May 19th, 2008
Spying on Americans without warrants, charges based on secret evidence, a small town divided by fear. Welcome to the world of Bush's "specially designated global terrorists."
By Tim Shorrock
May. 19, 2008 | One day in March 2004, Soliman Hamd Al-Buthe, a former member of Saudi Arabia's national basketball team and a government official in the city of Riyadh, picked up his phone for an urgent call with two American lawyers in Washington, D.C. Most of the call concerned a growing confrontation between the U.S. government and the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Ashland, Ore., the U.S. branch of a global Saudi Arabian charity organization under investigation for possible links to terrorism. Al-Buthe had been an advisor to Al-Haramain from 1995 to 2002 and was a member of the Oregon foundation's board of directors. Just weeks prior to the call, the foundation -- a respected fixture in the Ashland community run for years by an Iranian-American Muslim named Pete Seda -- had been raided by U.S. law enforcement agents.
Because of their involvement with Al-Haramain, Al-Buthe and Seda were also entangled in a lawsuit filed against dozens of prominent Saudis by families of victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. During the call, Al-Buthe and his attorneys talked about the funds needed for his legal defense. "We had a problem of transferring money," he says, "so we were thinking of new ways" of getting funds to Washington.
The phone call proved fateful. Unknown to its three participants, the conversation, and at least one other between them in April 2004, was monitored by officials from the National Security Agency at the behest of senior Bush administration officials. The surveillance that day -- apparently conducted without a warrant and later exposed when the government accidentally released a highly classified document to Al-Haramain's attorneys -- would become a key piece in the sprawling debate over extrajudicial spying inside the United States after 9/11. The surveillance would also have profound consequences for Al-Buthe -- who is considered a terrorist supporter by the Bush administration -- and others connected with the Al-Haramain Foundation in Oregon.
--MORE--
Canadian Taser inquiry has two heart specialists testify that Tasers could cause a heart attack
Police use Taser in arresting autistic man
May 17, 2008
JAMES CITY - James City County police officers used a Taser gun on a 24-year-old autistic Williamsburg man Thursday after police said he became unruly with employees at Wilson's Leather at the Prime Outlets-Williamsburg shopping mall.
Police responded to the store on Richmond Road around 2 p.m. after employees reported that the man had become argumentative during a dispute over a returned item, according to police spokesman Mike Spearman.
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What makes Nancy Pelosi pro-Israeli?
Don't forget to use your knee pads, Nancy, since you'll be on your knees to Israel the rest of your life.
Unless, by now, those knees have developed callouses, since they're so used to being used to worship your buds in Israel.
Maybe you enjoy getting on your knees and worshipping the racist and apartheid State of Hate, Israel.
And maybe you should just move there so you and your open mouth can service Peres, Olmert and Barak anytime they need the comfort of your well-worn, yet soft, lips.
But since you're a "shiksa", and to the Israeli's sub-human, your buds probably prefer to cram your back door full of Zio-love.
That way, they don't have to look at your haggardly looking face.
US House speaker: Nothing should be ruled out in order to stop Iran
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Luckily, there were no other "maintenance" issues elsewhere in the building, only on the floor that showed work from Palestinian-born artists had "maintenance" issues.
And of course, we must take the curator, Ms. Rosen's word that the "core audience", although bitching about the exhibit, wasn't the reason the show was shuttered.
Of course, it was strictly a "maintenance" issue, of course.
Spertus museum shutters Holy Land map exhibit
Curator says building repairs behind closing of controversial show
By Charles Storch and Alan G. Artner | Tribune reporters
May 14, 2008
May 19, 2008 10:22 AM
With all the back-and-forth about possible conflicts of interest amidst the various lobbyists being purged from Sen. John McCain's Straight Talk Express the controversial client of a top campaign adviser to Sen. Barack Obama is getting renewed attention.Greg Craig, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama, is a partner at the big-shot DC law firm Williams & Connolly. There Craig represents Pedro Miguel González.
González is president of the Panamanian Legislature and is also under indictment in the U.S. for murdering U.S. Army Sgt. Zak Hernández in 1992.
