Tuesday, February 3 2009   -   Other Important News

February 2, 2009
by Chris Hedges
TruthDig.com

The daily bleeding of thousands of jobs will soon turn our economic crisis into a political crisis. The street protests, strikes and riots that have rattled France, Turkey, Greece, Ukraine, Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria and Iceland will descend on us. It is only a matter of time. And not much time. When things start to go sour, when Barack Obama is exposed as a mortal waving a sword at a tidal wave, the United States could plunge into a long period of precarious social instability.

At no period in American history has our democracy been in such peril or has the possibility of totalitarianism been as real. Our way of life is over. Our profligate consumption is finished. Our children will never have the standard of living we had. And poverty and despair will sweep across the landscape like a plague. This is the bleak future. There is nothing President Obama can do to stop it. It has been decades in the making. It cannot be undone with a trillion or two trillion dollars in bailout money. Our empire is dying. Our economy has collapsed.

 

Tuesday, February 3 2009   -   Other Important News

By Joshua Holland
February 3, 2009
AlterNet

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion.

It's not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.

For the most part, those living in wealthier countries took little notice. But now, with the global economy crashing down around us, people in even the wealthiest nations are mad as hell and reacting violently to what they view as an inadequate response to their tumbling economies.

 

Sunday, February 1 2009   -   Other Important News

by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
January 26, 2009
http://nafeez.blogspot.com

The arrival of the Obama administration will not fundamentally alter the course of military expansion accelerated during the Bush era. The origins of these policies do not lie uniquely in neoconservative ideology. While the election of President Obama may offer new opportunities for progressive forces to delimit the damage, their space for movement will ultimately be constrained by deep-seated structural pressures that will attempt to exploit Obama to rehabilitate American imperial hegemony, rather than transform it.

Indeed, the radicalization of Anglo-American political ideology represented by the rise of neoconservative principles and the militarization processes of the 'War on Terror', constituted a strategic response to global systemic crises supported by the American business classes. The same classes, recognizing the extent to which the Bush era has discredited this response, have rallied around Obama. Therefore, as global crises intensify, this militarization response is likely to undergo further radicalization, rather than a meaningful change in course. The key differences will be in language and method, not substance.

Obama and National Security: “It’s the Oil, Stupid!”

 

Sunday, February 1 2009   -   Other Important News

By Greg Miller, Washington Bureau
January 31, 2009
ChicagoTribune.com

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these discredited programs, President Barack Obama left an equally controversial counterterrorism tool intact.

Under executive orders issued by Obama last week, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, or the secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the U.S.

 

Sunday, February 1 2009   -   Other Important News

David Edwards and Stephen C. Webster
January 30, 2009
RawStory.com

If you're poor and the bank is coming for your home, Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur has a plan for you.

Just squat, she says.

Yes, this Ohio Democrat is actually encouraging her financially distressed constituents whose homes have been foreclosed upon, to simply stay put.

 

Friday, January 30 2009   -   Other Important News

... Now that you're getting your presidential daily brief, you know it is true that the US government, like many governments, engages in "false flag" terrorist operations, staging terrorist attacks that are then blamed on an enemy, to further foreign policy goals. You know the most famous example of US false flag terrorism was "Operation Gladio," which was coordinated with NATO allies for decades in postwar Europe. A bomb in a train station in Bologna killed eighty people, and was attributed to Italian leftists. Just about the time you were born, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff offered Kennedy a plan called "Operation Northwoods," to stage terrorist attacks on American soil and connect them to Fidel Castro, to justify an invasion of Cuba after the failure of the Bay of Pigs. JFK turned them down.

The generals never liked Kennedy. And neither did the organizers of the Bay of Pigs, who despised him for their embarrassment.

You have always wondered, ever since it happened, why the military response on the morning of September 11, 2001 seemed so ... confused. You had always heard that the Pentagon was "the most protected building in the world." You'd think that, a half hour after two airplanes had both struck bull's eyes on the jihadists' favorite target, and there were reports of as many as thirteen hijackings in the air, Andrews Air Force Base, right next to DC, might have had something scrambled. Especially since that's supposed to be one of their missions. And why were so many military and intelligence, and even FEMA exercises scheduled on that very day? What a coincidence!  

Wednesday, January 28 2009   -   Other Important News

by Michael Hasty
Sunday, January 25, 2009
RadicalPantheist.blogspot.com

Although I was as happy as most Americans that Barack Obama took the oath of office last week, rather than his Republican alternative, there is a major reason that he did not get my vote in November, which went instead to Cynthia McKinney: Obama is unlikely to re-open an investigation into what really happened on September 11, 2001--an investigation that needs to happen.

