8.08.2008

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0

So far, the Olympics have been an open invitation to China-bash, a bottomless excuse for Western journalists to go after the Commies on everything from internet censorship to Darfur. Through all the nasty news stories, however, the Chinese government has seemed amazingly unperturbed. That’s because it is betting on this: when the opening ceremonies begin friday, you will instantly forget all that unpleasantness as your brain is zapped by the cultural/athletic/political extravaganza that is the Beijing Olympics.

Like it or not, you are about to be awed by China’s sheer awesomeness.

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No Longer A Lunatic

It's the same with everyone I speak to who's been watching the downward spiral of empire for any length of time: "I can't believe how fast things are unraveling", we all say to each other. The incessant mantra these days from people who haven't been paying attention is that "things are going to get better", but almost no one is denying that we are in uncharted waters beyond anything we've experienced since the Great Depression. The uninformed are traumatized, and traumatized people almost always revert to "it's going to get better" thinking in order to cope with their current plight.

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When Does the Lesser Evil Become Just Evil?

Here is what we should be telling them, instead of holding out the perennial hope that this “lesser evil” will somehow show us a difference.

Tell them they can all go straight to hell.

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The Beijing Olympics: Another Vulgar Celebration of Greed and 'Corporatist' Values

Not since 1936 has a police state hosted an Olympics amid such international hype. Still espousing 'communism', the Beijing regime that brought you the Massacre at Tiananmen Square is easily bought off, at least temporarily, by makers of sneakers and other shameless exploiters of labor and humanity. The world has not seen extravagance on this scale since another tyrant --Adolph Hitler --tried to exploit the Olympics to put a smiley face on Nazism.

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Why the Drug War is a Crime against Humanity Explained in Plain English

Like the Iraq war and the "war on terror", the so-called "drug war" is a government contrived "war" based on lies that generates massive profits for a few while causing massive suffering for many.

The drug war is futile by design (and thus never-ending) because it doesn’t "fight" drugs—quite the contrary—it strongly encourages production and distribution of prohibited drugs by guaranteeing extremely high profits.

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Working Poor Unready to Revolt

Once upon a time when governments no longer served most of their citizens it was the most economically disadvantaged that could be counted on to rebel against tyranny and injustice. Times have changed, for the worse, despite the spread of democracy.

Here we are with a two-party plutocracy that preferentially serves corporate and wealthy interests and lets the middle class suffer and sink. Plausibly, the middle class is unready to revolt because it still maintains a relatively good standard of living despite rising economic insecurity. But what about the lowest 40 percent of Americans that are the working poor?

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C. Rice gives the nod to Israeli action against Iran while 2 more carriers stream to the Gulf

US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice yesterday said that the US would not say ‘no’ to an Israeli plan to attack Iran adding that Israel is a sovereign state inferring that the US would not interfere with Israeli plans.

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JPost: 2 more US aircraft carriers headed to Gulf

When the price of a barrel of oil drops below $100, look for the fireworks to start.

Having oil double from $100 to $200 a barrel is more acceptable to these war mongers than seeing it double from $150 a barrel.

Time to stock up on ammo, dry food and have a good supply of cash on hand.

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The Prophetic Challenge: Few are Guilty, but All are Responsible

By Robert Jensen

07/08/08 "
Dissident Voice" --- One of the common refrains I heard from progressive people in Pakistan and India during my month there this summer was, “We love the American people — it’s the policies of your government we don’t like.”

That sentiment is not unusual in the developing world, and such statements can reduce the tension with some Americans when people criticize U.S. policy, which is more common than ever after the illegal invasions and occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

I used to smile and nod when I heard it, but this summer I stopped agreeing.

“You shouldn’t love the American people,” I started saying. “You should hate us — we’re the enemy.”

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The Tragic Last Moments of Margaret Hassan

When a renowned British aid worker was kidnapped in Iraq, the world was horrified. Her body was never recovered, but her execution was captured on video and sent to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite channel. Robert Fisk watched it and reveals why it has never been broadcast.

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Someone wants him to 'shut up'

An Open Letter by Mike Whitney

8/6/08

My friend Tom Feeley is in Big trouble. He runs the web site informationclearinghouse.info which updates “news you won’t find in the corporate media” every day. The site is strongly anti-war.

