"The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future”
Investigative journalist Craig Unger is the author of the new book “The Fall of the House of Bush”. The book examines how neoconservatives secretly forged an alliance with the Christian Right during the Bush presidency and helped make the case for war in Iraq.
CBS: 'Stunning' veteran suicide rate is twice that of non-veteransCBS News has now completed a five-month study of death records for 2004-05 which shows that the actual figures are "much higher" than those reported by the VA. Across the total US veteran population of 25 million, CBS found that suicide rates were more than twice as high as for non-veterans (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide accounted for 32,439 deaths in 2004).
The Farce of Veteran’s Day; A Holiday For Everyone Except VeteransHow’s your day going? Are you off from work or school? Do you get to spend a three day weekend enjoying yourself?
Well, on this Veterans Day, 25% of the homeless in American are veterans who don’t give a damn about having a holiday of their own, they just want the country that they served to simply treat them like human beings.
America is a land where a baseball player can earn $1.4 billion yet we have people - human beings, families, children and veterans alike living on the streets with no home, no food and no hope. Tell me again about how great our nation is. This is not my America.
US Army desertion rates rise 80 percent since 2003 Iraq invasion; highest rate since 1980 After six years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American soldiers are deserting their posts at the highest rate since 1980. The number of US Army deserters this year shows an 80 percent increase since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
Overall about 4,700 soldiers deserted this year – a 42 percent jump since just 2006.
Ty Ziegel, a Marine, was badly wounded in Iraq. He battled the VA over disability benefits when he returned.
Wounded warriors face home-front battle with VA Ziegel, a 25-year-old Marine sergeant, knew the dangers of war when he was deployed for his second tour in Iraq. But he didn't expect a new battle when he returned home as a wounded warrior: a fight with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
In Ziegel's case, he spent nearly two years recovering at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. Once he got out of the hospital, he was unable to hold a job. He anticipated receiving a monthly VA disability check sufficient to cover his small-town lifestyle in Washington, Illinois.
Instead, he got a check for far less than expected. After pressing for answers, Ziegel finally received a letter from the VA that rated his injuries: 80 percent for facial disfigurement, 60 percent for left arm amputation, a mere 10 percent for head trauma and nothing for his left lobe brain injury, right eye blindness and jaw fracture.
After pressure from Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the VA acted on Anderson's case. He has since been awarded compensation for a traumatic brain injury.
UPDATE ON THE WATADA 'VICTORY'U.S. District Court Judge Benjamin Settle issued a temporary injunction barring a second court-martial. The judge said Watada would probably be successful in asserting that his Fifth Amendment rights would be violated by being tried twice for the same crime, otherwise known as double jeopardy.
In Basra, violence is a tenth of what it was before British pullback, general says
So much for the theory that pulling the troops out leads to more violence.
Suffer the Children
Child mortality in Iraq has spiralled because of the tense security situation, deteriorating health services and lack of medical supplies, say experts.
According to a report released in May 2007 by aid agency Save the Children, “Iraq’s child mortality rate has increased by a staggering 150 per cent since 1990, more than any other country.”
State Dept official asks to cancel Blackwater hearing
The lawyer for State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard asked on Saturday that he not be called to testify before Congress on discrepancies between his statements and those of his brother over the brother's ties to the Blackwater security firm.
Report: Blackwater killings were unjustified
Blackwater Advisor Alvin Krongard Resigns
The brother of State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard has resigned from the advisory board of the private military company Blackwater. Alvin Krongard resigned from Blackwater on Friday just days after his bother, the State Department's top oversight official, was forced to admit his brother had ties to the company.
And guess what else? Someone found out that Howard’s brother, Alvin (Buzzy) Krongard, sits on the Advisory Board of Blackwater. When asked about this, Howard told the House Committee that Buzzy had NO connection to Blackwater. He knew NOTHING, not a thing about this, even after a call to his brother. But, but, but after a recess, Krongard knew the jig was up. He admitted that it was true, Buzzy was a member of the Board, but had never, ever told him about it.
Small problem: Brother Buzzy called the Committee and told them that he had, indeed, told brother Howard of his connection to Blackwater. Uh oh. That’s perjury. Howard Krongard LIED UNDER OATH about a matter relevant to an ongoing investigation. Perjury is a crime. Wanna bet nothing happens to the man?
Howard Krongard is obviously not a menace to anyone. He apparently poses no threat to our lives or to the safety of the nation. Let’s all hope that Chairman Henry Waxman doesn’t look too closely into “allegations of perjury” after Thanksgiving, as he has promised to do. And let us all hope that Krongard, like Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and other Bushco criminals continue to escape prosecution and punishment of any sort.
