception

Georgetown Law Center student Sandra Fluke on Thursday testified before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee during a mock hearing ...

Glenn Beck Reacts to Sandra Fluke's Contraception Testimony

Glenn Beck Radio Program Wednesday February 29, 2012

Rush Limbaugh - Sandra Fluke - I'm Going Broke Having Sex

Rush Limbaugh - Sandra Fluke - I'm Going Broke Having Sex I Need The Government To Buy My Condoms

· NEW

PCOS Testimony Denied by Republicans at Capitol Hearing

Big Eddie gives airtime to powerful testimony by Sandra Fluke who was barred by Darrell Issa from speaking at a Congressional Hearing. Issa ...

Rush Lmbaugh Calls 'Sandra Fluke' a 'Slut'. Is Limbaugh Right?

Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut" and "prostitute" for speaking out about the issue of ...

· NEW

Sandra Fluke: Having so much sex, I can't afford to buy birth control

Iam sure the parents of Ms. Fluke are so proud she testified to Congress she can't afford al the sex she is having. And much more on the Hotseat

I Have a Say

· I Have a Say: Sandra Fluke

· I Have a Say: Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood Federation of America

· I Have a Say: Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America

· PLAYLIST

Sandra Collins Talks To A3 Network!

www.A3Network.com.Sandra Collins Talks To A3 Network! Before I...

Sandra Collins "As the Rush Comes"

www.A3Network.comSandra Collins "As the Rush Comes"....

Limbaugh is an a-hole and needs to be fire!

at this poor excuse of a human being who not only insulted Sandra Fluke on his so -call radio station, but women overall link to the new news. ...

· NEW

Medical Study Confirms Gardasil Dangers Exposed By Judicial Watch

2012-02-29T19:30:00.000-08:00

Medical Study Confirms Gardasil Dangers Exposed By Judicial Watch

A new medical study confirms what Judicial Watch exposed years ago about a controversial vaccine fast-tracked by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect against a sexually transmitted disease; that the risks far outweigh the purported benefits.

http://vaccineliberationarmy.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Tomljenovic-and-Shaw-HPV-vaccines-and-evidence-based-medicine-Ann-Med-20111.pdf

In fact, the unknown dangers of a life-threatening adverse reaction to the vaccine—known as Gardasil—far outweigh the known risks of contracting the disease, according to the medical study conducted by two reputable Canadian researchers. Since 2007 JW has investigated the Gardasil scandal and exposed droves of government records documenting thousands of adverse reactions associated with the vaccine, including paralysis, convulsions, blindness and dozens of deaths.

Manufactured by pharmaceutical giant Merck, Gardasil is promoted as a miracle shot that can prevent certain strains of cervical cancer caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV). Instead it’s been linked to thousands of debilitating side effects, according to the government’s own daunting statistics, exposed in the course of JW’s ongoing probe. Based on the records JW published a special report in 2008 detailing Gardasil’s approval process, side effects, safety concerns and marketing practices. Undoubtedly, it illustrates a large-scale public health experiment.

Now a medical study, conducted by the University of British Columbia’s Neural Dynamics Research Group, collaborates the alarming side-effects of a vaccine that’s been shoved down the throats of unsuspecting victims by government at every level. Some 20 states have passed laws requiring funding for Gardasil or education programs promoting it. Among states that have enacted Gardasil-related measures are California, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Virginia, Maine and Utah. In all 50 states, tax dollars help pay for the costly shots ($360) because the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) makes them available through the federal Vaccines for Children program.

Before the Canadian study, first discovered by the Washington Examiner, there had been no solid medical research conducted on Gardasil. The newspaper cited it in a piece on Virginia rescinding its Gardasil mandate for pre-adolescent girls entering the sixth grade. The study lists the following Gardasil side effects: “Death, convulsions, paraesthesia, paralysis, Guillain–Barre syndrome, transverse myelitis, facial palsy, chronic fatigue syndrome, anaphylaxis, autoimmune disorders, deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolisms and cervical cancers.”

The medical researchers also point this out in their report: “In the Western world, cervical cancer is a rare disease with mortality rates that are several times lower than the rate of reported serious adverse reactions (including deaths) from HPV vaccination.” In fact, the overwhelming majority (88%) of cervical cancer deaths occur in third world countries.

JWReportFDAhpvVaccineRecords[1]

Tomljenovic and Shaw HPV Vaccines and Evidence Based Medicine Ann Med 20111

Gone After Gardasil: Acceptable Collateral Damage?

2012-02-10T05:15:00.000-08:00

Gone After Gardasil: Acceptable Collateral Damage?

I SAY NO!

1.Gone After Gardasil Acceptable Collateral Damage 02.02

Evil in the Crosshairs: 'I Only Wish I Had Killed More' : If You Can Read This Post And Have No Questions; There Is Something Wrong With You!

2012-02-04T19:30:00.000-08:00

Evil in the Crosshairs: 'I Only Wish I Had Killed More' : If You Can Read This Post And Have No Questions; There Is Something Wrong With You!

If You Can Read This Post And Have No Questions; There Is Something Wrong With You!

Evil in the Crosshairs: 'I Only Wish I Had Killed More'

By Laurence Vance

Savage, despicable evil. That's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy "savages." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30429.htm

I recently mentioned here the deadliest sniper in U.S. history. Huff Post is running an excerpt from his book American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S. Military History. Here is his absolutely warped view of the war in Iraq:

Savage, despicable evil. That's what we were fighting in Iraq. That's why a lot of people, myself included, called the enemy "savages." There really was no other way to describe what we encountered there. People ask me all the time, "How many people have you killed?" My standard response is, "Does the answer make me less, or more, of a man?"

The number is not important to me. I only wish I had killed more. Not for bragging rights, but because I believe the world is a better place without savages out there taking American lives. Everyone I shot in Iraq was trying to harm Americans or Iraqis loyal to the new government. And why were they trying to harm Americans? Could it be because Americans invaded and occupied their country?

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/103520.html

Join the Military, Travel the World, Meet Interesting People, and Kill Them

Posted by Laurence Vance on January 12, 2012 09:12 AM

Only Navy SEAL Chris Kyle didn't bother to meet anyone before he killed them. As the deadliest sniper in US history he killed his victims at a distance. Said Mr. Kyle:

It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don’t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn’t save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I’m not naive, and I don’t romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL. But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job.

Doing his job. Spoken just like a worker at the crematorium doing his job.

Thank God Mr. Kyle is now out of the military and has a real job—providing military and law enforcement sniper training.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2081430/255-confirmed-kills-Meet-Navy-SEAL-Chris-Kyle--deadliest-sniper-US-history.html

255 confirmed kills: Meet Navy SEAL Chris Kyle... the deadliest sniper in US history

· Served four tours of duty in Iraq, where he gained the nickname 'The Devil of Ramadi' from insurgents

· Longest shot was a 2,100-yard strike against a man armed with a rocket launcher

· Prefers a bolt-action .300 Winchester Magnum custom sniper rifle

· Left the Navy after 10 years to 'save his marriage'

By MICHAEL ZENNIE

Chris Kyle hesitated the first time he killed a person at long range with a rifle. It was a woman who was about to attack a group of US Marines with a hand grenade.

The US Navy SEAL was overlooking an Iraqi town from a shabby building as US forces were still invading the country, before Saddam Hussein had been ousted. The Marines didn't see the woman coming.

'Take a shot,' Mr Kyle's chief told him.

Mr Kyle stammered: 'But...'

'Shoot!' the chief told him again.

When Mr Kyle finally pulled the trigger, the woman dropped the grenade.

He shot her again as it exploded.

But after four deployments to Iraq, he learned to stop hesitating and start shooting straight.

With 255 kills, 160 of them officially confirmed by the Pentagon, the retired Navy Seal sniper is the deadliest marksman in US military history.

During the Second Battle of Fallujah alone, when US Marines fought running battles in the streets with several thousand insurgents, he killed 40 people.

His feat blows away the previous American record of 109, set by Army Staff Sgt. Adelbert F. Waldron during the Vietnam war.

Carlos Hathcock, the famed Marine sniper who was the subject of the book 'One Shot, One Kill,' killed 93 people as a long-range sniper in Vietnam.

Despite the incredible number, Mr Kyle is still far from being the deadliest marksman in the world.

That distinction goes to Simo Häyhä, a Finnish soldier who killed 542 Soviet soldiers during World War II.

Mr Kyle is a cowboy from Odessa, Texas, who was a professional bronco rodeo rider before he joined the Navy. He grew up hunting deer and pheasant with a rifle and a shotgun his dad bought him.

He never realized he was a good shot until he joined the Navy and got into the prestigious SEAL special operations unit.

For his deadly track record as a marksman during his deployment to Ramadi, the insurgents named him 'Al-Shaitan Ramad' -- the Devil of Rahmadi -- and put a $20,000 bounty on his head.

'I thought to myself, “Oh, hell yeah!” It was an honor,' he told Texas Monthly magazine when Army intelligence told him about his infamy.

But his Navy SEAL companions gave him a different name 'the Legend.'

His most legendary shot came outside Sadr City in 2008 when he spotted an insurgent with a rocket launcher near an Army convoy -- 2,100 yards away.

At that distance, 1.2 miles, he fired a shot from his .338 Lapua Magnum rifle. It struck home, knocking the man over dead.

'God blew that bullet and hit him,' Mr Kyle told the New York Post.

Mr Kyle's preferred weapon, though, was a custom-built bolt action rifle with a powerful scope. It was chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum, a cartridge originally developed for hunting North American big game.

However, Mr Kyle said he has found a new use for it -- making long range, highly accurate shots.

'I could hit a target from 1,800 yards, and it would shoot like a laser,' he told Texas Monthly.

Mr Kyle, who retired from the Navy after 10 years of service, is telling his remarkable story as a deadly marksman in his new book, 'American Sniper,' which hits shelves Tuesday.

