General wants 40,000 more U.S. troops for Afghan

I am not sure I understand this. The Obama administration had a platform of removing soldiers from war. Oh yes, this was from Iraq, not Afghanistan; what was I thinking. I myself am a little tired of this constant fighting, and see no need to continue. Indeed, there is the idea that "we are making America safe from terror, and, in the end, a more free nation"

Perhaps I am a bit disillusioned, but could someone please explain to me how this is making me more free? The argument is that "we are keeping terrorists at bay; by engaging them in war we are keeping them from attacking us." There is some truth to this claim, but when will the fighting stop? It's amazing to me that we are always looking for a way to gain peace, but then we make arguments such as this.

Maybe I am a bit uninformed, or simply a bit "out of touch" with the reality of this war, but sending more troops in Afghanistan not only goes against what Obama promised us, but simply does nothing to promote peace

WASHINGTON
(Reuters)

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has recommended an increase of 40,000 troops as the minimum necessary to prevail, two sources familiar with his recommendations said on Thursday.

General Stanley McChrystal also gave President Barack Obama an option of sending more than 40,000 troops, the sources said, which could be politically risky given deep doubts among Obama's fellow Democrats about the eight-year-old war.
One of the sources, both of whom spoke on condition that they not be identified because of the sensitivity of talking about recommendations to the president, said McChrystal also gave a third high-risk option of sending no more troops.

The sources spoke as a heated debate played out in Washington over whether to send more troops to Afghanistan to try to put down the Taliban insurgency or to scale back the U.S. mission and focus on striking al Qaeda cells.
There are now more than 100,000 Western troops serving in Afghanistan, of whom 65,000 are U.S. troops. The number of U.S. troops already is due to increase to 68,000 later this year.

G20 Summit Arrest: Update

The other day I posted a video showing two men taking a protester at the G20 Summit, shove him in a car, and drive away. At the time, I was not sure what had happend, and even now I am not too sure. Nonetheless, below is an article discussing the situation.

To see the video in question, click here

Raw Story
Saturday, September 26, 2009

G20 security officials took responsibility Friday afternoon for a video that seemed to depict US troops ‘kidnapping’ a protester.

The military was not involved in the incident, but G20 security did acknowledge that “law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team” had detained a protester they said was believed to be vandalizing a store.

Video posted at YouTube shows onlookers calling out “what the fuck” and “what the fuck is wrong with you?” as people in camo uniforms haul a protester along by his collar, shove him into the back seat of a car, and rapidly drive off.
Officials with G20 security released the following statement to Raw Story and other media outlets:

“Military members supporting the G20 Summit work with local law enforcement authorities but do not have the authority to make arrests. The individuals involved in the 9/24/09 arrest which has appeared online are law enforcement officers from a multi-agency tactical response team assigned to the security operations for the G20. It is not unusual for tactical team members to wear camouflaged fatigues. The type of fatigues the officers wear designates their unit affiliation.

Prior to the arrest, the officers observed this subject vandalizing a local business. Due to the hostile nature of the crowd, officer safety and the safety of the person under arrest, the subject was immediately removed from the area.”
The video was featured this morning at the Drudge Report under the heading, “SEE U.S. MILITARY SNATCH PROTESTER… .”

At the liberal website Democratic Underground, one commenter asserted, “This is staged” and then claimed, “Those were not the uniforms National Guard/military were wearing yesterday. Neither was that the vehicles they were driving. This was just a bunch of idiots trying to make

Read Full Article Here

'Ahmadinejad has enough uranium to go whole way'

Senior US official says secret facility is right size to make 'bomb or two a year'
By David Usborne and Andrew Grice in Pittsburgh
Saturday, 26 September 2009

The crisis in relations with Iran escalated ominously yesterday after the leaders of the US, Britain and France accused the regime in Tehran of operating a secret uranium enrichment facility buried deep in a mountain bunker near the ancient religious city of Qom. Barack Obama called Iran's activity "a direct challenge" to the international community.

The accusations were made public in an extraordinary joint statement by the US President, flanked by Gordon Brown and the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy before the start of the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh.

Iran had previously insisted that its plant at Natanz, which is open to international inspection, was the only one involved in enrichment. The new revelation sharply raises the stakes at a time when Israel has been signalling that military strikes against Iran are on the table.