Somalia: What the News Failed to Report If you take a look at the
natural resources of Somalia, they include 'uranium and largely unexploited reserves of iron ore, tin, gypsum, bauxite, copper, salt, natural gas, likely oil reserves."
Did Afghan bodyguards massacre civilians?
UN report says gunfire from panicking security detail hit most of 180 bombing victims after bomb went off.
UN: Afghan Bodyguards Fired "Deliberately and Indiscriminately" At Crowd
In news from Afghanistan, an internal U.N. report has concluded bodyguards protecting Afghan lawmakers fired "deliberately and indiscriminately" into a crowd two weeks ago after a suicide bombing. The report, which was obtained by the Associated Press, said that as many as two-thirds of the 77 killed and more than 100 wounded were hit by gunfire. Most of the dead were schoolchildren.
Iraqi Kurds flex muscles over black gold reservesStrengthened by the autonomy enshrined in the Iraqi constitution, the Iraqi Kurdish authority launched a regional oil policy in August, signing deals with overseas companies, to first achieve self-sufficiency and later exportation. The authority has signed 20 contracts during the last three months and shows no sign of changing course, despite threats from the federal government to blacklist companies trading with the Kurdish region.
Turkish tanks advancing near borders with IraqTurkish tanks were seen advancing towards the Iraqi borders on a background of Turkish threats to raid northern Iraq to hunt down fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) holed up in mountainous areas on the Iraqi side of the joint frontiers, border guards and witnesses in Duhuk said on Friday.
Judge slaps White House with restraining order U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. issued a temporary restraining order today against the White House, ordering its executive office to preserve all records and back-up copies of millions of missing e-mails.
The order was sought by the National Security Archive, a public interest library at George Washington University, and the Washington-based watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
The groups alleged in separate, but now combined, complaints, that the preservation of more than 5 million missing e-mails is vital to the preservation of history as they reveal the inner thinking of President Bush’s top aides between 2002 and 2007.
Pioneering 'heat wave' gun may be used in Iraq
American commanders in Iraq are urging Pentagon chiefs to authorise the deployment of newly-developed heat wave guns to disperse angry crowds or violent rioters. He added that tests were almost complete and the first ADS, also known as the Silent Guardian, could be deployed early next year if the Pentagon allows. The decision is so sensitive that it is expected to be made personally by the defence secretary, Robert Gates, who sent senior representatives to the demonstrations.
FBI's Forensic Test Full of HolesHundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" has found.
But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing. The technique known as comparative bullet-lead analysis has been used since 1963. In 2004, however, the National Academy of Sciences concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI"s testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." The organization said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence."
Suspect in Pearl's killing dies after interrogation: reportThe newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive.
Memon's family members and human rights groups said that in April,
the businessman was left in front of his Karachi home badly injured and
emaciated, weighing just 80 pounds (36 kilograms), according to the report. About a month later, he died from what was described as complications
from meningitis and tuberculosis, the Journal said. Pakistani human rights groups have accused the local intelligence service of torturing Memon, according to the paper.
Dershowitz throws a tantrum, but still endorses the use of torture...The moral argument cannot be qualified by providing support of the workable results for the thing that you find immoral to begin with. In other words, I cannot argue that murder is immoral, but then also state in the same argument that in some cases, the best way to kill someone would be to shoot them. You are confusing two separate arguments and by doing so, muddying your own position on the issue.
Waterboarding in American HistorySome high U.S. officials claim not be aware of it, and Judge Michael Mukasey, the President's choice for attorney general, prefers to equivocate, but water boarding has long been a form of torture that causes excruciating pain and can lead to death. It forces water into prisoner's lungs, usually over and over again.
The Spanish Inquisition in the late 1400s used this torture to uncover and punish heretics, and then in the early 1500s Spain's inquisitors carried it overseas to root out heresy in the New World. It reappeared during the witch hysteria. Women accused of sorcery were "dunked" and held under water to see if they were witches.
Muir Beach man cited for cleaning beachNo good deed goes unpunished. At least that's how Muir Beach resident Sigward Moser felt Friday after he says he was threatened with a Taser gun, forced to the ground and handcuffed by a National Park Service ranger for refusing to stop cleaning up the oily beach beneath his home.