For his valor, he received three Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars with Valor, according to his book publisher, Harper Collins.

Additionally, he was shot twice and was in six separate IED explosions as his unit, Charlie company of SEAL Team Three, saw significant combat across the country.

Grateful nation: Kyle receiving an award from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs

The action was enough that the members of the unit adopted the white skull of the gun-wielding comic book vigilante The Punisher.

They painted the symbol on their body armor, their vehicles and even their weapons.

Despite the astonishing number of people he has shot, Mr Kyle says he has never second-guessed himself since the first time he had to pull the trigger on the grenade-wielding woman in Iraq.

For him, the enemy is a 'savage,' he told the Post.

'It was my duty to shoot the enemy, and I don’t regret it. My regrets are for the people I couldn’t save: Marines, soldiers, buddies. I’m not naive, and I don’t romanticize war. The worst moments of my life have come as a SEAL.

But I can stand before God with a clear conscience about doing my job,' he told Texas Monthly.

He left the service in 2009, deciding not to enlist in order to 'save his marriage' he told his publisher.

Mr Kyle has two children and lives in Dallas.

Since leaving the Navy, he has started his own military contracting firm, Craft International. It provides military and law enforcement sniper training, as well as private security and protection.

Chris Kyle's 255 kills set a record among American marksman and his 2,100-yard shot is unbelievable. But snipers around the world have surpassed him in other ways.

· The most kills: Simo Häyhä, a Finnish sniper, holds the record with 542 Soviet soldiers shot during the Russian invasion of Finland in World War II. Numerous Soviet snipers killed more than 400 soldiers while fighting the Germans.

· Longest shot: Corporal of Horse Craig Harrison, a British marksman, killed two Taliban machine gunners in Afghanistan in 2009 from 2,700 yards with a .338 Lapua Magnum rifle.

· Most innovative: Legendary U.S. Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock made a 2,000-yard shot in 1967 during the Vietnam War with a .50-caliber Browning machine gun fitted with a scope mount of Mr Hathcock's own design. It was a record that stood for 35 years.

· Previous record: Adelbert F. Waldron, a U.S. Army marksman in the Vietnam War, held the previous American record with 109 kills. Mr Hathcock had 93 kills.

http://www.harpercollins.com/books/American-Sniper/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16544490

Chris Kyle was interviewed by Outlook for the BBC World Service. Listen to the interview here.

SaneVax Inc Writes Open Letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health: Rescind Gardasil Approval

2012-02-02T19:43:00.000-08:00

SaneVax Inc Writes Open Letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health: Rescind Gardasil Approval

In the interest of public health and safety, Sane Vax Inc., appeals to the Secretary of Health and Human services to request that the FDA approval of Gardasil® be rescinded due to lack of efficacy demonstrated during post-licensure monitoring.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

According to a recently published, industry-sponsored study conducted on 12,852 young women, HPV vaccination was found to reduce HPV-16 infections a mere 0.6% in vaccinated women versus unvaccinated women. At the same time, other high-risk (carcinogenic) HPV infections were diagnosed in vaccinated women 2.6% to 6.2% more frequently than in the unvaccinated women. The increased rate of infections caused by carcinogenic HPV types other than those targeted by Gardasil® in vaccinated women is 4 to 10 times higher than the reduction in HPV 16/18 infections.(sup)1(/sup)

These statistics are not exactly encouraging when it comes to demonstrating efficacy for Gardasil®. In fact, quite the opposite - these figures seem to indicate that women who receive Gardasil® may indeed increase their risk of developing cervical cancer from high-risk HPV types that are not targeted by the vaccine.

Medical consumers cannot afford to take the chance of increasing their risk of contracting a disease that has been virtually eradicated by good gynecological care in the United States (cervical cancer) by taking a series of HPV vaccines and hoping they will find out decades later the vaccine worked. It is certainly not a risk children should have to take.

Armed with the knowledge that any drug approved under the FDA’s accelerated approval process using a surrogate endpoint, such as Gardasil®, requires post-marketing studies “to verify and describe the drugs clinical benefit and to resolve remaining uncertainty as to the relation of the surrogate endpoint upon which approval was based to clinical benefit… ,”(sup) 2(/sup) the SaneVax Team felt compelled to appeal to the person in charge of FDA/CDC oversight, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.

On 31 January 2012, SaneVax Inc. sent an open letter to Ms Sebelius(sup)3(/sup) asking her to rescind approval for Gardasil® based on the lack of efficacy demonstrated in the ATHENA study referenced above.

If the Department is truly interested in public health and safety, they will do the right thing and rescind Gardasil® approval until the manufacturer can provide scientifically sound data proving this new drug is actually effective.

In the meantime, medical consumers around the globe have a choice. Is poke and hope good enough for you and your children? Or, are you going to demand scientific proof of efficacy before submitting to HPV vaccination?

References:
1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21944226 (see table 3, The ATHENA human papillomavirus study: design, methods, and baseline results.)

2. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/03/briefing/3936B1_0 ... (57 FR 58942)

3. Copy of letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services at http://sanevax.org/sanevax-open-letter-to-kathleen-sebel ...

Parents Sue After Quebec Teen Dies Following Gardasil Vaccination
Lifesite

by Thaddeus Baklinski MONTREAL, February 1, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The parents of a 14-year-old girl who died following Gardasil vaccinations provided by the Quebec government are suing the manufacture of the HPV vaccine, pharmaceutical giant Merck ...See all stories on this topic »

Merck-Funded Scientist Pushes HPV Vaccine For Boys Despite Absence Of Proof Of ...
Lifesite

Time Magazine even provided a link with their coverage promoting the use of Merck's Gardasil HPV vaccine, stating “Gardasil Protects Boys and Men From HPV Too” despite the fact, admitted by Time itself in the link, that the Centers for Disease Control ...See all stories on this topic »

http://lecafpolitiquedecamusdecaf.blogspot.com/2010/05/garasil-cervix-update-unacceptable.html

Gardasil, Silgard And Cervarix May Turn Out To Be The Biggest ...

lecafpolitiquedecamusdecaf.blogspot.com/.../gardasil-silgard-and-cer...

Aug 9, 2010 – Gardasil, Silgard and Cervarix may turn out to be the biggest medical hoax of the century! Gardasil: Leslie Carol Botha Exposes HPV Vaccines' ...

VRM: Gardasil/Cervarix – A Legacy Of Shame « Vaccine Resistance ...

vaccineresistancemovement.org/?p=7579

Feb 20, 2011 – Guillain-Barre Syndrome) & deaths resulting from inoculation withGardasil & Cervarix currently stands at '3.34/100000 doses distributed', ...

Truths about Gardasil®, Cervarix® and Cervical Cancer Suppressed ...

www.seopressreleases.com/truths-gardasil-cervarix-cervical.../9103

May 27, 2010 – Three women from three countries, Emily Tarsell; United States, Judy Wilyman; Australia, and Freda Birrell; United Kingdom/Scotland are ..

How Did Robin Hood End Up Stealing From The Poor And Giving To The Rich: The Inside Story Of Wall Street And Washington In Bed Screwing All Of Us.

2012-01-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

How Did Robin Hood End Up Stealing From The Poor And Giving To The Rich: The Inside Story Of Wall Street And Washington In Bed Screwing All Of Us .

Preview: Corporate Greed and Power from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

John Reed on Big Banks' Power and Influence from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Moyers & Company Show 103: How power and influence helped big banks rewrite the rules of our economy. from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Byron Dorgan on Making Banks Play by the Rules from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Moyers & Company Show 102: On Crony Capitalism from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/user9013478

http://billmoyers.com/

The Rise Of American Fascism In Review.

2012-01-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

It is a given that our political leaders believe that we the people are ignorant, stupid, easily manipulated malleable puppets who have been vaccinated with a heavy dose of fear and apathy, successfully indoctrinated to accept that: revolution cannot never happen in America, corporate supremacy is inevitable and that our political theater, bitching, whining and complaining is easily ignored as self-indulgent expressions of displeasure, displeasure that will give way to our dutifully marching to the polls to re-elect or elect our most popular Congressional Criminals…and if you take a real close look at the dynamics of this nation; it is easy to conclude that they are right, that we have not the will or the courage to seize and take back this nation and hold accountable those who squandered any hope of the land evolving into “The American Dream”, those who savaged our economy to the extent that a new one must be built for us to emerge from this “Great Managed Depression”, a new economy that the corporate world sees as putting us back in our proper places in revisiting of apre-1930s world.

"If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death."

The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes, so they are introduced gradually. This same technique of gradual change is what has occurred to the American people, and we are too busy and ignorant to realize it. Fascism, through their techniques of change, has slowly been overtaking us, and most of the population doesn't recognize it - or don't want to know.

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Through policies of social indoctrination, by propaganda in education and the media, and regulation of the production of educational and media materials, we have been led to believe that our country is superior in every way. Little did we know that our home school and public education system has been designed to glorify our country by informing students of its superior historical and political importance in the world. It has attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the Fascist movement, and has taught students to not question the decisions of the government. Fascism tends to be anti- intellectual, which is why we can't tell the water in the pot is getting hot.

THE RISE OF FASCISM IN AMERICA: It will all seem so normal.

Fascism in America won’t come with jackboots, book burnings, mass rallies, and fevered harangues, nor will it come with black helicopters or tanks on the street. It won’t come like a storm—but as a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: Everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality will have taken its place. But it will all seem “normal”.

All the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns—plenty of bread and circuses. It will all seem “normal”.

But “consent of the governed” will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small and privileged group who rule for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons. But it will all seem ““normal””.

The change in America is taking place as I write, and Sinclair Lewis prophetically said” “That when Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” And when it happens, somehow; it will all seem “normal”.