Read Full Article Here

‘Sneak-and-peek’ searches being used for regular crimes

I have always said that the Patriot Act was one of the worst acts that ever came out of the Bush administration, and my opposition to it comes directly from the fact that it gave right to authorities to search people expected of terrorism via wiretapping and sneak-and-peak searches.In effect, these "searches" were preemptive strikes against those the government thought to be terrorists. Now, while I am not surprised, it has come out that such power was actually used against all people, and in 2008, only a handful of people actually searched were terrorists.

Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Thursday, Sept 24th, 2009

The Justice Department made 763 requests for “sneak-and-peek” warrants in 2008, but only three of those had to with terrorism investigations, Sen. Russ Feingold told a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday.

“Sneak-and-peek” warrants allow law enforcement officials to break into homes and businesses and search the premises without the investigated party knowing. The authority for them was passed as part of the USA Patriot Act in late 2001, ostensibly as a counter-terrorism measure.
Sen. Feingold (D-WI) said that 65 percent of the cases for which sneak-and-peek warrants were used were drug investigations. And Assistant Attorney General David Kris told Feingold that, in most terrorism cases, surveillance methods are “generally covert altogether,” and do not use sneak-and-peek warrants.

The revelations strengthen the arguments of opponents of the Patriot Act, who have long said that the powers granted the government to fight terrorism in the wake of 9/11 would end up being used for other purposes. Now, it appears that one of those powers — sneak-and-peek searches — was never meant for terrorism investigations in the first place.
“It’s not meant for intelligence, it’s for criminal cases,” Kris told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “So I guess it’s not surprising to me that it applies in drug cases.”

“That’s not how this was sold to the American people,” Feingold responded. “It was sold — as stated on the DoJ’s Web site in 2005 — as being necessary ‘to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists.’”

Both Kris and Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine agreed that “additional vigilance” is needed in monitoring the way the government uses surveillance powers.
Feingold is spearheading an effort to reform laws on surveillance powers ahead of the expiry of parts of the Patriot Act later this year. The Obama administration has announced it would like to see three key elements of the Patriot Act renewed. Those elements include allowing authorities to collect a wide range of financial and personal information on targets, as well as allowing “roving wiretaps” to follow suspects around.

But last week Feingold and seven other Democratic senators unveiled the Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools in Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act, which aims to “fix problems with surveillance laws that threaten the rights and liberties of American citizens” without damaging the government’s ability to monitor suspected terrorists, the senators said in a joint statement.
The bill’s reforms “include more effective checks on government searches of Americans’ personal records, the ’sneak and peek’ search provision of the PATRIOT Act, ‘John Doe’ roving wiretaps and other overbroad authorities,” the statement said.

The bill would also repeal the Bush-era law that grants immunity from lawsuits to telecommunications companies that participated in the federal government’s warrantless wiretapping program. The immunity measure was supported by then-Senator Barack Obama, but not by Vice-President Joe Biden, or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who as senators voted against it.

Senate must raise debt ceiling above $12T

The Senate must move legislation to raise the federal debt limit beyond $12.1 trillion by mid-October, a move viewed as necessary despite protests about the record levels of red ink.

The move will highlight the nation’s record debt, which has been central to Republican attacks against Democratic congressional leaders and President Barack Obama. The year’s deficit is expected to hit a record $1.6 trillion.

Democrats in control of Congress, including then-Sen. Obama (Ill.), blasted President George W. Bush for failing to contain spending when he oversaw increased deficits and raised the debt ceiling.

“Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren,” Obama said in a 2006 floor speech that preceded a Senate vote to extend the debt limit. “America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.”

Obama later joined his Democratic colleagues in voting en bloc against raising the debt increase.

Now Obama is asking Congress to raise the debt ceiling, something lawmakers are almost certain to do despite misgivings about the federal debt. The ceiling already has been hiked three times in the past two years, and the House took action earlier this year to raise the ceiling to $13 trillion.

Read Full Story Here

Job Losses Weigh on Recovery

Employers cut jobs in August at the slowest pace in a year, but a jump in the unemployment rate to a 26-year high of 9.7% reinforced worries that a weak labor market could weigh on consumer spending and the vigor of the economic recovery

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 216,000 jobs in the month, fewer than the 276,000 lost in July, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has shed 6.9 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007. The data reinforced expectations that employers will begin adding jobs by early next year, though the pace of job creation remains uncertain.