Tom has gotten his share of death threats over the years, but what happened this week is a lot more serious.

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Constitution Your County



Law enforcement officers need to understand their obligation to uphold the Constitution. Regrettably, this is something they have been taught to believe they can overlook. Therefore, as honorable and decent Americans, it is our job to remind them very politely and nicely that they signed an oath to do just that while serving and protecting the people.

The best way to do this is to see they read the Constitution by giving them each a copy. You may also wish to give them a copy of "The Proper Role of Law Enforcement," by Sheriff Richard Mack, that is for you to decide.

This site is your easy to follow instructions for sending a wake up call to law enforcement, now, when it may help them avoid acting in violation of the Constitution. Many Americans, right, left, green, libertarian and just concerned agree that such a wake up call is needed. Find others who share that concern; deliver the message. Now.

Visit Website for Complete Instructions

Restore Constitutional Government to America

By Melinda Pillsbury-Foster
Online Journal Guest Writer

Aug 7, 2008

Every day we move closer to disaster; every time we open the paper, surf the Internet, it is worse. Left, right, libertarian, green, we know in our bones and hearts that we need to take action.

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Big Brother Reversed: NY's Video Vigilante, Sourge of the Police

Jimmy Justice' Posts Images of Officers Breaking the Law

New York -- He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked.

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8.07.2008

Law Professor: Counter-terrorism Czar told me there is going to be an i-9/11 and an i-Patriot Act


By Steve Watson

06/08/08 Infowars" Tuesday, August 5, 2008 -- Amazing revelations have emerged concerning already existing government plans to overhaul the way the internet functions in order to apply much greater restrictions and control over the web.

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Winter Patriot: Is Pakistan's "public enemy number 1" a CIA asset? Of course he is! Otherwise he'd have been dead a long time ago!

Pakistan's most feared terrorist communicates with encryption so strong the Pakistani intelligence services cannot crack it. He gets information on Pakistani troop movements from an unidentified foreign government. He's said to be responsible for the vast majority of terrorist attacks in Pakistan (including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto), but the Americans -- who don't mind bombing "Islamic militants" in Pakistan every now and then -- have refused to attack him despite having solid information as to his whereabouts. And on, and on, and on...

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The Anti-Empire Report

Obama and the Empire
The New Yorker magazine in its July 14 issue ran a cover cartoon that achieved instant fame. It showed Barack Obama wearing Muslim garb in the Oval Office with a portrait of Osama bin Laden on the wall. Obama is delivering a fist bump to his wife, Michelle, who has an Afro hairdo and an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. An American flag lies burning in the fireplace. The magazine says it's all satire, a parody of the crazy right-wing fears, rumors, and scare tactics about Obama's past and ideology.

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James Petras: Racism and Genocide: Lies of our Times

One of the hallmarks of totalitarian ideologues is the use of the big lie: a virulent attack on a defenseless group and then a categorical denial turning victims into executioners and executioners into victims.
. 08.06.2008
Zionist genocide promoter, Benny Morris practices the Big Lie1. He claims, “I have never supported the brutal expulsion of all Palestinians…I have said, repeatedly, that the expulsion of the Palestinians is immoral and impracticable.

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Suskind: Sources of WH forgery claim now under pressure to deny it

Author Ron Suskind says his sources are under "enormous pressure" to change their stories after revealing to him that the Bush administration had ordered the CIA to forge a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence connecting Iraq to the 9/11 hijackers.

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Domestic spying, hack attacks and secret searches; a real case of domestic spying in Grantham, NH

John Heartson is a retired engineer with a degree in mechanical engineering, who was working in New Hampshire when this all happened. His curiosity and detailed investigation into events surrounding 9/11 and anthrax made him the target of domestic spying, unconstitutional searches of his home and a threat to his life in 2004.

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The Newbie's guide to detecting the NSA

It's not surprising that an expert hired by EFF should produce an analysis that supports the group's case against AT&T. But last week's public court filing of a redacted statement by J. Scott Marcus is still worth reading for the obvious expertise of its author, and the cunning insights he draws from the AT&T spy documents.

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Ghosts in the Machine: Encounters with the NSA

Quite some time ago, I am not sure exactly when, the thought police (National Security Agency) clandestinely moved into my computer. It did so without my permission and in violation of the law, not to mention the Constitution. The prying eyes of government are watching my every move, noting my every keystroke and monitoring my every electronic transmission and telephone conversation. They became visible to me one day when I did a trace route from the Windows command line of my home computer. Since then we have been peering at each other with eyes that do not blink.