According to polls, about four in ten Americans are suspicious that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks--either by deliberately ignoring intelligence that warned an attack was coming and allowing the terrorists to strike, to gain public support for the neoconservative foreign policy agenda of increasing American military power in the Middle East; or by actively coordinating the attacks themselves, for the same reason. As Time magazine, in a rare acknowledgement of the 9/11 truth movement, said: "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."

 

Friday, January 23 2009   -   Other Important News

January 23, 2009
Project on Government Oversight

Honorable Carl Levin, Chairman

Honorable John McCain, Ranking Member

The undersigned groups commends you, Chairman Levin, for your decision to wait to evaluate the impact of President Obama's new revolving door restrictions requiring appointees to recuse themselves from work related to their former employer or clients, as well as from matters or issues for which he lobbied. Proceeding with the nomination of William J. Lynn III, a former Raytheon Company lobbyist, to the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense clearly violates President Obama's Executive Order (EO). We believe your cautious approach is an important exercise of congressional oversight. Upon reviewing the President's just released EO and its waiver provisions we urge you to go one step further and reject the nomination of Mr. Lynn.

This letter is not to suggest that Mr. Lynn is not qualified for the position. Before the President issued his Ethics Commitment by Executive Branch Personnel Executive Order, there would have been little ground for questioning the proposed nomination of Mr. Lynn. However, given that the new pledge required by President Obama is written to preclude any appointee from participating "in any particular matter on which I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment," or accepting "employment with any executive agency that I lobbied within the 2 years before the date of my appointment," the undersigned groups believe that Mr. Lynn simply could not effectively serve as the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

 

Wednesday, January 21 2009   -   Other Important News

During an automatic backup, our server somehow took the site offline, as well as our store website. It was down beginning early this morning, and our volunteer "web guy" was unable to look at it until very late in the afternoon. No doubt he could explain better than I just what happened, but suffice it to say it appears this was nothing nefarious--just a "glitch" the way only a server can glitch... And of course, in keeping with Murphy's Law #1,774,452, it had to happen the day immediately after we sent a fundraising appeal containing links to our donate page! We appreciate your patience, and the kind emails many of you sent to us notifying us of the problem. Links in the email we sent yesterday will now work correctly. Again, thanks for your support and your kind patience. Janice  

Sunday, January 18 2009   -   Other Important News

Sat Jan 17, 2009
By Louis Charbonneau
ReutersUK

BEIRUT, Jan 17 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday he was relieved about an Israeli ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and urged the Jewish state to withdraw all of its troops as soon as possible.

"I am relieved that the Israeli government has decided to cease hostilities as of midnight GMT," Ban told reporters. "This should be the first step leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza," he said, adding that he wanted the withdrawal "as soon as possible".

He said that Hamas militants also needed to do their part to bring an end to the violence by halting their rocket attacks against southern Israel.

"Hamas militants must stop firing rockets now," he said.

 

Saturday, January 17 2009   -   Other Important News

"The Government has determined that continued prosecution of this case as to LINDAUER would not be in the interests of justice."*

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News

(Jan. 16, Wash. DC) The Department of Justice entered a motion to drop all charges against Susan Lindauer yesterday morning, Jan. 15, 2009. The filing (see below) at the federal district court in lower Manhattan ends the government's attempt to prosecute her for allegedly acting as an "unregistered agent" for Iraq. Since her arrest in early 2004, she has repeatedly asked for a trial to present evidence that she had been a United States intelligence asset since the early 1990's.

By filing this order, the government surrendered forever its ability to prosecute Lindauer as an "Iraqi foreign agent" and for lesser charges contained in the indictment, including a one week trip to Baghdad in March, 2002.

Lindauer made the following statement today, Jan 16, 2009: "I am disgusted by this case. They think that they have defeated me by denying my day in court. It could not be more wrong. If we can't have a criminal trial, we're going to have a civil trial for damages."

Lindauer was arrested in March, 2004 shortly after offering to testify before a Bush appointed blue ribbon commission evaluating U.S. pre-war intelligence on Iraq. In late February, she informed the offices of two commission members, Sen. McCain (R-AZ) and Trent Lott (R-MS), that she could testify that U.S. pre-war intelligence was proactive and effective, not a popular view at that time.