There's a big difference between a lobbyist, who is paid to interact with lawmakers such as Mr. Obama, and a lawyer, who works with the courts. But in this situation, González's indictment has complicated passage of the U.S.-Panama Free Trade Agreement. So there is legislative relevance.
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The race for the Republican nomination is over, but people still keep voting for Ron Paul:
Sen. John McCain is champing at the bit to run against Sen. Barack Obama in the fall. But while the presumptive GOP nominee focuses on his likely Democratic rival, he should also worry about his own right flank. Bob Barr entered the presidential race last week as a Libertarian, in time for that party’s nominating convention (which starts Thursday), and while the former Republican congressman from Georgia isn’t going to become president, his run is no joke. Barr might well inherit the sizable support garnered by Rep. Ron Paul during his own run for the Republican nomination — and leave McCain sputtering the sorts of epithets usually uttered by Democrats talking about Ralph Nader.
by Paul Craig Roberts
U.C. Berkeley tenured law professor John Yoo epitomizes the failure of the conservative movement in America. Known as "the torture professor," Yoo penned the Department of Justice (sic) memos that gave a blank check to sadistic Americans to torture detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The human rights violations that John Yoo sanctioned destroyed America's reputation and exposed the Bush regime as more inhumane than the Muslim terrorists. The acts that Yoo justified are felonies under U.S. law and war crimes under the Nuremberg standard.
Yoo's torture memos are so devoid of legal basis that his close friend and fellow conservative member of the Federalist Society, Jack Goldsmith, rescinded the memos when he was appointed head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Yoo's extremely shoddy legal work and the fervor with which he served the evil intentions of the Bush regime have led to calls from distinguished legal scholars for Yoo's dismissal from Berkeley's Boalt Hall.
--MORE--
19 May 2008
By Joe Kay
Use this version to print | Send this link by email | Email the author
A United Nations investigator released a preliminary report last week citing widespread civilian deaths in Afghanistan, often at the hands of unaccountable units led by the CIA or other foreign intelligence agencies.
The investigator is Philip Alston, a New York University professor serving as the Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution. His report provides a partial glimpse into the illegal actions of intelligence agencies, occupying forces, and Afghan police, as they seek to repress opposition to the US-led occupation and US-backed government.
A more detailed final report will be released later this year.
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By Stuart Littlewood*
19 May 2008
Stuart Littlewood considers the increasing use of assassination by the US and Israel, and reports that Israeli murder squads have been authorized to enter "friendly" countries, including Britain, and kill enemies of the racist Jews-only state of Israel.
Some readers will remember the 1969 film, “The Assassination Bureau”, a tongue-in-cheek romp based on Jack London's unfinished novel. The setting is the turn of the century a hundred years ago, a fanciful time for regime change and the purging of corrupt monarchs and cruel tyrants. The bureau's hit team is for hire provided that Ivan Dragomiloff, founder and mastermind, deems the targeted killing "socially justifiable" and there’s proof of the candidate's misdeeds.
Eventually, however, the moral rectitude of the enterprise gives way to financial greed, and the day comes when the bureau accepts a mission to eradicate an unnamed but prominent public figure. The fee is paid in advance, proof supplied, job accepted, then the name is revealed. The target is Dragomiloff himself. The Assassination Bureau cannot go back on its word and Dragomiloff finds himself pitted against the killing machine he himself created and perfected.
Assassination is the targeted killing of persons usually for political or ideological (and often insane) motives. This is OK, but not OK.
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Kosher slaughterhouse raids may have compromised ongoing child-sex trafficking investigation
Related
Huge immigration raid on the kosher meatpacker in Iowa found not just immigrants but also apparently a meth lab *inside* the facility
Biggest immig raid ever much worse than you think
May 18th, 2008
by
Agriprocessors: A Blight on the Land
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 390 illegal immigrants May 13, 2008 in the largest single-site immigration raid in US history. The raid took place at Agriprocessors, Inc., the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, located in the tiny town of Postville, Iowa.
Federal officials have declined to comment about possible charges against the owners of Agriprocessors, and jaded Americans can be forgiven for assuming the employer will receive a slap on the wrist, if it receives any penalty at all.
But before you shrug and move on, it’s worth noting that the feds aren’t following the typical routine around the Postville raid. There may yet be some arrests in the offing higher up the ladder, with serious felony charges to follow.