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Catherine Austin Fitts: Housing Bill

Any government official asked to come up with a workout plan for troubled financial institutions, large portfolios of financial assets and liabilities and/or places that are financially challenged first must consider all the constituencies involved. No matter what his or her goals, an official must choose from among the options available. Before we judge them harshly, we must consider what we would do if we stood in the same shoes.

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Suskind's research assistant detained by federal agents and interrogated in 9/07

In the acknowledgments of his new book, Pulitzer-Prize winner Ron Suskind writes that his research assistant was “detained by federal agents” and “interrogated” while on a trip to New York related to the book. Politco’s Mike Allen reports:

Suskind writes in the acknowledgments that his research assistant, Greg Jackson, “was sent to New York on a project for the book” in September 2007 and was “detained by federal agents in Manhattan. He was interrogated and his notes were confiscated, violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights.” The author provides no further detail.


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8.06.2008

Pictures of Rakan

What. Are. We. Doing?

The end of Rakan's war

by Kevin Cullen, The Boston Globe

Life asked far too much of Rakan Hassan, the Iraqi boy brought to Boston in 2005 for treatment after a mistaken shooting by American troops. The next chapter of his story is hard to write.


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The Land of the Settlers

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Moral endo-skeletons and exo-skeletons: a perspective on America's cultural divide and current crisis

In the months after the 2004 election, when the Red States were said to have voted on the basis of their "moral values," it was noted by many observers that the sleazy TV and movies the traditionalist and Christian right denounce so energetically also tend to get their highest ratings in the same parts of the country most populated by such people. (It was noted, as well, that some of the family pathologies that traditionalists decry are found at high rates among these most vocal proponents of "family values.")

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TaxProf Blog: Johnston: Trust, but verify

David Cay Johnston has published Trust, but Verify, 120 Tax Notes 485 (Aug. 4, 2008):

New data, not yet published by the IRS, establish beyond a doubt that America has two income tax systems, separate and unequal. One system effectively taxes people with wages, while the other system is a sieve of untaxed income for investors and business owners.

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Tarplay: US-UK intelligence readies Turkistan Islamic Party terror gambit for Beijing Olympics

This part is particularly interesting... - Ed.

A TOTALLY NEW HIT LIST FOR THE PRINCIPALS’ COMMITTEE

The new target list is being dictated by the Principals’ Committee, which currently rules in Washington. Among the Principals are Rice at State, Gates at Defense, Paulson at Treasury, and Admiral Mullen as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, plus some others. This group is now running the US government. Bush and Cheney are little better than figureheads, lame ducks who have virtually ceased to influence government affairs as they fade away. The top neocons are either in jail, like Lord Conrad Black, or running for cover. The playbook for the Principals is the Brzezinski Plan, with its focus on working towards a global showdown with Russia and China. A US-UK attack on Iran is now virtually excluded, but instead large-scale bombing and preparations for a land invasion of northwest Pakistan are proceeding apace. The pretext cited here is the search for Bin Laden and the need to combat the Taliban, but the real goal is to start the breakup of Pakistan into five or six petty states – because Pakistan is a Chinese ally, and all allies and trading partners of China are presently being targeted for regime change, destabilization, and Balkanization, from Sudan to Zimbabwe to Burma to Venezuela to Pakistan. It is time for opponents of false flag terrorism to ditch their maps of the Persian Gulf in favor of much larger world maps, with special attention for the geopolitical features of the Eurasian landmass discussed by Obama backer Brzezinski in his book, The Grand Chessboard.

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Winter Patriot: Chinese terror attack a harbinger of much worse to come: Tarplay

Tarplay's another one I wonder about, but again, here you go for some interesting reading. - Ed.

The terrorist attack that killed at least 16 Chinese policemen yesterday appears to confirm the warning issued by Webster Tarpley last week. Tarpley's piece claims NATO (US/UK) intelligence is behind the “Turkestan Islamic Party,” which the Chinese have blamed for yesterday's attack.

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Phew Bush Dirty Diapers

I saw this the other day and decided not to post it because I couldn't figure out if this source is legitimate or not. Seems kind of too good to be true to me. All the same, here it is for what it's worth. - Ed.