Why Is The US Dollar Dropping So Fast Going back a little in time; by the late in 1960's, the US Govt. started racking up big debts & deficits, one of the reasons for the big increase in debts and deficits was the unexpectedly large expenses incurred waging the Vietnam war (sound familiar)... at that time, the US Govt. was spending more money than they could legally print under the amount of Gold it held in reserve... the US Govt. desperately needed to print more money to fund their war and debts than their Gold reserves would allow, so the US Govt. simply decided to re-write laws (regardless of their long-term financial consequences & Constitutional law) and started the de-coupling process away from backing the US Dollar with precious metals.
Oil leaders' private debate televised by mistake'Kill the cable, kill the cable,' shouted the security guard as he burst through the double doors into the media room at the Intercontinental Hotel in Riyadh, followed by Saudi police. It was too late.
On Friday night, during what the participants thought were private talks, Venezuela's oil minister Venezuela Rafael Ramirez and his Iranian counterpart Gholamhossein Nozari, argued that pricing - and selling - oil using the crippled dollar was damaging the cartel.
Chavez starts OPEC summit with 200-dollar oil warningVenezuelan President Hugo Chavez opened an OPEC summit on Saturday with a chilling warning about 200-dollar-a-barrel oil if the United States attacks Iran in a speech that also urged the cartel to be more political.
Saudi minister warns of dollar collapseThe dollar could collapse if Opec officially admits considering changing the pricing of oil into alternative currencies such as the euro, the Saudi Arabian foreign minister has warned.
In an embarrassing blunder at the meeting in Riyadh, ministers' microphones were not cut off during a key closed meeting, and Prince Al-Faisal was heard saying: "My feeling is that the mere mention that the Opec countries are studying the issue of the dollar is itself going to have an impact that endangers the interests of the countries. "There will be journalists who will seize on this point and we don't want the dollar to collapse instead of doing something good for Opec."
Chinese TV: Dump the Dollar
Chinese lunchtime television on Friday gave ordinary people a basic tip on how to play the currency markets: sell the dollar!
U.S. dollar loses its value because of dirty politicsThe dollar keeps sinking amid near-global concerns about the future of the U.S. currency. Analysts forecast that the greenback will remain weak on the world market in November, and therefore the Russian ruble will trade at around 24 against the dollar.
The dollar's decline: from symbol of hegemony to shunned currencyThe decline of the dollar, symbol of US global hegemony for the best part of a century, may have become so entrenched that some experts now fear it is irreversible. After months of huge and sustained turmoil on the money markets, lack of confidence in the world's totemic currency has become so widespread that an increasing number of international traders are transferring their wealth to stronger currencies such as the euro, which recently hit its highest level against the dollar.
Dollar stays weak as Iran joins fray on greenback weaknessThe dollar's woes continued for yet another day with Iran's call for oil cartel OPEC to recognise the currency's relentless falls highlighting just how far sentiment on the greenback has deteriorated.
Dollars no good for the Taj MahalForeign tourists to many of India's most famous landmarks will no longer be able to pay the entrance fee in dollars, the government says.
Bush Awards Historian Who Downplayed Abu Ghraib, Said We Need To Bomb ‘Paper Tiger’ IranWith Bush’s contention that Hanson deserves the award due to the “wisdom for our times” he has offered, it’s important to look at exactly what some of that “wisdom” has been:
-- This summer, Hanson wrote that the “real problem” at Abu Ghraib wasn’t the “American mistreatment” — which he said was the work of a “single rogue jailer” — but the “serial release” of Iraqis, whom he calls “Islamic murderers.”
-- On the Hugh Hewitt show, he claimed America needs to get “beyond talking” with “paper tiger” Iran and consider “starting to forget where the border is and taking out some of these training camps.”
One has to wonder how many young people of appropriate military age in Hanson's family have been so inspired by his rhetoric that they are serving in any branch of the military, or in Iraq or Afghanistan.Lawmakers Strip Immunity for Telecom Companies from Surveillance Bill
Despite threats of a White House veto, both the full House and the Senate Judiciary Committee passed bills Thursday rejecting blanket immunity for telecommunication companies that cooperated with the Bush Administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping.
Complaints Flood CNN After Beck Smears Ron Paul Supporters As TerroristsNYC firefighters planning to swift-boat Rudy
9/11 group mulls anti-Giuliani campaign
Indictment, Lawsuit Cloud Presidential Hopes of Ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
With the Iowa caucuses 50 days away, more questions about Giuliani's past have emerged in recent days that could threaten his candidacy. On Friday, his personal friend and business partner Bernard Kerik was indicted on 16 counts of federal corruption charges, including bribery and tax fraud. On Tuesday, it was revealed that one of Kerik's former lovers, Judith Regan, had sued Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and accused the company of pressuring her to commit perjury in order to protect Giuliani's presidential ambition. We speak to investigative reporter and Village Voice senior editor Wayne Barrett, author of two books on Giuliani.