To be sure, there will be factional conflicts among the elite, and a degree of debate will be permitted; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized—usually by “the people” themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by a thoroughly impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, left ignorant of current events by a corporate media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control. It will all seem “normal”.

The rulers will act in secret, for reasons of “national security,” and the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, state murder of “enemies” selected by the leader, undeclared wars, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new “security structures” targeted at the populace. In time, this will be seen as ““normal”,” as the chill of autumn feels “normal” when summer is gone. It will all seem “normal”.

Fascism is a political ideology and mass movement that seeks to place thenation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community.[1] Many different characteristics are attributed to fascism by different scholars, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, militarism, corporatism,statism, collectivism [2], anti-liberalism, and anti-communism. There are numerous debates between scholars regarding the nature of fascism, and the kinds of political movements and governments that may be called fascist. For further elaboration, please see definitions of fascism andfascism and ideology.

The term fascism was first used by Benito Mussolini, and it comes from theItalian word fascio, which means "union" or "league", and from the Latinword fasces (fascis, in singular), which means rods bundled around an axe. The fasces was an ancient Roman symbol of the authority ofmagistrates, and the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is very difficult to break.

Since the end of World War II, there has been considerable stigma associated with fascism, and few political groups in the past 60 years have dared to openly identify themselves as fascist. Unlike other ideologies, fascism never generated a large body of dogma or political theory, and, most importantly, there have been no significant political texts written from a fascist point of view since 1945. Thus, nearly all works on the topic of fascist ideology have been written by non-fascist and anti-fascist authors, and it is often difficult to determine the fascist position on many important issues. The word "fascist" is often used pejoratively, a label used by people of all political views to draw criticism upon an opposing viewpoint. This has spilled over into debates concerning the ideological nature of fascism, with adherents of some ideologies trying to draw parallels between fascism and their own ideological opponents.

Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labelled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton.

Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism:

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. (a version of the text is here).

Since Mussolini, however, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term "fascism." Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that:

"Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."[4]

Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:

1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions;

2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits;

3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts;

4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint;

5. fear of foreign `contamination."[5]

Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.

Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector;fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism.[6]Semiotician Umberto Eco also attempts to identify characteristics of fascism in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt.[7] More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflatednation and ethnic people.[8]

Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, Nazism began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Adolf Hitler was handed state power in Germany. Some scholars and political commentators argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that in Soviet Union.[9]

The evolution of Fascism in a Democracy is the most insidious of political transitions, assembling many components from divergent intellectual, pop culture sources and fringe organizations that have fanatic devotees. Even in the face of warning, the words of the courier most often go without heed, and in fact, are frequently attacked as the ranting of lunatic alarmists; the evolutionary/transitional process, both by design of the usurpers and the climate of gradual acceptance isolates the messenger until it is too late. Everything seems rational; everything seems “normal”. Just look inside the following and tell me: Is this your idea of “normal”? From such sources is the stew being.

Neo-Fascism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-fascism and religion
Christian Identity
Creativity Movement
Ku Klux Klan
National Alliance
Nouvelle Droite
American Nazi Party
Alain de Benoist
William Luther Pierce
George Lincoln Rockwell
International Third Position
National anarchism
National Bolshevism

And the Top Neocon Think Tanks

Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
Established in 1997 by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, PNAC's goal is "to promote American global leadership." Creating a blueprint for the US' current role in the world, PNAC's original Statement of Principles called for the US to return to a "Reaganite foreign policy of military strength and moral clarity."

American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Founded in 1943, this influential Washington think tank is known as the headquarters of neoconservative thought. In a crucial speech in the leadup to the war in Iraq, US President George W. Bush said this to an audience at AEI: "You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds."

Jewish Intitute for National Security Affairs (JINSA)
Based in Washington, JINSA "communicates with the national security establishment and the general public to explain the role Israel can and does play in bolstering American interests, as well as the link between American defense policy and the security of Israel." Some of the strongest supporters of Israel's right-wing Likud Party in the already pro-Israel neoconservative circles are on JINSA's board of advisers.

Center for Security Policy (CSP)
CSP's 2001 annual report boasts of its influence saying it "isn't just a 'think tank' – it's an agile, durable, and highly effective 'main battle tank' in the war of ideas on national security." Securing neoconservatives' influence at the nexus of military policymakers and weapons manufacturers, CSP's mission is "to promote world peace through American strength."

The Hudson Institute

The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies

Ethics and Public Policy Center

The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies

Further Sources For Investigation

In his original article, "Fascism Anyone?", Laurence Britt (interview) compared the regimes of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet and identified 14 characteristics common to those fascist regimes. This page is a collection of news articles dating from the start of the Bush presidency divided into topics relating to each of the 14 points of fascism. Further analysis of American Fascism done by the POAC can be read here.

1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism: Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

September 11 Freedom Walk—

New Majority Leader: Iraq War “May Be The Greatest Gift That We Give” Our Grandchildren

Headstones of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are inscribed with the Pentagons war-marketing slogans

White House and the RNC are going to make a habit of using uniformed military personnel as props at Republican political rallies, despite the fact that it is a plain violation of military regulations banning politicization of the armed forces.

"You must glorify war in order to get the public to accept the fact that your going to send their sons and daughters to die." The inside story of the cozy relationship between big box office American war movies and the Pentagon

More...

2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights: Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

We are now a torturing police state: Bush signing into law that will get rid of habeas corpus, allow hearsay evidence, and allow the President to determine what is allowable torture.

Bush Offers Himself Amnesty for Human Rights Crimes

Bush threatens to veto $442b defense bill if Congress investigates detainee abuses.

Guantanamo Judge: “I don’t care about international law. I don’t want to hear the words ‘international law’ again. We are not concerned with international law.”

Rumsfeld to approve new guidelines that will formalize the administration's policy of imprisoning without the protections of the Geneva Conventions and enable the Pentagon to legally hold "ghost detainees,"

US 'preparing to detain terror suspects for life without trial'

U.S. oks evidence gained through torture

July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution.

US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention
More...

3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause: The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us'

SB 24, Ohio law to muzzle "liberals"

Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum has joined a conservative Washington think tank, where he will found and direct a program called "America's Enemies."

Sean Hannity creates weekly "Enemy of the State" segment on his new program

Fox radio hosts suggests putting liberal commentators and activists in concentration camps.

World history textbook used by seventh-graders at Scottsdale’s Mohave Middle School was pulled from classrooms mid-semester amid growing right criticism of the book’s unbiased portrayal of Islam

Rallies planned against 'Islamofacism': Event to 'unify all Americans behind common goal'

More...

4.) Supremacy of the Military: Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

If you haven't seen the Oreo flash animation yet, see it here (It puts things in perspective!)

Bush’s Domestic Program Hit List (What Priorities are important?)

Bush slashes domestic programs, boosts defense. Arlen Spector calls it "scandalous"

Funding for job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance would face big cuts under a bill passed Friday by the House

Pentagon to spend 75 billion for three new brigades

Three cable channels now feed news, information and entertainment about the armed services into millions of living rooms 24 hours a day, seven days a week: The Military Channel, the Military History Channel and the Pentagon Channel.

More...

5.) Rampant Sexism: The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

It's legal again, to fire gov't workers for being gay

Bush calls for Constitutional ban on same-sex marriages

Bush refuses to sign U.N proposal on women's "sexual" rights

W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs.

The State Department has awarded an explicitly anti-feminist U.S. group part of a US$10 million grant to train Iraqi women in political participation and democracy.

More...

6.) Controlled Mass Media: Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

FBI Acknowledges: Journalists Phone Records are Fair Game

Report shows U.S. government has been engaged in illegal propaganda aimed at its own citizens and the story gets only 41 mentions in the media

Free Press details recent governmental propaganda efforts, from faux-correspondent Jeff Gannon to paid-off pundit Armstrong Williams, and from the demise of FOIA to video news releases passed off as news.

also... See a Whitehouse fake news release here (opens realplayer)

US seizes webservers from independent media sites-

Bush's war on information: US editors forbidden to publish certain foreign writers-

More...

7.) Obsession with National Security: Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses

Bush Aides ADMIT 'stoking fear' for political gain:

Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.-

The Bush administration periodically put the USA on high alert for terrorist attacks even though then-Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge argued there was only flimsy evidence to justify raising the threat level. –

GOP Ad These are the stakes-

Keith Olbermann: "The Nexus of Politics and Terror."-

Cheney warns that if Kerry is elected, the USA will suffer a "devastating attack" –

GOP convention in a nutshell (quicktime) –

Rove: GOP to Use Terror As Campaign Issue in 2006

More...

8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined: Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Jerry Falwell cleared of charges that he broke federal election law by urging followers to vote for Bush

NC congressman proposes law making it ok to preach politics from the pulpit

Texas Governor Mobilizes Evangelicals

Family research council: Justice Sunday

Thou shalt be like Bush:
What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment.

Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat'l parks

More...

9.) Corporate Power is Protected: The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

The K Street Project is a project by the Republican party to pressure Washington lobbying firms to hire Republicans in top positions, and to reward loyal GOP lobbyists with access to influential officials. It was launched in 1995, by Republican strategist Grover Norquist and House majority leader Tom DeLay.

American Conservative Magazine: One U.S. contractor received $2 million in a duffel bag... and a U.S. official was given $7 million in cash in the waning days of the CPA and told to spend it “before the Iraqis take over.”

There are 6 Congressional Committees investigating the Oil-for-Food (UN) scandal, yet not a single Republican Committee Chairman will call a hearing to investigate the whereabouts of 9 billion dollars missing in Iraq

Bush money network rooted in Florida, Texas: Since Mr. Bush took office in 2001, the federal government has awarded more than $3 billion in contracts to the President's elite 2004 Texas fund-raisers, their businesses, and lobbying clients

More...

10.) Labor Power is Suppressed: Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

Labor Department warns unions against using their money politically

President Bush Attacks Organized Labor: Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding.