There should be, anyway. The 390 detainees who were working in Agriprocessors’ slaughterhouse are the vanilla surface of a much darker story underneath—a deeply troubling story that demands the owners of Agriprocessors, among others, be prosecuted under the full weight of the law.
If this story doesn’t end with significant prison sentences handed down, there is, as they say, no justice.
An astonishing criminal enterprise
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I remember a few years ago walking through the wonderful narrow streets of the occupied Old city of Jerusalem, seeing a small shop managed by an old Palestinian man who was selling souvenirs to the tourists. I entered the shop, not because I wanted to buy something, I am not a tourist in my own land (despite the Zionist entity who is occupying my land allowing me to enter there just as a tourist) but because I was captured by the smell of fresh coffee that beckoned me from inside the shop. As I know my people, I knew that as soon as I set foot inside the shop I would be welcomed with this hot and stimulating beverage. I was right, after just a minute I was enjoying my drink and having a nice talk with the man. I made the rounds of his shop, looking at the hundreds small plates, pictures, colorful fabrics of all kinds of imaginative and very original T-shirts hanging on one of the walls. T-shirts with pictures of Jerusalem, with Holy Land slogans, with IDF motives (always wondering who might buy one of those!) and I saw one that scared me the most because of its realism. It was a simple T-shirt with the slogan: “America Don’t worry, Israel is behind you!” When I left the shop I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t get it, I was thinking that the right way to say it is “Israel Don’t worry, America is behind you!” but not the opposite. Anyway, after a few minutes of confusing thoughts about who comes first, the egg or the chicken, I forget the whole thing and continued my walk in the Old city of Jerusalem. This happened 3 years ago.
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The commemoration events of 60 years of the Nakba have brought a very different type of Palestinian solidarity activism to my attention: it is young, vibrant, dynamic and creative solidarity campaigning. It’s a new form of struggle that goes far beyond the old dogmatic clichés, a fierce battle that aims at the exposure of the Jewish state for what it is: a racist, chauvinist apartheid state. Last Monday I saw it happen in Exeter University while watching and listening to the astonishingly eloquent Palestinian ambassador to Britain Dr Manuel Hassassian . Last Friday I met the French resistance at a Euro Palestine event at the Parisian Librairie-Resistances bookshop.
Librairie Résistances is one of those bookshops that makes you feel young again, those very exotic shops you hardly see anymore. A unique cultural thought-provoking fountain that makes resistance look like a valid praxis, as if liberation is awaiting just around the corner. At the back of the bookshop some space had been allocated for a cozy theatre which is used for concerts and performances promoting the Palestinian cause.
Last Friday, it was me who appeared there. I spoke about the “Primacy of the Ear” http://www.gilad.co.uk/html files/Primacy of the Ear.htm. To a very crowded room, I described my own journey from Zionism to Ethics via music. At the end of my talk, I was joined by a legendary musician, one of my mentors, Dhafer Youssef http://www.dhaferyoussef.com/.
By Pat Shannan
Six years after AFP first warned of the dangers of depleted uranium (DU), the administration persists in claiming there is no conclusive evidence that it is a silent weapon of mass destruction that may harm U.S. troops and the alleged enemy.
However, the British government has long since attributed birth defect claims from a 1991 combat veteran to DU poisoning, and studies using cultured cells and laboratory rodents continue to confirm the likelihood of leukemia resulting from chronic exposure as well as the possibility of genetic, reproductive and neurological effects.
Vietnam veterans of a generation ago remember the similar symptoms that
affected so many of them from their contact with Agent Orange. Some of their offspring carry daily reminders of what their future fathers inadvertently brought home with them and the eventual birth defects that were passed on.
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The year 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe marked by the destruction or depopulation of more than 400 Palestinian villages and the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinian people from their lands, communities and homes. Since then, Palestinians have lived under occupation, as refugees, and as second class citizens on their own land; Israel's assault against the indigenous Palestinian communities continues with unremitting brutality. In Gaza, with the support of the US government and its allies, Israel has effectively cut off food, water, electricity, humanitarian aid, medical supplies and the means of basic employment or trade, despite the pretence of ‘disengagement’ offered by Israeli withdrawal of settlements.