What ‘That Regan Woman’ KnowsMs. Regan filed a $100 million lawsuit against her former employer, claiming she was unjustly made a scapegoat for the O. J. Simpson “If I Did It” fiasco that (briefly) embarrassed Mr. Murdoch and his News Corporation. But for those of us not caught up in the Simpson circus, what’s most riveting about the suit are two at best tangential sentences in its 70 pages:
“In fact, a senior executive in the News Corporation organization told Regan that he believed she had information about Kerik that, if disclosed, would harm Giuliani’s presidential campaign. This executive advised Regan to lie to, and to withhold information from, investigators concerning Kerik.”Kerik's Royalties Shocker: Gets $75,000 for 9/11 BookFormer Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik accepted thousands of dollars in royalties from a book published to raise money for the families of heroes killed on Sept. 11, 2001, the Daily News has learned.
Ex-Publisher’s Suit Plays a Giuliani-Kerik Angle Judith Regan, the former book publisher, says in a lawsuit filed today protesting her dismissal by the News Corporation, the media conglomerate, that a senior executive there encouraged her to lie to federal investigators about her past affair with Bernard B. Kerik after he had been nominated to become homeland security secretary in late 2004.
Stevia: The FDA's Attack On A Beneficial SupplementIt would at least be understandable if the regulators played with a fair deck and applied equal standards to all alternative sweeteners. But they do not.
Stevia is a natural plant, and cannot be patented. There is no high profit in the product, and it is a threat to the patented molecules like Aspartame, which are high-profit. So Stevia must go. And we see the same thing in drugs, in which naturally occurring or simple treatments which cannot be patented are suppressed in order to force the market towards the patented and high profit products.
Sweet Misery - A Poisoned World
THE Documentary on Aspartame. WATCH THIS!'Safe' uranium that left a town contaminated They were told depleted uranium was not hazardous. Now, 23 years after a US arms plant closed, workers and residents have cancer - and experts say their suffering shows the use of such weapons may be a war crime.
It is 50 years since Tony Ciarfello and his friends used the yard of a depleted uranium weapons factory as their playground in Colonie, a suburb of Albany in upstate New York state.
'There wasn't no fence at the back of the plant,' remembers Ciarfello. 'Inside was a big open ground and nobody would chase us away.
We used to play baseball and hang by the stream running through it. We even used to fish in it - though we noticed the fish had big pink lumps on them.'Parrish's team has found that DU contamination, which remains radioactive for millions of years, is in effect impossible to eradicate, not only from the environment but also from the bodies of humans. Twenty-three years after production ceased they tested the urine of five former workers. All are still contaminated with DU. So were 20 per cent of people tested who had spent at least 10 years living near the factory when it was still working, including Ciarfello.
In 1984, having bought the factory from NL for $10 in a deal that meant the firm was exempted from having to pay for its clean-up, the federal government began a massive decommissioning project, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The clean-up did not finish until summer 2007, having cost some $190m. Contractors demolished the buildings and removed more than 150,000 tons of soil and other contaminated detritus, digging down to depths of up to 40ft and trucking it 2,000 miles by rail to underground radioactive waste sites in the Rockies. All that is now left of the NL plant is a huge, undulating field, ringed by razor wire.
Despite this colossal effort, Parrish and his colleagues found high concentrations of DU particles in soil, stream sediments and household dust in the vicinity of the site, deposited long ago when the factory burnt the shavings and chips produced by the weapons manufacturing process: the study estimates that, over the years, about 10 tons of uranium oxide dust wafted from the chimney into the surrounding environment.
Research has shown that DU has the potential to cause a wide range of cancers, kidney and thyroid problems, birth defects and disorders of the immune system. When DU 'penetrators' - armour-piercing shells that form the standard armament of some of Britain's and America's most commonly deployed military aircraft and vehicles - strike their targets, 10 per cent or more of the heavy DU metal burns at high temperatures, producing oxide particles very similar to those at Colonie.
TV footage shot in Baghdad in 2003 shows children playing in the remains of tanks coated with thick, black DU oxide, while there have long been claims that the DU shells that destroyed Saddam Hussein's tanks in the 1991 Gulf war were responsible for high rates of cancer in places such as Basra.
Ciarfello says he was still in his twenties when his teeth 'just started to crumble: they ground down to nothing until they were just these little stumps and I pushed them out with my tongue'. Other members of his family are sick. His son developed a severe kidney condition, while his brother, Frank, can barely walk and also suffers chronic fatigue. A nephew was born with a disfiguring facial skin tumour that has required repeated surgery.