March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending.

Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days.

More...

11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts: Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

The A to Z guide to political interference in science

Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education

Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds.

A group of more than 60 top U.S. scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, on Wednesday accused the Bush administration of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes

Freedom of Repression: New ruling will allow censorship of campus publications

More...

12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment: Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations

The 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006

The United States has now become the world leader in its rate of incarceration, locking up its citizens at 5-8 times the rate of other industrialized nations.

American Gestapo is here: "There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'"

America: secret jails, secret courts, secret arrests, and now secret laws

Snitch-or-Go-to-Jail bill will make pretty much anything short of reporting on everyone you see for doing just about anything a jailable offense. With minimum sentences, up to and including life without parole.

The problem with Gonzales is that he has been deeply involved in developing some of the most sweeping claims of near-dictatorial presidential power in our nation's history, allowing him to imprison and even (at least in theory) torture anyone in the world, at any time

Police officers don't have to give a reason at the time they arrest someone, the U.S. Supreme Court said in a ruling that shields officers from false-arrest lawsuits.

More...

13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption: Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse

Who's been indicted, named as a co-conspirator or convicted? The Grand Ole Docket tracks trial dates, court appearances and sentencing hearings for players in the current array of national political scandals.

Making Sense of the Abramoff Scandal

In preparation for upcoming Congressional hearings, Bush Administration firing federal attorneys and appointing ringers without Senate confirmation via the patriot act.

If Bush's pick is confirmed, that will mean the five top appointees at Justice have zero prosecutorial experience among them.

Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush

Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors

Bush Wars -- Crooks Get Contracts : The main companies that were awarded billions of dollars worth of contracts in Iraq have paid more than $300 million in fines since 2000, to resolve allegations of fraud, bid rigging, delivery of faulty military equipment, and environmental damage.

US Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) lost track of $9 billion

"Contracting in the aftermath of the hurricanes has been marked by waste, corruption and cronyism"

More...

14. Fraudulent Elections: Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

A couple of election workers have been convicted of rigging a recount in Ohio following the 2004 election

Rolling Stone does some investigative and rather exhaustive digging into public documents and says we’re almost guaranteed the 2004 election results were massively rigged

Powerful Government Accounting Office report confirms key 2004 stolen election findings

Conyers hearing in which Clinton Curtis testifies that he was hired to create hackable voting machines (.wmv)

The Republican Party has quietly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide private defense lawyers for a former Bush campaign official charged with conspiring to keep Democrats from voting in New Hampshire.

The Conyers Report (.pdf)

No explanation for the machines in Mahoning County that recorded Kerry votes for Bush, the improper purging in Cuyahoga County, the lock down in Warren County, the 99% voter turnout in Miami County, the machine tampering in Hocking County

Less access than Kazakhstan. Fewer fail-safes than Venezuela. Not as simple Republic of Georgia. The 2004 Elections according to international observers.

This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican law makers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane.

If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and government power" what does that make the K Street project?

Related Articles:

"Now and Then"- Part 1 A 3 part series by W David Jenkins III on the similarities between America now and Germany post Reichstag fire-

"Now and Then"- Part II: The Propaganda Machine-

Now and Then- Part IIIHitler's Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power-

It may sound crazy to some, but the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism.-

Is America Becoming Fascist?-

Eternal Fascism:

Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt-

The Danger of American Fascism:With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.-

Sheila Samples: Freedom To Fascism -- A Bumpy Ride: Republicans don't seem to realize that they are no longer individual members of a coherent "party," but are merely part of a mean-spirited and dangerous movement that is threatening to sweep away democracy as we know it.-

Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism-

The Brownshirting of America:
Bush’s supporters demand lock-step consensus that Bush is right. They regard truthful reports that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the September 11 attack on the US – truths now firmly established by the Bush administration’s own reports – as treasonous America-bashing.

Fascism then. Fascism now? When people think of fascism, they imagine Rows of goose-stepping storm troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.

What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features

Hello. You are now living in a fascist empire

Neo-fascism in America : Too many people believe fascism is only about goose-stepping, jack-booted Nazis. Too many people believe that American democracy is so strong that fascists could never take control of America. If you are sympathetic to those views, I invite you to consider the possibility that you are mistaken.

It is in times of fascism rising that armies of ignorance are once more resuscitated from the bowels of a society bordering on the edge of mass psychosis. The America at the dawn of the twenty-first century is no exception...

Republican Party Brown Shirts: "The Wide-Awakes": The organization was known for virulent anti-Catholicism, secretive rituals, and a military-style organization complete with "officers" and units.

Harper's Magazine: We Now Live in a Fascist State

They Saw It Coming: The 19th-Century Libertarian Critique of Fascism

Victims of Creeping Fascism: We are witnessing nothing less astonishing than the demise of the American experiment. 12-20

The ten phases of a Bush scandal. 12-22

America is headed for a soft dictatorship by the end of Bush’s second term.

The Rise of Fascism in America; A Little Repeat Reminder and Review

Fascism in America won’t come with jackboots, book burnings, mass rallies, and fevered harangues, nor will it come with black helicopters or tanks on the street.

It won’t come like a storm—but as a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: Everything is the same, but everything has changed.

Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality will have taken its place. All the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns—plenty of bread and circuses.

But “consent of the governed” will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small and privileged group who rule for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.

The change in America is taking place as I write, and Sinclair Lewis prophetically said” “That when Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

The rulers will act in secret, for reasons of “national security,” and the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name.

Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, state murder of “enemies” selected by the leader, undeclared wars, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new “security structures” targeted at the populace.

In time, this will be seen as ““normal”,” as the chill of autumn feels “normal” when summer is gone. It will all seem “normal”.

Since the 1970’s, American businesses have grown larger and more monopolistic, helped along by deregulation, the repeal of anti-trust laws, and a steady transformation from manufacturing to capital management (dare I say, “capital manipulation”?).

As Paul Bigioni puts it in his excellent essay entitled “The Real Threat of Fascism”: “If we are to protect ourselves from the growing political influence of Big Business, then our antitrust laws must be reconceived in a way which recognizes the political danger of monopolistic conditions.”

Bigioni continues by emphasizing that “Antitrust laws do not just protect the marketplace, they protect democracy.” It is well to remember that conditions like these led to fascism in both Germany and Italy in the 1930’s, and Bigioni points out that the transformation toward fascism occurred in both countries while they were still liberal democracies.

In America, since at least 1971, the rich have gotten much, much richer and the poor have become poorer and far more numerous, largely because our government now sees its primary function as serving the interests of Big Business and its Big Money.

As of 2003, according to a Congressional Budget Office report, the top one percent of households in America accounted for 57.5% of America’s wealth, up from 38.7% only twelve years earlier. And this does not take into account the last three years of the Bush tax-cuts. In the U.S. today, there are 374 billionaires, approximately 25,000 deca-millionaires ($10,000,000-$999,000,000) and 2.5 million millionaires; and this does not even take into account the wealth of corporations!

Under such conditions, competition is minimized or thwarted, and capital is exalted over labor, the consummation of Marx’s contention that “Capital is dead labor.”

In every industry, huge monopolistic cartels dominate the playing field, following the spate of mergers and acquisitions throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. To cite just two examples: (1) Four media giants (AOL-Time Warner, Viacom, Disney, and Rupert Murdoch’s NewsGroup) control everything we read, view, listen to, see at movie houses, and do at entertainment parks. Just four conglomerates, which have oh so much in common with one another, produce (for profit) every newspaper, magazine, major internet site, movie, cd, dvd, television program, and so on.

The pressure to stay within fairly narrow bounds of covering and the fear of losing one’s job should one “think outside the box” is detailed succinctly in Danny Schechter’s March 27, 2006 column the title of which is taken from a line Edward R. Morrow utters in the movie “Good Night and Good Luck”: “The Fear is in the Room: Inside our Unbrave Media World”; Robert Fisk’s March 19 column, “The Farcical End of the American Dream”; and Bill Gallagher’s March 28th column, “There is No ‘Good News’ in Iraq."

To note one other example: if Wal-Mart were a country it would have the 19th largest economy in the world!

Do not be hoodwinked by labels here: there was nothing “socialist” about Hitler’s National Socialist Party, despite his clever employment of terms such as “volk” (the people or the folks), “heimat” (homeland), or the solidarity sounding “ein land” (one country)! Likewise, there is no genuinely human freedom in the free market, despite the intoxicating rhetoric of the neo-liberals. Bigioni quotes Thurman Arnold, the head of the Anti-trust section of the Justice Department in 1939:

“Germany, of course, has developed within 15 years from an industrial autocracy into a dictatorship. Most people are under the impression that the power of Hitler was the result of his demagogic blandishments and appeals to the mob. . . Actually, Hitler holds his power through the final and inevitable development of the uncontrolled tendency to combine in restraint of trade.” And in another address, Arnold told the American Bar Association that “Germany presents the logical end of the process of cartelization.”

And, of course, every cartel needs a strong leader, a commander-in-chief with an iron fist, And Arnold says that Hitler filled that role, but that if it had not been Hitler, it would have been someone else. (Americans today might draw an analogy: if it were not George W. Bush, the first M.B.A. President, who would serve as the front-man for Big Business, it would be someone else.)

Bigioni writes, “Compulsory slave labor was the crowning achievement of Nazi labor relations.” By analogy, Employment-at-Will, the outsourcing of manufacturing and even service jobs, and the rejection of a living wage, is the crowning achievement of American labor relations. (See, for example, Harold Meyerson’s article, “Three Ideas to Radically Reorder Economy” (Providence Journal, March 24, 2006) and Princeton University Professor Alan Blinder’s article in the March-April issue of Foreign Affairs.