On the contrary, this withdrawal has facilitated Israel's ever-increasing grip on the area. Israel controls entry and exit from this small, sealed internment camp. The people of Gaza have nowhere to go. Israel's policy towards Gazans is inhumane and racist. How can it be otherwise, when Israel's existence is predicated on ethnic cleansing? Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai's vicious threat of a ‘shoah’, or holocaust, is an outrage yet unsurprisingly consistent with the military's tactics and Israel's historic designs for the region. The US and Europe are not just standing by indifferently: they are accomplices. As Western states honour the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, the groundwork for the further expulsion of Palestinians into Egypt and for genocide is thus being laid.
As Jews, this anniversary also highlights other histories: sixty years of the hijacking of Jewish participation in liberation struggles; sixty years of dishonoring and exploiting the persecution, displacement and genocide of European Jews by using their memory to justify and perpetuate European racism and colonialism; and sixty years of extensive displacement and alienation of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of Arab and African descent) from indigenous identities, languages, histories, cultures and homelands. This anniversary implicates us in the oppression of the Palestinian people and in the debasement of our own heritages, struggles for justice and alliances with our fellow human beings.
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| "What treason is this?" May 19, 2008 |
| Bush's True Calling An American president in Israel |
| by Justin Raimondo |
The unseemly spectacle of an American chief executive denouncing a Democratic presidential candidate in a foreign venue, in front of the parliament of a nation whose interests are inextricably intertwined with the issue at hand, has no precedent in our history. It's as if, say, Lyndon Baines Johnson had journeyed to South Vietnam and attacked the antiwar movement as "appeasers" before an audience of that country's rulers. In our Bizarro World universe, however, where all moral and political values have been stood on their heads, this is what passes for "patriotic" and "pro-American" activism on the part of our chief executive – upholding the interests of a foreign nation over and above your own. After hailing the history of the fight for Israeli sovereignty minus any mention of the Nakba, and without so much as obliquely referring to the ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories, the president hit at his political enemies back home: *** For years, I've been saying and writing that, when it comes to the Middle East, Washington's policies are ridiculously skewed in Israel's favor, much to our own detriment. What's more, it appears that our policy-making apparatus has been hijacked by agents of a foreign power, who are determined to pursue their alien agenda no matter what the consequences for the U.S. Nothing could have underscored this point more emphatically than George W. Bush's Knesset speech – a peroration that surely indicates Bush missed his true calling and somehow wound up as the president of the wrong country. |
Monday-Wednesday, May 19-21, 2008
Today was not a good day for me. This afternoon, I went to a hamburger restaurant and saw that the majority of cars in the parking lot had pro-war bumper stickers proudly displayed. They included statements such as, "I Support the Troops" and "Freedom Isn’t Free." Almost all had the proclamation, "God Bless America."
Things got worse in the restaurant. At least six pre-teenage boys wore military camouflage clothing. Then, three women in their early 20s entered. They wore military camouflage shorts. Two adult males, who looked like dime-store mercenaries, displayed military camouflage t-shirts that overlapped their huge stomachs. Most of these people will watch the San Diego Padres baseball club on TV tomorrow as they play the Seattle Mariners in Seattle. At the beginning of the seventh inning, the song "God Bless America" will be played at the stadium. Most San Diegans will stop drinking their Coors beer and will stand in honor of God and country. Only for a couple of minutes though. That’s about how long they can go without swilling down their watered-down beer that they consider the world’s best.
When I got home, things deteriorated further. My Iraqi-American friend Wameeth came by and gave me an insert from a weekly events magazine. I looked at it, mimicked using it as a piece of toilet paper, and as I was about to throw it in the trash, I stopped. "What a subject for an article," I thought.
The front of the insert depicts a soldier kneeling (the picture included with this article). The back consists of the following prayer.
The Bushes and Hitler's Appeasement
"Adding to my concern was a report by a reliable source that a prominent neo-conservative close to Cheney’s office who several months ago believed there was virtually no possibility that Bush would order an attack on Iran before he left office has apparently changed his mind. This individual (whose name I can’t divulge at the source’s insistence) recently told my source that such an attack would take place between the November elections and Bush’s departure and that it would be “massive.” I subsequently heard from a knowledgeable Israeli source that he had recently heard the same scenario from two of his sources in Israel.""