'I knew many people from round here who died young, in their twenties and thirties,' she says. 'We used to play out in the creek that flowed out of the plant site. The water was sluggish, a weird yellow-green colour. We'd splash about in it. Now we know it was laden with depleted uranium.'Vaccine Ingredients
In a compulsory inoculation program, it is the responsibility of the developers, promoters and enforcers to prove safety and efficacy...
Acel-Immune DTaP for diphtheria - tetanus - pertussis:
formaldehyde, aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate, thimerosal, and polysorbate 80
check out the entire list
Parents ordered to court for kids' shotsCircuit Court Judge C. Philip Nichols ordered parents in a letter to appear at the courthouse Saturday and either get their children vaccinated on the spot or risk up to 10 days in jail.
Parents Kept In Dark About Vaccine WaiverParents of children in Prince George's County Maryland were kept in the dark about their right to opt out of vaccines as
over a thousand kids were herded into a courthouse to be injected while authorities kept a close watch on advocacy groups and reporters who tried to inform parents that there was no law to mandate the shots.
State Attorney Glenn Ivey, who admitted during a radio interview last week that no law mandated the shots and also that he had chosen not to give his kids the vaccines, confirmed that exemption forms were available from the back of the room. However, when asked if they were aware of the right to opt out, parents were miffed. News reports failed to cite any cases where parents had opted out as a result of signing waiver forms.
Feds 'Lose' Hundreds Of Viruses, Microbes Imported To HawaiiThe state Department of Agriculture lost track of hundreds of viruses and microbes imported to Hawai'i for research purposes over a five-decade period because of a breakdown in the agency's paperwork system.
"So THAT'S what's in this test tube .... OOOPS!
Thousands of teachers abandon ZimbabweZimbabwe's education system, once regarded as among the best in Africa, is in crisis because of the country's economic meltdown. Almost a quarter of the teachers have quit the country, absenteeism is high, buildings are crumbling and standards plummeting. In one of the most shocking examples of the Dickensian conditions,
a reporter witnessed hundreds of children at Hatcliffe Extension Primary School in Epworth, 12 miles west of Harare, writing in the dust on the floor because they had no exercise books or pencils.Salt Lake City Mayor: Draw Your Line In the Sand Today, as we come together once again in this great city, we raise our voices in unison to say to President Bush, to Vice President Cheney, to other members of the Bush Administration (past and present), to a majority of Congress, including Utah’s entire congressional delegation, and to much of the mainstream media: “You have failed us miserably and we won’t take it any more.”
Israel promises to use "Baby Nukes" on Iran As for Israel saying that the nukes used would be only 1/15th of the power of the Nagasaki nukes, to that i say BS. Israel plans on using much larger nukes than the ones in this article.
Israel Accuses IAEA's ElBaradei of Being "Pro-Iranian" Israel is accusing International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei of being pro-Iranian after the IAEA issued a report that said Iran has in general been cooperating with the UN nuclear watchdog agency. The IAEA said Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment program but that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. Israel's Minister of Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman said: "This report is unacceptable. This is further proof of ElBaradei's one-sided and pro-Iranian position."
This is the man who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Israeli police detain self-styled rabbi charged with sexual abuseMondrowitz, 60, is wanted in New York for molesting hundreds of children under the guise of a rabbi and psychologist who became highly revered among the Gur Hasidic sect in Brooklyn for his expertise with minors, the Haaretz newspaper reported Friday.
Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them
Israel: We won't negotiate at AnnapolisSenior government officials said Saturday night that negotiations themselves would not take place at Annapolis, but rather that the negotiating process would begin "immediately" afterward. No date or venue was given for these negotiations, although they are expected to be carried out by the same teams which have been negotiating the statement to be unveiled at Annapolis.
AFP: Israeli court declines to rule on Gaza sick Israel's high court on Monday rejected a petition from an Israeli human rights group for the state to change interrogation procedures for Gazans leaving the territory for medical care.
Open Letter to Sir John Holmes, UN Undersecretary- General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator You must be aware of the nightmare now unfolding in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is simply dying a slow and painful death at the hands of the children and grandchildren of the Holocaust. This is not an overstatement or exaggerated description of a people long tormented by a sinister occupying power that is hell- bent on decimating them, using the basest and most inhumane of means, such as preventing food and other basic needs from reaching them.