The disappearance of union jobs, outsourcing and downsizing has been the crowning achievement of American business relations over the past 30 years or so. The other factors contributing to what Bigioni calls “the fascist trajectory” includes low taxes, various forms of corporate welfare, the decimation of small businesses, and the ability of corporations to discharge obligations to employees, to the environment, and to the country as a whole.

In short, the United States is suffocating from the deleterious effects of Big Money interests in virtually every arena, from public political processes to the privatization of much of what belongs to all of us. Corporate advertising secures the pernicious effects. From time to time, one hears a call for public financing of elections, for truth in advertising, and for more regulation and oversight of lobbying activities, but on the whole, Americans seem glib about the way things are, supposing that this is the only way they can be.

The status quo breeds resignation in the citizenry, and this resignation, too, is in large part an effect of Big Business and its Big Money. It keeps ordinary folks and their common sense away from the political arena, which might otherwise force a change in the way things are done. Big Money does everything it can to sour people on political participation, so that the little guys who just don’t know what’s best for themselves or the country will leave matters of governance to the professional ruling class.

To formalize this relatively recent reality, it would seem necessary to reword our Constitution to reflect those entities called “corporations,” which have now been deemed “persons” and whose capital is now regarded as a form of “speech.” (See, for example, Jeffrey Kaplan, “Uncivil Liberties: ACLU Defense of ‘Money=Speech’ Precedent Undermines Democracy.”) The United States has become a country “of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation.”

Public financing of elections and campaign expenditure limits are shouted down as communism or socialism, in a manner very similar to Big Money’s cries of “class warfare” when the population at large objects to additional giveaways to the richest few Americans. Big Money (representing a small, elite class) does everything in its power to prevent the American people from awakening to the fact that what it is seeing really is class warfare: warfare that is being waged from the top down, against the poor and what we used to call the “middle class,” which are now subsidizing Big Money interests that control the political agenda and its legislative processes.

The influence of Big Money on U.S. elections cannot be underestimated. (See, for example, Greg Palast’s “Jim Crow in Cyberspace” in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, the work on election fraud by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, and the recent articles by Warren Stewart “Do You Know How Your Vote Will be Counted?” and Fred Grimm “Election Official Hammered for Telling the Truth”. The problem with the role of money in a supposedly democratic country is not restricted to the many and all-too regular scandals—such as the Abramoff affair or the conviction of Randy “Duke” Cunningham—nor is the problem restricted to the corruption that has ensnared elected officials and exposed lobbyists as little more than bribes makers and bagmen.

(See Geov Parrish, “That Old-Fashioned Corruption,” and Katrina vanden Heuvel’s, “Annals of Outrage I, II, and III) It is, rather, that money, as John McCain famously said, “is the mother’s milk of politics” (at least in the U.S. political system.) The need to raise money at every level, from city to state to federal offices, pollutes and perverts the democratic process.

The corruption is bipartisan; at present, the Republican Party enjoys greater favor with the corporate paymasters than does the Democratic Party, but both parties are “on the take”. It does little to assuage one’s concern for democracy that one party gets 55-60% of the paymasters’ money and the other only 40-45%. In a country that prides itself on being democratic, private money peddles its influence across the political spectrum.

To cite one illustrative example, Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen, an energy industry watchdog, reports that Big Oil and Gas doled out $55 million to various campaigns for legislative and executive seats since 2001. And why not, ExxonMobil alone made a profit of $36.1 billion in 2005, the most profit ever recorded by a U.S. corporation in a year, and a rate of return on investment of 46-59%. And what did these donations buy the industry? Among other things, when the executives of the top five oil and gas companies were called before Congress to testify about possible price-gouging and the prospect of a windfall profits tax, the five company representatives were not required to testify under oath!

Big Money and the future of Democracy in America

I suspect that everything just recounted is entirely by design: not by the design of our framers, but by the design of Big Money interests. The role of money ensures that only the wealthy and well-connected have any chance of influencing the political process or holding elected office at a significant level.

In the 2004 election campaign, 549 people each raised $100,000 for Bush’s re-election, and John Kerry, too, relied on big donors on his side of the political equation. Thus, it was not by sheer coincidence that, in the 2000 presidential campaign, voters were given a choice between a Yale graduate, whose father had been President and whose grandfather was a Senator, and a Harvard graduate, whose father was a Senator.

And in the 2004 presidential contest, the choice was even more narrow, between a multi-millionaire Yale “Skull and Bones” man and a billionaire Yale “Skull and Bones” man. Nepotism, like corruption, discourages most good Americans from participating in elections, to say nothing of running for office!

If in 1968, I had hung a poster on my bedroom wall that read: “Wanna Be President of the United States? First Find $25 Million”! Today, that wouldn’t buy a Senate seat or even a New York City Mayor’s job.

We should be either shocking or disgusting to realize that John Corzine spent $63 million for a New Jersey Senate seat, and Michael Bloomberg spent $70 million to become the mayor of New York City. With rumblings that he is considering a run for the Presidency we need not worry about being hounded for contributions by Mr. Bloomberg. He can foot the bill himself, and should he run you can rest assured that he won’t have to; there will be freely volunteered contributions to curry later favors.

Corporations give money to both parties in staggering amounts, and what they do not give directly to their favorites, they spend on advertising to shape the public mind. The result is a net loss both for the public good and for democracy. It costs the corporations only a small fraction in contributions for what they gain through their wheel-greasing.

Do you wonder how much the oil and natural gas lobby paid to secure that $9 billion in windfall profits that they stand to gain from the Bush administration’s plan for “royalty relief”. And that million dollar donation by the UAE to the Bush library in Crawford was surely just a down-payment on the ports deal they hoped to get!

It seems quaint nowadays to reflect back on the corporate culture of the 1960’s. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote the following description in his1967 book, The New Industrial State, as quoted by Paul Krugman in his excellent October 20, 2002 New York Times Magazine article, “For Richer”:

“Management does not go out ruthlessly to reward itself---a sound management is expected to exercise restraint. . . With the power of decision goes opportunity for making money . . . Were everyone to seek to do so . . . the corporation would be a chaos of competitive avarice. But these are not the sort of thing that a good company man does; a remarkably effective code bans such behavior. Group decision-making insures, moreover, that almost everyone’s actions and even thoughts are known to others. This acts to enforce the code and, more than incidentally, a high standard of personal honesty as well.”

Does anyone believe that such a self-policing culture exists today? If the corporate scandals of the 1990’s taught us anything, it is that corporations no longer even aim to stay in business, a goal that used to temper their penchant for excess and bridge-burning. The cases of Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom, Global Crossing, and many more perpetrators, should have made abundantly clear that there is no limit to corporate excess or insatiable greed, and, in the absence of federal and international regulations, it is usually the stockholders and the public at large who end up underwriting the thefts, cleaning up the pollution, and dealing with the displaced workforce.

Most of this is not new. In fact, the seeds of corporate rule over America were sown by the 1971 ”Powell Memorandum.” And we need only think back to the Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980’s, to recall another half a trillion dollar boondoggle that taxpayers had to underwrite.

There have been plenty of books written about such scandals (see, for example, William S. Greider, Who Will Tell the People?, Arianna Huffington, Pigs at the Trough, Jim Hightower, Thieves in High Places, and David K. Johnston, Perfectly Legal, for starters.) Yet despite the recurrent malfeasance, little has been done to curb corporate excesses and outright frauds.

What is more, trans-national corporations need have no allegiance to the United States of America. They have offices in many countries and on many continents, and most of them have already shipped their profits offshore to avoid the patriotic duty of paying their fair share of U.S. taxes.

Remembering President Eisenhower’s Warning

Several commentators have recently reminded us of General Dwight D. Eisenhower’s January 17, 1961 farewell address, warning of the threat posed by the “military-industrial complex”. Usually omitted from discussions of President Eisenhower’s warning is the less well-known fact that, until the final version of the speech, Eisenhower used the phrase, “military-industrial-congressional complex”. He is said to have deleted the reference to Congress from his final version to avoid offending legislators.

But President Eisenhower regularly referred to “the triangle” and even to “the iron triangle” consisting of the military, the industries that profit from war, and the Congress, which is charged with declaring war, appropriating funding for wars (and everything else the federal government spends money on), and for exercising oversight functions of various kinds.

According to University of Washington Emeritus Professor of engineering, public affairs, and social management, Edward Ward Wenk, Jr.: “These three cornered fellowships coupled hungry defense contractors, ambitious military officers whose promotions rested on husbanding new defense systems, and members of Congress eager to steer new funds and job opportunities to their district.”

Eisenhower might have added “educational institutions” to the list, since universities conducted research for the Manhattan Project and institutions, such as UC Berkeley, which managed the Los Alamos laboratory (which produced the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) from its inception until last year, when the University put Los Alamos on the auction block and Bechtel secured the management contract.

President Eisenhower’s speechwriter—whom Professor Wenk revealed to be Malcolm Moos—recalled that Eisenhower feared a “pathological influence of the military-industrial coalition beyond a healthy arm’s-length relationship, especially if the national psyche was prodded artificially by fear. A future chief executive might exploit political energies of the coalition to further a narrow and dangerous agenda” (Italics mine).

Professor Wenk, who served in the administrations of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and who was the first incumbent in the post of science advisor to Congress during the Eisenhower administration, draws this conclusion in his March 17 article, “Ike’s Warning Reverberates Today” by saying: “I see coalitions increasingly entrenched. Failed weapons systems are seldom canceled. Auditing is cursory for moving and feeding troops; malperformance is accepted in the fog of war, and penalties for fraud uncollected. . .” “Influence of coalitions also has grown with the cost of political campaigns. Members spend half their time raising funds, rather than forging policy. . . In the absence of strong vigilance, their concern about a corporate state hatched by stealth might yet happen.”

Indeed, it has already taken place, repeatedly!