The latest figures are consistent with an economy pulling out of the deepest downturn since the Great Depression. But rising unemployment portends persistent weakness in consumer confidence, income and spending, even as manufacturers start bouncing back and stocks revive. The construction and manufacturing sectors together accounted for more than half of August's job losses. Losses in retail and business services narrowed. The biggest gains came in health care.

Stephen Stanley of RBS Securities said the report "strengthens our conviction of a relatively upbeat economic outlook," but added that "it was not far enough away from expectations to change the views of either optimists or pessimists."

Rising joblessness is likely to heat up the debate in Washington about the efficacy of the $787 billion fiscal stimulus. Government payrolls declined only 18,000 in August. If not for federal support for state and local budgets, they probably would have fallen further. On the other hand, stimulus funds are flowing too slowly to offset continuing cuts by private employers.
"I want to be clear about something: Less bad is not good," Vice President Joe Biden said. "That's not how President Obama and I measure success."

The rise in unemployment, after dipping to 9.4% in July, came as more Americans returned to the work force. Teenage unemployment hit 25.5%, the highest since the government began keeping records in 1948. Most economists expect the rate to top 10% in coming months and stay over 9% through 2010.

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

This should alarm those Americans who love liberty and freedom, which should be all of us.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

"I think the redraft, while improved, remains troubling due to its vagueness," said Larry Clinton, president of the Internet Security Alliance, which counts representatives of Verizon, Verisign, Nortel, and Carnegie Mellon University on its board. "It is unclear what authority Sen. Rockefeller thinks is necessary over the private sector. Unless this is clarified, we cannot properly analyze, let alone support the bill."

Representatives of other large Internet and telecommunications companies expressed concerns about the bill in a teleconference with Rockefeller's aides this week, but were not immediately available for interviews on Thursday.

Read all article here

Power Elite: Influence v Reality

Szandor Blestman
The American Chronicle

The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see.


I’m getting very upset by what I’ve been seeing since this health care issue has come to the fore. I’m becoming really angry by how much my intelligence has been insulted. I’m beginning to feel like the man who has to explain to his friends that Criss Angel is not really defying the laws of physics. He’s in the business of creating illusions. He does not really float above buildings, pull ladies in half, climb through closed, solid windows without breaking the glass, walk on water, or do any of the things one might see him do. These are illusions. They are parlor tricks. They are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed, likely expensive illusions, but they are nothing but illusions nonetheless.

The power elite are also in the business of creating illusions. They use their politicians and the mass media to try to create a perception of reality they would like us to see. The illusions they create are elaborate, complicated, well designed, well executed and likely expensive, but they are illusions nonetheless. The difference between the illusions the power elite create and those of Criss Angel is that Mr. Angel creates his illusions strictly for entertainment purposes, the power elite are creating theirs so that they can control mass consciousness and hence make it easier to control the population in general. The problem for them is that many people are beginning to realize exactly what’s been happening.

One of the ways to create a good illusion is to get the audience to look over there while something is happening over here. Another is to keep things hidden and produce them when you want them seen. Still another way is to make the audience believe something isn’t what it appears to be, or that something is what it doesn’t appear to be. Or any combination of these things can help produce a good illusion. Of course, if the audience looks where the action is and detects the slight of hand, or if they see the hidden element before it is produced, or if they are not convinced that something is or is not something else, then the illusion is ruined.

Details of Clinton's visit to North Korea begin to emerge

By Mark Landler and Mark Mazzetti
New York Times

WASHINGTON — When former President Bill Clinton landed in Pyongyang on Aug. 4 to win the release of two imprisoned American journalists, senior officials said, he met an unexpectedly spry North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, who feted him over a long dinner that night, even proposing to stay up afterward.

Kim was flanked by two longtime aides — a surprise to Americans who had suspected that both men had been pushed aside — and he gave no hint that North Korea was in the throes of a succession struggle, despite the widespread questions over how long he might live.

Clinton was determined not to extend a public relations coup to Kim, who expressed a desire for better relations with the United States. Clinton did not ask to see the North Korean leader, requesting instead a meeting with "an appropriate official."

To ensure he would not leave empty-handed, Clinton asked that a member of his entourage meet with the journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, shortly after he landed to make sure they were safe, said a senior administration official.

For all the billions of dollars a year that the United States spends on intelligence gathering about mysterious and unpredictable countries like North Korea, it took just 20 hours in Pyongyang by an ex-president to give the Obama administration its first detailed look into a nuclear-armed regime that looms as one of its greatest foreign threats.