U.S. Customs delays ambulance at borderAn ambulance rushing a heart attack victim to Detroit from a Windsor hospital ill-equipped to perform life-saving surgery was stopped for secondary inspection Monday by U.S. Customs, despite the fact it carried a man fighting for his life.
Russia says it may deploy missiles to BelarusRussia may deploy its newest Iskander tactical missiles in neighboring Belarus in response to U.S. plans for a missile shield in eastern Europe, Russian media quoted a senior general as saying on Wednesday. Asked if the missiles could be deployed in response to the U.S. shield, Major-General Vladimir Zaritsky, head of Russia’s artillery and missile forces, was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass news agency: “Why not? Under the right conditions and with the corresponding agreement of Belarus, it is possible.”
China deals blow to Western efforts to punish IranChina has dealt a blow to Western efforts to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran over its nuclear program by dropping out of a meeting to discuss tougher sanctions against Tehran.
Iran calls for US nuclear apologyIranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the US and its allies should apologise for their treatment of Iran over its nuclear programme. Mr Ahmadinejad said the latest report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) showed Iran had been truthful about its nuclear activities.
Dishonest Media Reporting And Iran's CentrifugesThere's some seriously dishonest and/or lazy reporting going on in the Western media about Iran's nuclear program and the IAEA report yesterday.
IAEA Again Verifies Iranian Compliance Even though compliance by Iran is the principal and only conclusion of the current IAEA report, entitled "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions 1737 and 1747 in the Islamic Republic of Iran" the neo-crazy media sycophants at the New York Times don't even mention it in their "report" on the IAEA report!
Israel: IAEA's report 'unacceptable'
"You go back and re-write it so we can order the Americans to kill the Iranians for us!"Why Attack Iran?More and more people seem to take it as given that a nuclear-armed Iran would use its nuclear weapons to attack the United States. Yet there is no plausible argument, and very little evidence, for that conclusion.
Indeed, for the U.S. government to attack a country that has not attacked us and isn't even threatening to do so would be to commit an immoral, and probably illegal, act. But that's another story.
Fallon: Iranian behavior unhelpfulThe Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them and the region is concerned about their radical rhetoric, the top American commander in the Middle East said Sunday.
Memo to Admiral Fallon: precisely what do you mean in terms of Iran whey you way that "The Iranians need to realize that the U.S. is ready to stand up to them"? Are we truly talking about a military strike, when Russian political officials have stated very publicly that an attack against Iran will be viewed as an attack against Russia?
Russia abandons key Cold War arms treaty The Russian senate voted Friday to suspend compliance with a key Cold War treaty limiting conventional military forces across Europe, drawing renewed Western criticism.
Russia readies nuclear fuel Russia readies nuclear fuel bound for Iran - Israel NewsRussia's state-run nuclear fuel producer said inspectors from the United Nations' nuclear watchdog would later this month start sealing nuclear fuel bound for the Bushehr plant, a major step to shipping the fuel to the Bushehr plant in Iran.
US plans new space weapons against ChinaThe Pentagon is spending billions of dollars on new forms of space warfare to counter the growing risk of missile attack from rogue states and the "satellite killer" capabilities of China. Congress has allocated funds to develop futuristic weapons and intelligence systems that operate beyond the Earth's atmosphere as America looks past Iraq and Afghanistan to the wars of the future.
Intel Chief Blasts 'Cherry Picked' IntelMcConnell also said a new national intelligence estimate on Iran should be complete in about a month, but its key findings will not be released publicly. He says doing so could alert Iran to its intelligence vulnerabilities.
Chinese FM in Iran for nuclear talksIran on Tuesday denied claims that it had rejected a visit by UN nuclear watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei ahead of a crucial report on Tehran’s contested atomic drive. Meanwhile, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held talks on Tuesday with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Iran’s controversial nuclear drive, insisting he wanted to cooperate with Europe and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ahmadinejad told Yang that Iran wishes “to pursue dialogue and cooperation with the IAEA and the Europeans,” his office said in a statement carried by the state news agency IRNA.
War clouds in the Horn of AfricaAs we collect our thoughts and reflect about what a future war could possibly mean to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark rumors of war are rampant in the African Horn; whether these rumors of war are an indication of an impending war or simply a function of public posturing is something that only the near future can tell. If it happens, a fresh war now could spell disaster of tragic proportions for both countries, but especially for Eritrea. It appears that Ethiopia is determined to take advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean conditions. The recent assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt here: “It would not be surprising if Addis Ababa believes an effort in the near future to stage a coup in Asmara and use force against an Eritrean government that has few friends would also be tolerated in Washington.”