It appears glaringly obvious these days that Congress has failed miserably in its oversight, appropriation, and war-declaration functions. This lack of oversight is apparent not only with respect to the Administration’s reckless adventure in Iraq, but also with regard to the passage of the Patriot Act (and its renewal), the muted response against policies condoning torture, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the practice of “extraordinary rendition”, the warrantless wiretapping on American citizens, and the insuring of free and fair elections with verifiable ballot-counting.

What we have now is a military-industrial-Congressional complex indeed…a real foundation for Fascist formulation!

I nonetheless, really believe that “most” public officials begin their careers with a desire to serve the people and to make America better. I do not believe that members of Congress, or members of state legislatures, for that matter, run for office merely to enrich themselves. No, I think that most of them begin their political careers as genuine and sincere people. But the systemic role of money, as I have said, pollutes and perverts processes and people.

It is a bit like boiling a frog. If you drop the frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out of the kettle; but if you drop the frog in lukewarm water and slowly increase the temperature, the frog will neither jump out of the kettle nor croak anymore. And that is just what happens to far too many of our public servants and to the citizenry as a whole.

It is ironic that Big Business tries to insure that government stays on the sidelines and pursues laissez faire policies, until Big Business needs the government (usually aided by the U.S. military) to make some country or region “safe” for its business interests.

From making Cuba safe for the United Fruit Company, to securing access to Persian Gulf oil and South Asian gas, Big Business is always ready to have the government protecting its interests. One notes again and again, however, that such security is paid for by taxpayers, while the profits go straight into the corporate coffers.

But beware, Big Business; for as Bigioni warns: “Just as monopoly is the ruin of the free market, fascism is the ultimate degradation of liberal capitalism.” It’s sort of like be careful of what you wish for…

But then again the drift downward will be in a comfortable proper patriotic, flag wrapped, Christian, Family Values fog will all seem so “normal”…except, sooner of later the fog lifts and reality become clear. Its sort of like mowing the lawn on a hot summer day and having one or two too many beers. You lay down on the sofa for a few minutes with a fan blowing on you to cool down, and sleep comes quickly, a sleep broken by the rudeness of your neighbor ringing your door bell to report you left you mower running and it is now at rest against the side of his house….

Or you’ve had a good party with friends and your pitchers of Martinis were good and gone, and you awake to find yourself on that sofa again, and as you stumble in the Martini haze through the darkened house, you discover the bedroom door locked. You don’t know what you did, but you know you are in trouble, and at that moment you don’t know what you are going to have to do.

The arrival of Fascism is like that, seductive, intoxicating, and comfortable because your leaders have assured you that they are strong enough and have the answers to keep you safe and happy, and then comes the political hang over that can last for generations!

I on the other hand have no question as to where I stand, for the following words are, and will be, my refuge and resort when everyone has failed and the Fascist Flag Flies; I will be on the other side ready to begin anew the fight to regain what we all once knew before we succumbed to the intoxication, woke up in a fog pondering: “What do we do now, or as was written on the original book jacket of Sinclair Lewis’s, “ It Can’t Happen Here: “What will happen when Dictatorship comes to America?”

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.

Posted by Ed. Dickau

It Is Time That Americans Occupy Everything And Shatter The Political System That Exists In This Land.

2012-01-21T19:51:00.000-08:00

It Is Time That Americans Occupy Everything And Shatter The Political System That Exists In This Land.

"If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death."

The story is often used as a metaphor for the inability of people to react to significant changes, so they are introduced gradually. This same technique of gradual change is what has occurred to the American people, and we are too busy and ignorant to realize it. Fascism, through their techniques of change, has slowly been overtaking us, and most of the population doesn't recognize it - or don't want to know.

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Through policies of social indoctrination, by propaganda in education and the media, and regulation of the production of educational and media materials, we have been led to believe that our country is superior in every way. Little did we know that our home school and public education system has been designed to glorify our country by informing students of its superior historical and political importance in the world. It has attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the Fascist movement, and has taught students to not question the decisions of the government. Fascism tends to be anti-intellectual, which is why we can't tell the water in the pot is getting hot.

U.N. Asked To Probe U.S. Efforts To Squelch Spain Torture Probe

By Rachel Roubein | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Two legal rights groups on Thursday asked the United Nations to investigate allegations that Spanish and U.S. officials collaborated to quash criminal probes into whether the Bush administration authorized illegal killings and torture of terrorism suspects.

The request, made to the U.N.'s special rapporteur for judicial independence, accused the United States of interfering with Spain's justice system in three different criminal cases. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights asked that the U.N. demand that both governments refrain from meddling in court cases.

"When arguably the leading human rights country in the world is engaged in torture and then gives impunity to those torturers, it sends a pretty bad message," said Michael Ratner, the Center for Constitutional Rights' president emeritus.

Ratner said the groups were turning to the U.N. because "it's very hard to hold the U.S. accountable in any forum in the world."

A spokesman for the U.S. State Department declined to comment, referring questions to the Justice Department, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The complaint calls for the U.N. to investigate how three cases were handled: the first involved the alleged torture of detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the second, the Bush's administration's authorization of harsh interrogation techniques; and the third, the 2003 death of Spanish cameraman Jose Couso Permuy in Baghdad.

The two groups based their complaint on diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks in 2010 that recount high-ranking U.S. diplomats pressuring Spanish officials to stop the investigations.

In one, U.S. Ambassador Eduardo Aguirre recounts his efforts to prevent criminal charges in the death of Couso, who was killed during the U.S. capture of Baghdad on April 8, 2003, when a U.S. tank opened fire on the Palestine Hotel, where journalists were staying.

"While we are careful to show our respect for the tragic death of Couso and for the independence of the Spanish judicial system, behind the scenes we have fought tooth and nail to make the charges disappear," Aguirre wrote.

On Friday, a Spanish judge reopened the case of the four former Guantanamo captives who allege they were tortured and subjected to humiliation at the detention camp. The judge ruled that he had jurisdiction in the case because the United States was not conducting an independent probe of the allegations.

"We're very excited about these cases in Spain," Ratner said. "It's only happening because neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration is willing to do anything to investigate the torture at Guantanamo."

ON THE WEB

Center for Constitutional Rights

MORE FROM MCCLATCHY

Spanish Judge reopens Guantanamo torture probe

WikiLeaks: How U.S. tried to stop Spain's torture probe

Report: French Judge Wants To Probe Guantánamo Torture Claims

17 Jan 2012 A French judge is seeking U.S. permission to visit the prison camps at Guantánamo Bay to investigate claims by former French inmates that they were tortured, the Associated Press reported from Paris on Tuesday. The AP reported that it saw a formal international request from investigating judge Sophie Clement to U.S. authorities to see the prison. Clement also seeks copies of all documents relating to the arrest and transfer of three Frenchmen who were held at Guantánamo. The men told the judge during questioning in France that they were subject to violence including torture and rape during their detention.

Follow McClatchy on Twitter

Occupy Wall Street looms over wins vs. SOPA bill, oil pipeline and Wisconsin ...

New York Daily News

Three amazing victories in one day, for young Internet activists and civil libertarians, for environmentalists, and for union members. Yes, the Occupy Wall Street camps are all gone now, but the populist fire they kindled still burns bright in the ...
See all stories on this topic »-New York Daily News

Occupy Wall Street Protestors Ask Judge to Dismiss Arrests
WNYC (blog)
By Arun Venugopal Attorneys representing Occupy Wall Street protesters asked a federal judge to dismiss the mass arrests of 700 demonstrators on the Brooklyn Bridge, in early October. The protesters' lawsuit, brought against the city, argues that the ...
See all stories on this topic »

Occupy the Courts gives up legal fight to protest at Manhattan Federal Court
New York Daily News
By Robert Gearty / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS While an Occupy Wall Street splinter group gave up its battle to get a protest permit, there was no ruling in a federal class-action lawsuit challenging the arrests of 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters on the ...
See all stories on this topic »-New York Daily News

The Occupy Movement is Mutating
YouTube
Ben Manski, Democracy Advocate & Ben Zucker, participant-Occupy DC tenter join Thom Hartmann. The "Occupy" movement is mutating - it's no longer just parks and tents. The Occupy Wall Streetmovement - the granddaddy of them all - turned 4-months old ...
See all stories on this topic »

Raw Video: Occupy Protesters Confront Congress
The Associated Press
Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement are meeting outside the Capitol for what participants hope will become the largest gathering of Occupy activists from around the country. (Jan. 17)
See all stories on this topic »

With Congress Occupied, the Supreme Court is Next
DCist.com
Only days after a few hundred Occupy Wall Street protesters from around the country converged on Washington for a day of haphazard demonstrations in and around Congress, tomorrow they'll be doing it all again -- but this time they're targeting the ...
See all stories on this topic »-DCist.com

Obama Raises At Least $3 Million In Manhattan
NY1
President Barack Obama dipped into New York Thursday evening for four fundraisers geared toward his re-election, but despite heavy support, some Occupy Wall Streetdemonstrators showed up to protest the events. NY1's Josh Robin filed the following ...
See all stories on this topic »-NY1

Judge Deciding Legality of Arrests of OWS Protesters on Brooklyn Bridge
DNAinfo
MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT — A federal court judge will decide whether 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters were legally arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge after hearing arguments Thursday that the mass of demonstrators was trapped and then put in cuffs ...
See all stories on this topic »

Occupy D.C. camps divided, don't want to be united
Washington Times
Both camps were established in early October, about a month after the Occupy Wall Street movement took root in a Lower Manhattan park in New York City. Days after the first tents were pitched at McPherson Square on Oct. 6, the “October 2001/Stop the ...
See all stories on this topic »

San Francisco Occupy Wall Street West Action Scheduled For Jan. 20
Jobmouse
San Francisco, CA – Occupy Wall Street West has planned dozens of protests scheduled to take place Friday in the Financial District. Those with the movement, say it will be the largest protest in the San Francisco Financial District in 9 years. ...See all stories on this topic »