Tuesday, Clinton went to the White House to brief Obama and his top aides about the trip. Even before the 40-minute session in the Situation Room, Clinton had spoken to the president by phone and briefed his national security adviser, Gen. James Jones. But the meeting was rich in symbolism, and the president invited Clinton to the Oval Office to talk further.

Joseph DeTrani, the government's senior officer responsible for collecting and analyzing intelligence on North Korea, played a key role in arranging the visit.

Officials said Clinton's visit cleared up some of the shadows surrounding Kim's health. After a stroke last year, he looked frail in photos and missed important meetings, spurring questions about who might replace him — and when. Those questions have not gone away, officials said, but they may recede a bit in the wake of Clinton's visit.

Clinton did not engage in a wide-ranging discussion about North Korea's nuclear program. Nor did Kim give Clinton any indication that Pyongyang would relinquish its nuclear ambitions — a condition the United States has set for resuming negotiations, officials said.

"We didn't hear things that altered our perception on the North Korean attitude," one official said.

Clinton's visit was valuable, analysts said, largely because North Korea is so opaque.

It is perhaps the hardest spying target, more difficult even than Iran, according to current and former officials. Its political and military structure is nearly impenetrable, and Western intelligence services have had to rely on information from defectors who cross the border into South Korea.

"The Clinton trip has got a lot of people rethinking and reassessing," said Victor Cha, a top North Korea adviser in the Bush administration.

House votes to clamp limits on Wall Street bonuses

By ANNE FLAHERTY
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Bowing to populist anger, the House voted Friday to prohibit pay and bonus packages that encourage bankers and traders to take risks so big they could bring down the entire economy.

Passage of the bill on a 237-185 vote followed the disclosure a day earlier that nine of the nation's biggest banks, which are receiving billions of dollars in federal bailout aid, paid individual bonuses of $1 million or more to nearly 5,000 employees.

"This is not the government taking over the corporate sector," Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C, said of the House action. "It is a statement by the American people that it is time for us to straighten up the ship."

Aware of voter outrage about the bonuses, Republicans were reluctant in Friday's debate to push back, even though they voted overwhelmingly against the bill. They said severe restrictions should apply only to banks that accept government aid. The legislation's ban on risky compensation would apply to any firm with more than $1 billion in assets, including bank holding companies, broker-dealers, credit unions, investment advisers and mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The White House and Senate Democrats haven't endorsed the measure, leaving its prospects uncertain. The Senate Banking Committee planned to take up the proposal in the fall as part of a broader bill overhauling financial regulations.

"Obviously it has some important things that we think need to become law, and we'll take a look at the full bill," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday.

The legislation includes President Barack Obama's suggestion that shareholders get a nonbinding vote on compensation packages. It also would prohibit members of compensation committees from having financial ties to the company and its executives, as Obama wanted.

But House Democrats added a provision that would require regulators to issue new guidelines prohibiting pay packages that encourage "inappropriate risks" that could "threaten the safety and soundness" of the institution or "have serious adverse effects on economic conditions or financial stability."

Read full article here

American Eugenics: Policy of US Government

This, along with all the other areas of fascists news I have reported on, is troubling. I love the end of this where Ezekiel Emanuel leaves after the comment is made about him. No Time for questions. No time for debate. No Time for further development and explanation. He has to leave. WHY?

Michael Jackson Is Dead

We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.

A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest.

Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.

We're told one of the staff members at Jackson's home called 911.

La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead.

Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.

Ron Paul: Obama’s ‘goal’ is economic collapse

David Edwards and Stephen Webster
Raw Story
Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Ron Paul, the popular Republican Congressman from Texas, is ripping into the president and Congress for what he sees as their “goal” with round after round of stimulus: complete economic collapse.

“From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration,” he said in his June 22, 2009, weekly address.

He added that Democrats who voted for the president’s war funding request, which gave an additional $106 billion to military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — among other, unrelated items — were actually voting in favor of the wars, not just authorization of the president’s agenda.

He called it an affront to everyone who believed a vote for Obama was a vote for a peace candidate.

The president’s insistence on including an additional $108 billion in asset exchange with the International Monetary Fund is merely “buying global oppression,” he said.

Paul added that, “this [bill sent] $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan and $420 million to Mexico; and some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called peace keeping missions.”

In other words, the latest U.S. war funding was an “International bailout,” he said.