Bush’s Nazi-Iran Analogy
For those of you who have not yet seen it, M.J. Rosenberg’s column on Bush’s analogy between Nazi Germany and Iran and the contretemps between the Obama and McCain camps over Hamas is a must read, by far the best meditation on both issues, particularly on the implications for the American Jewish community, that has crossed my desk.
On Bush’s analogy, one issue that raises a lot of questions in my mind is who precisely was involved in getting that passage into the speech? The assumption so far has been that it must have been Bush’s political advisers who were eager to attack Obama and, as Rosenberg suggests, pander to “pro-Israel” donors. I have no reason to disbelieve that was a major — perhaps the decisive — consideration. But was this passage in fact vetted through the normal inter-agency process? Would Condoleezza Rice, who initiated talks with the Iranians last year and has never forsworn them, or Robert Gates, who said the U.S. has to figure out a way to engage the Iranians just the day before Bush’s speech to the Knesset, have cleared it? After all, there are very significant foreign-policy implications in that passage. Indeed, having made the comparison between Iran and Nazi Germany in 1939 and suggesting that those who favor talking with Tehran are practicing “appeasement,” Bush has really made it much more difficult for engagement to take place for the balance of his administration. The Europeans are talking to Tehran. How do they react to this kind of rhetoric? Have they been calling Condi for some explanation?--MORE--
19/05/2008
By Sajjad Shaukat
In 1992 when Indo-Israeli ties were openly established, the two countries were having secret relationship. Although they have strengthened their diplomatic and economic links, yet they are following secret innovative strategies for giving a major impetus to their defence cooperation.
The revelations of Israel ’s ambassador to India , Mark Sofer during his interview to the Indian weekly Outlook as published on February 18, 2008 surprised Pakistan , China and the Middle East in particular. On a question regarding India ’s defence arrangements with Israel , Sofer while indicating two identical situations, disclosed “We do have a defence relationship with India , which is no secret. On the other hand, what is secret is the defence relationship”. And “with all due respect, the secret part will remain a secret.” On being asked whether he foresaw joint exercises, Sofer replied “Certain issues need to remain under wraps for whatever reason.”
Indian ties with Israel remained under wraps till 2003, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited India to officially reveal this relationship. In this respect, Indian ‘The Tribune’ wrote on September 10, 2003, “India and Israel took giant leaps forward in bolstering the existing strategic ties and forging new ones” and Tel Aviv has “agreed to share its expertise with India in such fields as anti-fidayeen operations, surveillance and defence satellites, intelligence sharing, space exploration and fighting against terrorism”, particularly in the Occupied Kashmir. Next day, ‘Indian Express’, disclosed, “From anti-missile systems to hi-tech radars, from sky drones to night-vision equipment, Indo-Israeli defense cooperation has known no bounds in recent times”.
--MORE--
May 16, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 16, 2008
Contact: Sheila Crowley 540-907-2993 sheila@nlihc.org
POTENTIAL DEAL ON SENATE HOUSING BILL WOULD STEAL FROM THE POOR
WASHINGTON, DC - Responding to pressure from Ranking Member Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee appears to be on the verge of diverting funds designated for a housing trust fund for housing for the poorest Americans to pay for Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd’s (D-CT) new program to refinance homeowners facing foreclosure.
In his bill “The Federal Housing Finance Regulatory Reform Act of 2008,” Chairman Dodd proposes to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure refinanced mortgages of homeowners who face foreclosure. The Congressional Budget Office estimates this new program creates a potential liability for the federal government of $1.7 billion.
Reports are that Senator Shelby will only agree to the new FHA program if it is paid for by non-taxpayer funds. Senator Dodd’s bill also creates a housing trust fund with resources from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build or preserve rental housing for extremely low and very low income people. Senator Shelby wants those funds to be used to pay for the new FHA program instead.
Reports are that Senator Shelby will only agree to the new FHA program if it is paid for by non-taxpayer funds. Senator Dodd’s bill also creates a housing trust fund with resources from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to build or preserve rental housing for extremely low and very low income people. Senator Shelby wants those funds to be used to pay for the new FHA program instead.
Related
Americans Planned 9/11 Themselves?