FOR & Occupy launch protest at Bechtel headquarters
Fellowship of Reconciliation (blog)
PEACE ACTIVISTS AND WAR VETS JOIN OCCUPY WALL STREET WEST TO HIGHLIGHT ROLE OF BECHTEL GROUP IN WAR, WASTE, CORRUPTION. SAN FRANCISCO (January 19, 2012): On Friday, January 20, 2012, peace activists will join the daylong nonviolent mass occupation of ...See all stories on this topic »

Gerald Celente: Occupy movement is just starting
YouTube
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been more than vocal with their dissatisfaction with the job Congress has been doing and Gerald Celente, director of Trends Research Institute, joins us to discuss an array of topics and gives us some of his ...See all stories on this topic »

'Occupy' Darling Bolts to Oust Scott Brown
FrontPage Magazine
She allied herself with the 99 percent against the one percent by claiming to serve as an inspiration for Occupy Wall Street. “I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do,” she said of OWS. “I support what they do. ...See all stories on this topic »

Judge rejects Occupy protest organizers
Albany Times Union
... a lawsuit by Occupy the Courts that sought to force the government to issue a permit to let about 200 people demonstrate in front of a lower Manhattan courthouse that has hosted several major terrorism trials and the sentencing of Wall Street ...See all stories on this topic »

Right-Wing Band 'Madison Rising' Plays For Occupy Congress
Huffington Post
The music has the sort of anthemic country/rock sound that could be appropriate in a beer commercial. The lyrics have a message that is, by and large, decidedly anti-Occupy. One song is a tribute to the Second Amendment -- "Right to Bear" -- another, ...See all stories on this topic »

Ecology and the Pathology of Capitalism

by Charles Sullivan / January 18th, 2012

Contrary to everything we have been taught, there is no actual United States of America.

The U.S. is an occupied territory that could more accurately be described as the Corporate States of America.

If the geopolitical states are united, the people are not. We are a nation divided by ideology and by social and economic class.

The U.S. is not a democracy, and it never was.

The systems of power do not allow the voice of working people to be heard or their collective will to be acted upon.

Despite the subterfuge of freedom and democracy, the rights of corporations have consistently superseded the sovereign rights of the individual and those of the community. Labor history and a litany of environmental catastrophes bear this out. For instance, everywhere one looks government agencies “ostensibly created to protect the public welfare” are allowing hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus shale, even when it poisons municipal drinking water and causes incalculable harm to the environment.

Our diverse forests are commodified, measured in board feet to be clear-cut and off-shored at prodigious bargain rates, like a liquidation sale. World class biodiversity is yielding to desertification and monoculture. Money changes hands. The few are getting rich at the expense of the many. The world and the people who live in it are treated like products to be exploited.

We are told that nothing is sacred, save for the dollar and markets.

Nevertheless, it is an inescapable fact that no human being, including corporate CEOs and members of Congress, can live without potable water or breathable air. We are literally sacrificing the Earth’s life support systems and mortgaging the future, while attempting to satiate the greed of a few grotesquely wealthy individuals. Through lifelong indoctrination, Americans are persuaded that self-interested greed is in their best interest.

The rich and powerful have decreed that corporate profits “the Holy Grail of American capitalism” are more precious than life itself. The remorseless people in power are without conscience. History confirms that sociopaths do not hesitate to take what they want from their unsuspecting victims by any and all means.

But surely, even among Friedmanites, it must be allowed that some things cannot be commodified or bought and sold. For instance, clean air and potable water are the birthright of every living organism. These are necessities that belong to the commons; they cannot ethically be privately owned. In contrast to this assertion, two edicts of modern capitalism are private ownership and the commodification of workers and nature.

Capitalism, and the market fundamentalism that is associated with it, has stripped bare the Earth’s biodiversity and substituted a world of commodities in its stead. What we see and think we know is not real. It is the product of marketing and perception managers — a hologram.

There is growing conflict between capitalism and the planet’s ecology, its essential life support systems. A fierce struggle between capital and democracy is in progress. The booted foot of capitalism is pressing upon the throat of democracy. We inhabit a dying world and are inheriting dying freedoms. Corporate greed and over-population is the culprit. Conflict is everywhere.

Virtually all of the social upheaval, inequality, and environmental problems of today in some way ensue from capitalism, including overpopulation and armed aggression. Capitalism requires continuous economic expansion and a burgeoning market for consumers. This is simply not possible on a finite planet.

These tensions are manifested no more clearly than throughout the coal belt and mountains of West Virginia, where I make my home. Here, mountains are cleared of forests before being blown to smithereens in order to cheaply extract coal to enrich Massey Energy Corporation. The process, known as mountaintop removal, has poisoned streams, altered their courses, and changed the contours of the land and its hydrology. It has devastated both human and biological communities while filling the coffers of the timber and coal industries.

Conventional underground mining has claimed the lives of thousands of coal miners trying to scratch out a modest living from the Earth. At times, it has led to armed conflict between miners and the Pinkertons hired by the mining companies in places like Matewan and Blair Mountain.

In West Virginia, King Coal and the gas and oil industry run the state’s legislature. The government is effectively owned by corporate lobbyists. As a result, it is futile to make legal and moral appeals to government for redress of our grievances. If we limit ourselves to the tools that our oppressors provide us, the entire region will become a sacrifice zone. Working people and the poor make the sacrifices; billionaires and industry carry off the profit. We are left to deal with the aftermath.

The illusion of democracy “including voting in the absence of meaningful choice” is a poor substitute for direct action and anarchy. Democracy cannot flourish in the sterile soil that capitalism leaves in its wake. Either we have democracy or we have capitalism, or we create something entirely different. Radically opposing ideas cannot be reconciled.

Modern humans inhabit a human-engineered world of absurdities and contradictions. Regardless of the Supreme Court’s assertions, corporations are not people, and money is not speech. Every sentient human being knows this. However, the law says otherwise. We must deny the corporate state that victory by refusing to capitulate.

The struggle for community rights, egalitarianism, and social, economic, and environmental justice must occur outside of the system that creates inequality and fosters wanton destruction of the commons. Countless species of plants and animals that provide essential ecological services are being eliminated to create space for strip malls, gated communities, gambling casinos and golf courses. As a result, ecological and economic catastrophe loom. We are facing global famine in an anthropocentric over-heated world.

Globally, wealthy multinational corporations are gorging themselves on the biological and mineral wealth of the commons. What could be more absurd or unethical?

The brainchild of Adam Smith, capitalism, which replaced feudalism during the French Revolution, is founded upon demonstrably false premises, many of which were unknown in Smith’s time. Nevertheless, classically trained economists assert that capitalism is a primal force of nature rather than the defective human construct that it is. Modern capitalism has produced pathological symptoms and endorsed an ethos that is antithetical to life and to liberty. It is killing the world and foreclosing evolutionary possibilities.

Indeed, ethical considerations aside, and speaking purely from a biological perspective, one may emphatically state that modern capitalism is an aggressive cancer that is devouring its host. But most of us are in denial.

People like me are asked not to utter the “C” word in public spaces. It might offend the well-intentioned believers. Whenever this occurs I am reminded of Thoreau, who uttered, “Any truth is better than make believe.” . One has an ethical obligation to state what one knows succinctly and clearly.

It is not in dispute that the ideology of constant expansion on a finite planet is contradicted by inviolable ecological dictums — among them, carrying capacity, ecological overshoot, and die-off. But classical economists act as if these laws do not apply, or they are mysteriously overridden by the irrational exuberance of capitalism.

In reality, every political economy is underlain by ecology and by living, evolving, biological systems. Ecology is the only economy that really matters.

By possessing even a modest degree of ecological literacy, one can make some revealing predictions with mathematical certainty. For example, the continuation of capitalism as the primary political economy can have one of two possible outcomes: the virtual destruction of the biosphere, meaning the death of the host organism, or the abolition of the capitalist system.

What would a post-capitalism world look like and how might it work?

Global capitalism, with its dependence on the availability of cheap fossil fuels and petrochemicals for food production, must give way to small-scale local economies and organic agriculture. Food must be locally grown and, as far as possible, other necessities locally produced. The age of cheap fossil fuels is ending. Industrialized man must bravely confront his addictions and embrace sobriety or he will self-destruct.

It is said that nature bats last. Humans do best when they emulate natural systems that have evolved over eons of time.

A moneyless economy based upon need must supplant the current profit-driven system of exploitation. Accordingly, goods and services may then be exchanged without the conduit of markets. These exchanges would be of equal value and thus inherently fair.

The classic business models will be replaced by worker-owned and worker-operated cooperatives. In this arrangement, workers – not a board of directors – make all of the business decisions. They share the risks and benefits and distribute the surpluses of production, while significantly reducing the work day and the work week. A portion of the surpluses of production is allocated to the betterment of the community and to the protection of the commons.

New economic models must be predicated upon ecological principles or they will fail. Existing alternatives to capitalism, such as Spain’s Mondragon Worker Cooperative, must be critically analyzed and evaluated as a model that could, with modifications, be implemented elsewhere.

There is no better teacher than evolution and natural selection. History confirms that the most revolutionary ideas are occasionally the oldest. For instance, anthropological studies indicate that early Homo sapiens evolved by implementing egalitarian principles into their tribal clans. People and the cultures they create must either evolve or perish.

The egalitarian societies of the future will look radically different from the capitalism of today. Political campaigns and elections will recede into history and quickly forgotten. Evolved societies do not need leaders or elected officials.

Every member of an egalitarian community is a leader. Power flows in a circular form rather than a linear, top-down hierarchy. It is derived directly from the people. There will be no social or economic stratification. No one shall have privileges or rights that are denied to others. Every member of the community must be equally empowered and equally valued. All people will have equal access to opportunity.