The legislation’s provisions for the IMF included 100 billion dollars for the New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB), a credit instrument providing the multilateral institution with additional resources to deal with exceptional risks to the stability of the international monetary system.

They also include an expansion of the nation’s special drawing rights by five billion SDRs, adding roughly eight billion dollars to the IMF’s financial firepower.

The 100 billion dollars for the NAB acts as a credit line for the IMF in case member countries need emergency loans that exceed the institution’s resources. As such, the money is not considered an immediate budget expense.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) had proposed to strip out the IMF funds, but his measure was defeated in May by a vote of 64-30.

“Not only does sending money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help,” Paul said. “Along with IMF loans come IMF required policy changes called ’structural adjustment programs,’ which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that brought our own country to its knees.”

Doctors’ Group Opposes Public Insurance Plan

ROBERT PEAR
New York Times

WASHINGTON — As the health care debate heats up, the American Medical Association is letting Congress know that it will oppose creation of a government-sponsored insurance plan, which President Obama and many other Democrats see as an essential element of legislation to remake the health care system.

The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.

The opposition, which comes as Mr. Obama prepares to address the powerful doctors’ group on Monday in Chicago, could be a major hurdle for advocates of a public insurance plan. The A.M.A., with about 250,000 members, is America’s largest physician organization.

While committed to the goal of affordable health insurance for all, the association had said in a general statement of principles that health services should be “provided through private markets, as they are currently.” It is now reacting, for the first time, to specific legislative proposals being drafted by Congress.

In the presidential campaign last year and in a letter to Congress last week, Mr. Obama called for a new “public health insurance option,” which he said would compete with private insurers and keep them honest.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said Wednesday that she supported that goal. “A bill will not come out of the House without a public option,” she said Wednesday on MSNBC.

But in comments submitted to the Senate Finance Committee, the American Medical Association said: “The A.M.A. does not believe that creating a public health insurance option for non-disabled individuals under age 65 is the best way to expand health insurance coverage and lower costs. The introduction of a new public plan threatens to restrict patient choice by driving out private insurers, which currently provide coverage for nearly 70 percent of Americans.”
If private insurers are pushed out of the market, the group said, “the corresponding surge in public plan participation would likely lead to an explosion of costs that would need to be absorbed by taxpayers.”

While not the political behemoth it once was, the association probably has more influence than any other group in the health care industry. Lawmakers seek its opinion and support whenever possible. It has repeatedly persuaded Congress to cancel or postpone cuts in Medicare payments to doctors, though it has not secured a “permanent fix.”

California contemplates ultimate reform - no welfare

By Cynthia Hubert
Sacramento Bee

Could California become the first state in the nation to do away with welfare?
That doomsday scenario is on the table as lawmakers wrestle with a staggering $24.3 billion budget deficit.

County welfare directors are "in shock" at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state's history, said Bruce Wagstaff, director of the Department of Human Assistance in Sacramento.
"It's difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this," Wagstaff said. "It would be devastating to the people we serve."

H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the state Department of Finance, said California is in an unprecedented fiscal situation that has made all programs, from education to human services, vulnerable to deep and painful reductions.

"I don't wish for a moment to minimize the profound impact" that eliminating CalWORKs would have, Palmer said. "But the easy decisions are way past being in the rearview mirror for us. We face the specter of California not having cash on hand to pay its bills in July."
Wagstaff and other administrators are betting that the state will rescue the "welfare to work" program. But they are bracing for cuts that would slash benefits to the lowest levels since the late 1990s, when CalWORKs began as part of the federal government's bold reform of the welfare system.

Read the complete story

Court rejects challenge to 'don't ask, don't tell'

WASHINGTON
(AP)

The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a challenge to the Pentagon policy forbidding gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military, granting a request by the Obama administration.

The court said it will not hear an appeal from former Army Capt. James Pietrangelo II, who was dismissed under the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
The federal appeals court in Boston earlier threw out a lawsuit filed by Pietrangelo and 11 other veterans. He was the only member of that group who asked the high court to rule that the Clinton-era policy is unconstitutional.

In court papers, the administration said the appeals court ruled correctly in this case when it found that "don't ask, don't tell" is "rationally related to the government's legitimate interest in military discipline and cohesion."

During last year's campaign, President Barack Obama indicated he supported the eventual repeal of the policy, but he has made no specific move to do so since taking office in January. Meanwhile, the White House has said it won't stop gays and lesbians from being dismissed from the military.