This feverish Ethiopian preparation for aggression on Eritrea has a crucial international dimension, supplied by none other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has actively been on a personal crusade to orchestrate an international demonization of the Eritrean leader and his regime as part of a coordinated effort to facilitate aggression.
Why Bush Doesn't Have to Suspend the Constitution President George W. Bush doesn’t have to mimic Pakistan's dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and suspend the Constitution, since he doesn’t have any opposition. The two major political parties are controlled by the same Wire Pullers. Meanwhile, an “Axis of Zionists,” Michael Mukasey at Justice, Michael Chertoff at Homeland Security and Joshua Bolten at the WH, now have a choke hold on key positions in our government.
Amid Pakistani disaster, Bush Homeland Security advisor resignsUS military strike on Pakistan advocated Two experts have proposed that the US should take pre-emptive action to secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons before they fall into the wrong hands.
US envoy to Musharraf returns home with nothingJohn Negroponte, the US deputy secretary of state, flew out of Islamabad after Musharraf, a close ally of the US, rejected his call to end emergency rule, to free political prisoners, resign from his post as army commander and hold free and fair elections in January.
Musharraf to step down from army post
Deception: British Reporter Andrew Levy on How the United States Secretly Helped Pakistan Build Its Nuclear Arsenal
Adrian Levy examines how five consecutive US administrations from Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush have been complicit in building and protecting Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. Levy is co-author of the new book: "Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons."
Crackdown On the Press: General Musharraf Shuts Down Two of Pakistan's Biggest Private Television News ChannelsPakistan's military leader General Pervez Musharraf is still refusing to lift martial law. On Saturday Musharraf met for two hours with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.
While John Negroponte was in Pakistan, Musharraf ordered two Dubai-based Pakistani news channels, GEO-TV and ARY One World to be shut down.
U.S. Considers Arming Pakistani TribesThe New York Times has revealed the U.S. is proposing to start arming Pakistani tribes in an effort to fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. If adopted, the proposal would likely expand the presence of U.S. military troops in Pakistan and directly finance a tribal paramilitary force. The proposal is modeled in part on a similar effort by American forces in Anbar Province in Iraq. An estimated $350 million would be needed to train and arm the paramilitary force known as the Frontier Corps.
U.S. Secretly Aids Pakistan in Guarding Nuclear Arms Over the past six years,
the Bush administration has spent almost $100 million on a highly classified program to help Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, secure his country’s nuclear weapons, according to current and former senior administration officials. While American officials say that they believe the arsenal is safe at the moment, and that they take at face value Pakistani assurances that security is vastly improved, in many cases the Pakistani government has been reluctant to show American officials how or where the gear is actually used.
US eyes Pakistan's nuclear arsenalThe seemingly calamitous developments - which have provoked widespread demonstrations against Musharraf's government - might in fact still fit into the US's grand scheme for the embattled country: to gain control of its nuclear weapons so they do not fall into the hands of Islamist fanatics. Contacts close to the power circles in Pakistan told Asia Times Online that there is a feeling that the US is prepared to take "hurricane" measures to ensure the safety of the country's nuclear arsenal. The thinking goes that by changing horses and supporting Bhutto, the US could exploit the current unrest by dictating new terms to Pakistan in the "war on terror" and coerce it into allowing the US to safeguard its nuclear stockpile.
US has no good option in a Pakistan nuclear 'nightmare'The US armed forces are virtually powerless to prevent Pakistan's nuclear arsenal from falling into Islamist hands if the political crisis in Islamabad spins out of control, analysts warned. Instead, they said, Washington can do little but help to resolve the crisis and preserve its strong ties with Pakistan's pro-Western military elite, whether or not General Pervez Musharraf stays in power.
"There's no good military option at all," Daniel Markey, a former US government policy planner for South Asia, told AFP on Tuesday in Washington.
Israeli President: We are buying up Manhattan, Poland and HungaryIsraeli president: ''we are buying up Manhattan and we are buying up Hungary and we are buying up Romania and we are buying up Poland. And the way I see it, we have no problems.''
'FACEBOOK' BANS SOME ... BUT WELCOMES OTHERSFollowing in the footsteps of Daily Kos, Facebook seems to be actively looking for anti-Zionist sentiments on their pages and threatening to ban them.
Police worry about abandoned homesThe thousands of foreclosed homes in recent years in Modesto present a vexing problem for law enforcement officials, including Police Chief Roy Wasden. Banks aren't watching those properties closely, he said.
"As it gets colder, (squatters) will start building fires in these structures, and it's quite dangerous," Wasden said.