Special Reports
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
May 16, 2008, 00:22
In a newly-released tape of a 2006 neocon luncheon meeting featuring former War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, attended by ex-military "message force multiplier" propaganda shills Lt. General Michael DeLong, David L. Grange, Donald W. Sheppard, James Marks, Rick Francona, Wayne Downing, Robert H. Scales and others, Rumsfeld declared that the American people lack "the maturity to recognize the seriousness of the ‘threats’" -- and need another 9/11.
When DeLong complained about a "lack of sympathetic ears" in Congress, and a lack of interest among the general American public, Rumsfeld responded, "What's to be done? The correction for that, I suppose, is another attack."
This videotape clip is part of a one-hour tape declassified by the Department of Defense in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The entire clip, and analysis of this damning new revelation, can be found here: "The Correction for that . . . is another attack" (Jason Linkins, Huffington Post, 5/13/08)
For an independent op-ed about the same information, see Rumsfeld's Mind: If 9/11 worked, why not try it again? (Op-Ed News. It was also the topic of discussion on the May 14 broadcast of Nova M Radio’s Mike Malloy Program.
--MORE--
The dirtbag's agenda
Haim Saban - SourceWatch
Nico Pitney and Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
Superdelegates Turned Down $1 Million Offer From Clinton Donor
May 19, 2008 02:50 PM
About Nico Pitney and Sam Stein
Nico Pitney is National Editor at the Huffington Post. He was previously Deputy Research Director at the Center for American Progress and Managing Editor of ThinkProgress. He lives in Washington, DC, and has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, NPR, and the BBC. Nico can be reached at pitney@huffingtonpost.com.
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, D.C. Previously he has worked for Newsweek magazine, the New York Daily News and the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.
One of Sen. Hillary Clinton's top financial supporters offered $1 million to the Young Democrats of America during a phone conversation in which he also pressed for the organization's two uncommitted superdelegates to endorse the New York Democrat, a high-ranking official with YDA told The Huffington Post.
Haim Saban, the billionaire entertainment magnate and longtime Clinton supporter, denied the allegation. But four independent sources said that just before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries, Saban called YDA President David Hardt and offered what was perceived as a lucrative proposal: $1 million would be made available for the group if Hardt and the organization's other uncommitted superdelegate backed Clinton.
Contacted about the report, Saban, initially very friendly, became curt. "Not true," he said, "it's simply not true." He declined to elaborate. Did he talk to the YDA superdelegate? "I talk to many, many superdelegates. Some I don't even remember their names." Did he propose any financial transaction? "I have never offered them or anybody any money" in exchange for support or a vote, he said. The Clinton campaign did not return a request for comment.
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Posted on May 15, 2008
By Chalmers JohnsonIt is not news that the United States is in great trouble. The pre-emptive war it launched against Iraq more than five years ago was and is a mistake of monumental proportions—one that most Americans still fail to acknowledge. Instead they are arguing about whether we should push on to “victory” when even our own generals tell us that a military victory is today inconceivable. Our economy has been hollowed out by excessive military spending over many decades while our competitors have devoted themselves to investments in lucrative new industries that serve civilian needs. Our political system of checks and balances has been virtually destroyed by rampant cronyism and corruption in Washington, D.C., and by a two-term president who goes around crowing “I am the decider,” a concept fundamentally hostile to our constitutional system. We have allowed our elections, the one nonnegotiable institution in a democracy, to be debased and hijacked—as was the 2000 presidential election in Florida—with scarcely any protest from the public or the self-proclaimed press guardians of the “Fourth Estate.” We now engage in torture of defenseless prisoners although it defames and demoralizes our armed forces and intelligence agencies.
Democracy Incorporated
By Sheldon S. Wolin
Princeton University Press, 376 pages
There are, however, a few attempts at more complex analyses of how we arrived at this sorry state. They include Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” on how “private” economic power now is almost coequal with legitimate political power; John W. Dean, “Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial Branches,” on the perversion of our main defenses against dictatorship and tyranny; Arianna Huffington, “Right Is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe,” on the manipulation of fear in our political life and the primary role played by the media; and Naomi Wolf, “The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot,” on “Ten Steps to Fascism” and where we currently stand on this staircase. My own book, “Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic,” on militarism as an inescapable accompaniment of imperialism, also belongs to this genre.