Last year, the federal appeals court in San Francisco allowed a decorated flight nurse to continue her lawsuit over her dismissal. The court stopped short of declaring the policy unconstitutional, but said that the Air Force must prove that ousting former Maj. Margaret Witt furthered the military's goals of troop readiness and unit cohesion.

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was the first that evaluated "don't ask, don't tell" through the lens of a 2003 Supreme Court decision that struck down a Texas ban on sodomy as an unconstitutional intrusion on privacy.
The administration did not appeal that ruling to the Supreme Court and Witt's lawsuit is ongoing.
The appeals court in Pietrangelo's case also took the high court decision into account, but concluded that it should defer to Congress' determination that the policy fosters cohesion in military units.

The case is Pietrangelo v. Gates, 08-824.

Obama admits US involvement in Iran coup in 1953

AFP
Friday, June 5, 2009

US President Barack Obama made a major gesture of conciliation to Iran on Thursday when he admitted US involvement in the 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

“In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama said during his keynote speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.

It is the first time a serving US president has publicly admitted American involvement in the coup.


The CIA, with British backing, masterminded the coup after Mossadegh nationalised the oil industry, run until then in by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

For many Iranians, the coup demonstrated duplicity by the United States, which presented itself as a defender of freedom but did not hesitate to use underhand methods to get rid of a democratically elected government to suit its own economic and strategic interests.

Full article here

Grandmother: Great Threat To PD

This is an odd story! If in fact a suspect did what the police claim this grandmother did, then perhaps force would be required. However, I am hard pressed to believe that a 72 year old women would vindictively violate the law to the extent that a younger police officer would feel threatened to the point of having to use a teaser on an elderly women.

My question is this, at what point do we as citizens stop taking blatant abuse, and begin to hold such actions accountable for what they are: abuse of violent power? Even if she did what she is being accused of, I cannot fathom that such drastic measures were needed to subdue her, especially after seeing how big the officer is.

As a nation of liberty and understanding, we need to come to the understanding that such actions are a clear violation of power.

Ruling Party Official: Japan Should Attack North Korea

This seems to be the coming of something large. They mention WWIII in this, and I wonder if such could take place?

Paul Joseph Watson

Prison Planet.com

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

A ruling party lawmaker today urged Japan to break the terms of its pacifist constitution and pre-emptively attack North Korea following the Stalinist state’s nuclear bomb test.
“North Korea poses a serious and realistic threat to Japan,” stated former defense chief Gen Nakatani in Tokyo at a meeting of Liberal Democratic Party officials. “We must look at active missile defense such as attacking an enemy’s territory and bases.”

Nakatani said the attack could be accomplished by equipping navy ships with cruise missiles.
The former defense minister’s warning arrives on the heels of an LDP panel proposal that Japan should change the terms of its pacifist constitution, written by the U.S. after world war two to prevent Japan using hostile force to settle geopolitical disputes, to enable a military attack on North Korea.

“The Japanese government has built a defense network since a North Korean Taepodong-1 missile flew over Japan in 1998 that includes anti-missile batteries around Tokyo and is expanding to other major cities. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada in March ordered the shooting down of any North Korean missile or related debris that entered Japanese territory,” reports Bloomberg.

It’s not an exaggeration to conclude that any attack on North Korea could eventually lead to world war three. North Korea and China are allies and both have nuclear weapons. If North Korea is attacked by anyone, its first course of action would be to strike South Korea, a close ally of the United States. This would obligate the U.S. to retaliate, bringing American troops to the Chinese border and any escalation from that point would be a disaster.

As we reported yesterday, if you’re wondering how North Korea got its nukes in the first place, look no further than the U.S. government itself.

Two years before North Korea was included in the “axis of evil,” former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, during his time as executive director of ABB, signed off on a $200 million dollar contract to build light water nuclear reactors in North Korea.
Rumsfeld was merely picking up the baton from the Clinton administration, who in 1994 agreed to replace North Korea’s domestically built nuclear reactors with light water nuclear reactors.

According to Henry Sokolski, head of the Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre in Washington, “These reactors are like all reactors, they have the potential to make weapons. So you might end up supplying the worst nuclear violator with the means to acquire the very weapons we’re trying to prevent it acquiring.”