Renters losing their homes without missing a payment While the housing foreclosure crisis of 2007 negatively impacted many home owners with shaky financial histories, thousands of families are losing their homes without ever missing a payment. These residents are renters who had the unfortunate luck of living in houses whose landlords defaulted on their mortgages — a large but little noticed externality of the subprime fallout.
Talk of Worst Recession Since the 1930sA Wall Street superstar this year who runs Balestra Capital Partners, Jim Melcher, says he's "worried about a recession. Not a normal one, but a very bad one. The worst since the 1930s. I expect we'll see clear signs of it in six months with a dramatic slowdown in the gross domestic product."
Carnage on Wall Street as loans go badThe scale of the losses that will hit Wall Street banks could approach half a trillion dollars as large numbers of sub-prime home loans go bad.
Business News" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3155150.ece" target="_blank">'Sub-prime black hole is getting scarier'Blackstone's president warned that the sub-prime crisis on Wall Street was getting "deeper, darker and scarier" yesterday as the US private equity firm posted a loss for the third quarter, hit by a fall in real-estate revenues and charges related to its initial public offering.
Wachovia Bails Out a Money Market FundFloyd Norris is reporting via a tip from a reader that in Wachovia's 10Q, filed Friday, Wachovia reports that "during the third quarter it paid $1.1 billion to purchase asset-backed commercial paper from its Evergreen money market fund, and recorded a $40 million loss."
Bail-out fund proposed by banks for SIV/s. Bankers from Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp. decided upon the structure of a multi-billion-dollar fund to buy distressed debt securities.
Turning The Police State Apparatus Against Dissenters66 Arrested in Washington State Blocking War Shipments At Port of Olympia
More than four hundred antiwar demonstrators marched through Olympia, Washington Saturday to protest the war in Iraq and the police brutality aimed at demonstrators in the past two weeks. Since November 7th, at least 66 people have been arrested and 150 others injured for trying to prevent military equipment from leaving the Port of Olympia.
Activists Converge on Washington, D.C. for Weekend of Protest Against Hate Crimes, Police Brutality
This week alone, three African American men were shot and killed by police officers in Brooklyn, Chicago and Newark. The weekend's events include a march on the Department of Justice and a rally and concert at the Washington Monument.
Thousands surround Justice Department in hate crimes march Protesters marched through the streets around the Justice Department Friday to demand federal intervention in the "Jena Six" case and enforcement of hate crime laws against those who hang nooses in public.
20,000 Protest School of the Americas in GeorgiaIn Georgia, as many 20,000 people gathered outside the gates of Fort Benning this weekend to demand the closing of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation -- formerly known as the School of the Americas. 11 people were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. The U.S. military uses the school to train Latin American soldiers in combat, counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics. Frequently dubbed the “School of the Assassins,” critics say the school’s graduates are responsible for some of the worst human rights abuses in Latin America.
Protesters at the 18th annual Vigil to Close the SOA included Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich.
Most Presidential Candidates Skip Global Warming ForumHere in this country, a group of environmental organizations hosted the first ever presidential forum on global warming on Saturday but in attendance were only three candidates -- Senator Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and
Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Every Democratic and Republican candidate had been invited.
The forum was held two days after the Democratic debate on CNN in Las Vegas which was sponsored by the coal industry.
Over 3,100 Killed in Cyclone in BangladeshIn Bangladesh, at least 3,100 people have been killed and millions made homeless following a devastating cyclone. The Bangladesh Red Crescent Society said the death toll could hit 10,000 as rescuers are still struggling to reach remote areas. Tens of thousands of homes have been swept away.
U.N. report: Urgent action needed on 'severe' climate changeIPCC Issues New Warning Over Climate ChangeMeanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued a new report warning global warming is destroying species, raising sea levels and threatening millions of poor people. The United Nations' top scientific panel says firm action is needed to avoid more catastrophic events.
The American People are Beginning To Get ItDespite compelling statistical, circumstantial, anecdotal and eyewitness evidence that two presidential and numerous congressional elections have been stolen, this evidence has been discounted, ignored and ridiculed by the mainstream media and, amazingly, by the victimized Democratic Party and its defeated candidates and even by some progressive publications. Even so, a sizeable and growing portion of the American public isn’t buying the official and bi-partisan assurances that the US elections are, by and large, on the level, and that the Bush/Cheney regime is therefore legitimate. For example, an August, 2006 Zogby poll reports that only 45% of the population is “very confident” that Bush and Cheney won re-election “fair and square” in 2004. About a third were “not at all confident.”