We now have a new, comprehensive diagnosis of our failings as a democratic polity by one of our most seasoned and respected political philosophers. For well over two generations, Sheldon Wolin taught the history of political philosophy from Plato to the present to Berkeley and Princeton graduate students (including me; I took his seminars at Berkeley in the late 1950s, thus influencing my approach to political science ever since). He is the author of the prize-winning classic “Politics and Vision” (1960; expanded edition, 2006) and “Tocqueville Between Two Worlds” (2001), among many other works.
This Is What Happened To Our Land, Not “NoamChomskyLand.”
New York, May 19: Who do you think was one of the Bush Administration’s key players on the economy?
If you say Paulson or Bernanke, you might be half right. But there’s another no-name lurking around in the background who tends to be doing the wrong thing at every key moment in the covert history of the Bush (or should we say “Bush League”) Republic.
His name is Jim Wilkinson. He helped organize the GOP protest/obstruction of the Miami election recount in 2000. He was the White House’s key media spinner at the Doha Coalition Media Center. A reporter from Texas said he used techniques first perfected by Stalin. He was an architect of the Republican convention in New York in 2004. He was later dispatched to keep an eye on, and act as ‘dissembler in chief’ for Condi Rice.
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Officials: Angry Mob Surrounded Officers After Shooting
POSTED: 10:30 am PDT May 18, 2008
UPDATED: 11:25 am PDT May 19, 2008
LONG BEACH, Calif. --
Witnesses and police gave conflicting accounts of the fatal shooting of a terminally ill, mentally disabled man by Long Beach police over the weekend, and the shooting remained under investigation Monday.
Roketi Su'e, 46, was killed at about 7 p.m. Saturday in a cul-de-sac in the 3400 block of 67th Way in North Long Beach as he was walking home from a birthday party. Police said he fought with officers, but witnesses said he was shot as he lay unarmed on the sidewalk.
"He had no shirt on. He didn't have a weapon. He never carried a weapon," Su'e's niece, Lagilelei Saolotoga, 36, told the Los Angeles Times.
--MORE WITH VIDEO--
- 19th
- 11:13 am: Spying on Americans without warrants, charges based on secret evidence - Bush's America
11:26 am: Cops use Taser in arresting autistic man - for arguing - 2 comments
11:39 am: Speaker of House Pelosi has every orifice filled with Zionist "love" on trip to Israel
11:41 am: Chicago Museum Shutters Holy Land Map Exhibit
11:49 am: A Man, A Plan, An Indictment -- Panama
11:55 am: Another Sign Of Trouble For McCain -- People still keep voting for Ron Paul - 2 comments
11:58 am: The Conservative Movement: From Failure to Threat
12:06 pm: CIA death squads killing with “impunity” in Afghanistan
12:08 pm: Israeli and US death squads infesting the world
12:20 pm: An astonishing criminal enterprise: Biggest immigration raid ever much worse than you think
12:26 pm: America Don’t Worry! Israel is Behind You! - 2 comments
12:30 pm: The French Resistance in the Service of Palestine
12:36 pm: U.S. GUILTY OF BANNED WEAPONS WAR CRIMES
01:08 pm: Jews against Zionism - Statement on the Catastrophe
01:10 pm: Our policy-making apparatus has been hijacked by agents of a foreign power
01:21 pm: LEGIONARIES OF DEATH
01:31 pm: 'Massive' attack on Iran will take place between the November elections and Bush’s departure - 2 comments
01:48 pm: Indo-Israeli Secret Strategic Game
02:21 pm: POTENTIAL DEAL ON SENATE HOUSING BILL WOULD STEAL FROM THE POOR
02:39 pm: Rumsfeld: Why not another 9/11?
02:41 pm: Billionaire Israeli tries to bribe Dems
02:55 pm: Inverted Totalitarianism: A New Way of Understanding How the U.S. Is Controlled
02:58 pm: Behind the Rise in Prices: A Plan to Torpedo the Dollar
03:03 pm: DA, Police Investigate Officers' Shooting Of Terminally Ill Man
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mparent7777_1- CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS
- Marc Parent