President George W. Bush provided another $95 million in April 2002 towards the construction of more reactors in North Korea, as well as a further $3.5 million in January 2003.
Construction of the reactors was eventually suspended, but North Korea had an alternative source through which they could obtain the nuclear secrets vital to building an atom bomb arsenal - CIA asset and international arms smuggler AQ Khan.
In 2004, Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb program, admitted sharing nuclear technology via a worldwide smuggling network that included facilities in Malaysia that manufactured key parts for centrifuges.
Khan’s collaborator B.S.A. Tahir ran a front company out of Dubai that shipped centrifuge components to North Korea.

Despite Dutch authorities being deeply suspicious of Khan’s activities as far back as 1975, the CIA prevented them from arresting him on two occasions.

“The man was followed for almost ten years and obviously he was a serious problem. But again I was told that the secret services could handle it more effectively,” former Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said. “The Hague did not have the final say in the matter. Washington did.”
Lubbers stated that Khan was allowed to slip in and out of the Netherlands with the blessing of the CIA, eventually allowing him to become the “primary salesman of an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how,” according to George W. Bush himself, and sell nuclear secrets that allowed North Korea to build nuclear bombs.

“Lubbers suspects that Washington allowed Khan’s activities because Pakistan was a key ally in the fight against the Soviets,” reports CFP. “At the time, the US government funded and armed mujahideen such as Osama bin Laden. They were trained by Pakistani intelligence to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan. Anwar Iqbal, Washington correspondent for the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, told ISN Security Watch that Lubbers’ assertions may be correct. “This was part of a long-term foolish strategy. The US knew Pakistan was developing nuclear weapons but couldn’t care less because it was not going to be used against them. It was a deterrent against India and possibly the Soviets.”

In September 2005 it emerged that the Amsterdam court which sentenced Khan to four years imprisonment in 1983 had lost the legal files pertaining to the case. The court’s vice-president, Judge Anita Leeser, accused the CIA of stealing the files. “Something is not right, we just don’t lose things like that,” she told Dutch news show NOVA. “I find it bewildering that people lose files with a political goal, especially if it is on request of the CIA. It is unheard of.”
In 2005, Pakistani President Pervez Musharaf acknowledged that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea.

With this history in mind, the shock, condemnation and indignation being expressed by the U.S. government in response to North Korea’s second nuclear bomb test is tinged with hypocrisy to say the least. Through their policies in aiding North Korea to build light water reactors, and via the CIA asset AQ Khan who was protected at every step of the way while he helped provide North Korea with the means to build a nuclear arsenal, the U.S. government itself is directly complicit in providing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il with the nuclear weapons that they are now condemning him for testing.

Bill to Audit Fed Gains Serious Momentum

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars
May 22, 2009

It looks like the Federal Reserve may finally have something to worry about now that HR 1207 is finally gaining serious steam. If enacted, HR 1207 will amend title 31 of the United States Code and reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States. In other words, for the first time since 1950, the criminals at the Federal Reserve will be forced by law to open their books.

HR 1207 was sponsored and introduced by Rep. Ron Paul. On February 26, 2009, it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services. It now has 179 co-sponsors (see the list of sponsors below).

If passed, the bill will force the Fed to give a public accounting of the trillions of taxpayer “loans” handed over to the banksters. It will force Congress to audit the Fed and this will force out into the light of day the Fed practice of inflating the currency for the gain of a small number of international bankers. It will reveal the bankster practice of engineering financial crises and depressions — or scientifically created, as Congressman Charles A. Lindberg Sr. said after the Federal Reserve Act was passed in the dead of night — in order to consolidate illicit gains and eliminate competition (as the bankers are monopoly men).

On March 25, 2009, H.R. 1207 had 44 co-sponsors. “We’re making great progress because a lot of you have helped encourage your member of Congress to co-sponsor the bill,” Ron Paul said. “And to me, this is very, very important that we do this. The atmosphere in the Congress has definitely changed. It’s changed with their attitude about the Federal Reserve System, but overall there’s a tremendous push by the American people for the Congress to wake up and have more transparency… I have argued, of course, that we don’t need the Federal Reserve. It’s not part of our constitution and we should get rid of it, but it doesn’t happen that way. But if we get the audit and get the books open, make them answer the questions, I am convinced that the American people will be so outraged that then we will have reform of the monetary system.”

Imagine Ben Bernanke, shorn of his arrogance, dragged before Congress and compelled to answer questions. In the not too distant past, this prospect was a remote dream, but now, thanks to Ron Paul and all the people who have insisted their representatives support this bill, it may become law.