Health care and higher education, like pure water and clean air, will be regarded as a right of birth and provided without cost.

Direct action will replace voting in political elections. Rather than consent to be governed, sovereign people can create the world they want to live in. In communities where people are empowered and where they have an equal stake, they will want to participate. Everyone brings something to the table. Everyone contributes and all of society benefits.

Communities will become as interconnected and interdependent as ecological systems. But each will remain autonomous within the larger matrix of nature. States and nations as we know them may eventually recede into history and disappear.

Rather than the callous competition and exploitation nurtured by capitalism, communities can be organized around the principle of cooperation and social need. As in healthy ecosystems, the welfare of the individual is dependent upon the well-being of the community — and vice versa. No one will be left behind. All of us shall rise together.

All living organisms share a common origin and a common destiny. Ecology and economy must merge into an integrated natural system suited to long-term survival in a world already ravaged by industrialized man. Ecological and social healing must be part of the process of building sustainable communities.

The transition from capitalism to cooperation will be neither smooth nor easy. There will be many false starts. At first, there will be fierce resistance to revolutionary change. People cling to the familiar and the comfortable, to what they know, even when the dominant paradigm and popular culture does them harm.

The first tentative steps of a journey are often the most difficult. There are no clear blueprints to follow. There will be trepidation and uncertainty. But we must commit to beginning. The alternative is oblivion. But if we embark on the voyage the survival of the species, and a new age of enlightenment will be possible.

Have Israel’s “Inner Circles” Discussed Assassinating President Obama?

by Alan Hart / January 21st, 2012

One man who apparently thinks the answer is “Yes” is Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times. (By the time this article of mine is posted will he be the former owner and publisher?)

In his weekly newspaper Adler listed three options for Israel “to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons”. (Never mind that, unlike Israel, Iran does not possess nuclear weapons and that the latest assessment of Israel’s intelligence community – an usually honest assessment – is that Iran has not yet taken a decision to go nuclear for weapons).

Option 1 according to what Adler wrote “is to launch a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Option 2 “is to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.”

Option 3 “is to give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies.”

To make sure his readers got the message, Adler added this:

“Yes, you read ‘three correctly’. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If you have thought of this Tom-Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”

Adler has since apologized for what he wrote. “I very much regret it,” he told the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

That was not enough to prevent an avalanche of American Jewish condemnation of him and his article.

The American Jewish Committee in Atlanta declared that his proposals were “shocking beyond belief.” Dov Wilker, director of AJC Atlanta said: “While we acknowledge Mr. Adler’s apology, we are flabbergasted that he could ever say such a thing in the first place. How could he even conceive of such a twisted idea? He surely owes immediate apologies to President Obama, as well as to the State of Israel and his readership, the Atlanta Jewish community.”

But the biggest blast of condemnation came from Abe Foxman who, as National Director of the so-called Anti-Defamation League, leads the Zionist campaign to smear all who criticise Israel as anti-Semites. He said:

There is absolutely no excuse, no justification, no rationalization for this kind of rhetoric. It doesn’t even belong in fiction. These are irresponsible and extremist words. It is outrageous and beyond the pale. An apology cannot possibly repair the damage. Irresponsible rhetoric metastasizes into more dangerous rhetoric. The ideas expressed in Mr. Adler’s column reflect some of the extremist rhetoric that unfortunately exists – even in some segments of our community – that maliciously labels President Obama as an ‘enemy of the Jewish people.’ Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper.

I have two thoughts to offer Mr. Foxman.

The first is that what is happening in America on the Republican side of the fence has about it the smell of what happened in Israel in the countdown to the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by a Zionist fanatic. What do I mean?

There is today general agreement, even in Israel I think, that Rabin’s assassin was driven at least in part by an atmosphere of hatred for Rabin that was created by his political enemies led by Netanyahu. With the exception of Ron Paul, the Republicans who want to be president are creating an atmosphere of contempt for, if not hatred of, Obama on the grounds that he is “too hard on Israel (what a joke!) and not tough enough with its enemies.” By obvious implication the Obama of Republican campaign rhetoric is, or could be, a threat to Israel’s existence.

The second thought I have to offer Mr. Foxman is this. The answer to Wilker’s question of how Adler “could conceive such a twisted idea” is simple. He is brainwashed by Zionist propaganda.

As for my headline question, the answer is another question.

Who knows?

http://www.nationofchange.org/kucinich-announces-game-changing-constitutional-amendment-publicly-finance-federal-elections-1327069

"Occupy the Courts" Protests Hit Supreme Court and Federal Courthouses Nationwide

The “occupy” movement took its campaign against corporate domination to the federal judiciary on Friday, storming the U.S. Supreme Court building and demonstrating at other federal courthouses nationwide to protest the high court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision.

“Corporations are not persons, and money is not political speech!”
proclaimed “Occupy the Courts” leader David Cobb in front of several hundred people at a grassy area on U.S. Capitol grounds across the street from the Supreme Court.

Demonstrators, some of them from the Occupy Wall Street encampments in Washington, later moved across the street to the Court, where they pushed through a police barricade and ran up the Court’s steps almost to the columns that guard the bronze front doors. Court police allowed the demonstrators to advance, even though federal law prohibits demonstrations on Court grounds. Finally, an hour after the protesters entered onto Court property, police began making arrests and ordering remaining demonstrators down the steps. Late Friday afternoon, a Court spokeswoman said a dozen people had been arrested.

The protests marked the two-year anniversary Saturday of the Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which struck down restrictions on independent expenditures by corporation and unions in election campaigns. Critics say the ruling has injected millions of dollars into campaigns, often in the form of attack advertising funded by independent “Super-PACs” that cannot be directly traced or imputed to candidates.

Several leaders of the protest Friday said coverage of the Super-PACs and their impact on the Republican presidential primaries has helped galvanize opposition. “We are seeing how this disgusting decision is corrupting our system,” said Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, a longtime D.C. activist who helped organize Friday’s protests. “And we ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait until the races get underway, and this will be influencing congressional races, everything.” Asked why she was demonstrating at the Court, she said, “This is the scene of the crime.”

Some of the protesters are hoping to build on Friday’s actions and push for a constitutional amendment that would overturn Citizens United by stating that money is not speech and corporations are not persons under the law. Asked if a constitutional amendment is a realistic goal, Joan Stallard, a demonstrator from D.C., said, “The constitution has been amended 27 times, and we can do it again.” She said more and more of the public is beginning to understand “the power of corporations in our political system” and will be receptive to a constitutional chance.

The demonstration at the high court began with some light theater – black-robed “justices” dancing and singing.

In Boston, protests included speeches and music by a fife and drum team dressed in Revolutionary-era clothing. An “auctioneer” dressed in top hat and tails sold rights such as free speech and freedom of the press to the highest bidders, who were corporations represented by people dressed in boxes with the names of companies. About 150 people braved 29-degree weather to participate in the Boston protest behind the John J. Moakley U.S. Courthouse. One woman pushed a toddler in a stroller and a sign attached that said, “no corporation ever gave me a hug.”

Roughly 100 people chanted slogans outside the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. And in West Palm Beach, Fla., according to a Palm Beach Post report, approximately 40 people protested at the federal courthouse, with one stating, “I don’t want corporations to buy the presidency.” Demonstrators also gathered in Portland, Ore. and Detroit. In Chicago, 50 demonstrators came out in driving snow, with one holding a sign that said, “Citizens United against Citizens United.”

In New York City, where the “Occupy” protests began, demonstrators moved the location of their anti-court protest to Foley Square, after a federal judge on Thursday nixed their preferred location outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan courthouse. Judge Lewis Kaplan said the General Services Administration had properly denied the group’s application for a permit, because the location the demonstrators sought was not a designated public forum.

The World War on Democracy

By John Pilger

That the most numerous victims of terrorism - western terrorism - are Muslims is unsayable, if it is known.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30303.htm

SAS On Ground During Libya "Crisis"

By BBC

Newsnight has learned that British soldiers were on the ground in Libya, alongside the anti-Gaddafi forces.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30302.htm

Who Wants War With Iran?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Netanyahu is desperate to have the United States launch air and missile strikes to stop Tehran from becoming the world's ninth nuclear power. And he is echoed not only by U.S. neocons, but GOP candidates save Ron Paul.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30306.htm

The Confrontation with Iran: A Covert War

By Akbar E. Torbat

The purpose of the pressures on Iran is to change its leaders to those who will take orders from Washington. In other words, the US plans to make a client Islamic regime out of the existing "moderate clerics"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30305.htm

Did The Republican Party Formally Abandon The Two-State Solution?

By Ali Gharib

The Republican National Committee (RNC), at their winter meeting in New Orleans, unanimously adopted a resolution that appears to support a one-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30311.htm

The CIA's Cassandras

By Gabriel Kolko

Paying people to whom one pays scant attention, is merely an overhead charge of the essential hypocrisy which is an integral part of American life and a dimension of its ethos.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30310.htm

Ecology and the Pathology of Capitalism

By Charles Sullivan

Contrary to everything we have been taught, there is no actual United States of America. The U.S. is an occupied territory that could more accurately be described as the Corporate States of America.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30304.htm

Beating Up on Chavez

By Stephen Lendman

The business of America is war and grand theft. People are increasingly on their own sink or swim. Duopoly power governs. Rigged elections defile democratic governance. Banker bailouts, imperial wars, policies favoring wealth and power, and repressive police state laws define their agenda.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30309.htm

"We the People," not "We the Corporation."

By Ralph Nader

This year, Congress will spend well over $3 billion on its own expenses to do nothing of significance other than shift more debt to individual taxpayers by depleting the social security payroll tax by over $100 billion so both parties can say they enacted a tax cut!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30308.htm

Working and Poor in the USA

By Bill Quigley

Millions of people in the US work and are still poor. Here are eight points that show why the US needs to dedicate itself to making work pay.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30307.htm