As the bad news unfolds in the Caspian Basin that the US is being 'shut out' of its delusional Grand Chessboard scheme, there are other forest fires, tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes erupting in the US and UK that may well spell the doom of BushCo and the Imbecile Great Decider at the helm. He is now expendable and vulnerable to both impeachment and possible war crimes charges. Pay attention to how expendable 'Gorgon' Brown suddenly has become. Bush is next as should be most of those in DC.

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Book says WH ordered forgery

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

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More information here.

Now we know: The anthrax attacks were an inside job

The first of the anthrax letters were sent on September 18, 2001, just seven days after the events of 9/11 (the same day I wrote the essay: Is This the Dawn of an Orwellian Police State?). Immediately after the attacks of 9/11, yet before the anthrax attacks, many individuals within the government and the media were warned of impending anthrax attacks,, told to procure Cipro and, in some cases, start taking it preemptively. These warnings came from "high government officials.'

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Brad Blog: Government's purported 'anthrax killer' was a registered democrat

Party Affiliation of the Now-Deceased Bruce Ivins, as Confirmed by His Local County Board of Elections, Adds Yet Another Curious Question to the Increasingly Troubling Investigation into the Post-9/11 Terrorist Attacks on American Soil...

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8.05.2008

Inflation and the New World Order

The sunlight on the lake sparkles at dawn. As they have done for millions of years, the rounded tree-shrouded shoulders of the Green Mountains loom above the still waters. A loon calls from the next lake over. Who would guess that that not far from such serenity the world’s most powerful nation was teetering on the brink of disaster? Though here in the bosom of nature one wonders why we should be surprised. Nations and empires come and then they go.

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The end of Zionism, by Avraham Burg, 9/15/2003

The Zionist revolution has always rested on two pillars: a just path and an ethical leadership. Neither of these is operative any longer. The Israeli nation today rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice. As such, the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep. There is a real chance that ours will be the last Zionist generation. There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be a different sort, strange and ugly.

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What you should know about the AP

The Associated Press is a monstrous contradiction. On one hand, the 162-year-old, corporate-media collective feigns high concern for accuracy, objectivity, and other journalistic principles; on the other hand, it operates at the expense of same.

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Why does RCMP refer to flesh eating murderer as 'badger'?

via Cryptogon, creepy:

Is “Badger” a generic term that these cops use to refer to suspects??? Or… Hmm.

There’s a recording of the police radio transmissions here and here.

Also, I’ve come across a couple (1, 2) other decapitation cases in recent days, besides the one below.

Random madness, or something else?

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William Greider raps predatory usury schemes

On July 18, 2008, popular author and reporter William Greider, an expert on the shenanigans of Wall Street, “The Fed” and the Stock Market, gave an interview to PBS’s Bill Moyers on an array of topics that have literally brought the U.S. economy to its knees. (1) On the broadcast, he referred to the predatory lending practices, which have led to the notorious “Housing Bubble.” He said the schemes were sourced by the “sin of usury!” Mr. Greider explained: “It is rich people taking advantage of poor people by lending them money on terms, that are sure to fail...People of great wealth and their institutions, like banks, naturally have the power to overwhelm people of lesser means. And you can’t allow that in a decent society. It won’t survive,” he predicted.

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Hundreds of banks will fail, Roubini tells Barrons

Roubini was 'talking crazy' when his colleagues were all still cheerleaders. Now they listen. - Ed.

NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - The United States is in the second inning of a recession that will last for at least 18 months and help kill off hundreds of banks, influential economist and New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini told Barron's in Sunday's edition.

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Lawrence of Cyberia: Killing by Numbers

The Independent ran an article on Friday about Shaul Mofaz, a contender for the Kadima party leadership and presumably, if it looks like Likud is a better bet for electoral success than Kadima, also a contender for the position of Defense Minister in a Netanyahu government. The article describes a briefing Mofaz gave in May 2001 (when he was Army Chief of Staff) in which he reportedly gave verbal instructions to the IDF's senior commanders in the West Bank that he expected from them seventy dead Palestinians every day.

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The Heart of the Economic Mess

by Robert Reich

Most Americans can no longer maintain their standard of living. And the core problem isn't the housing crisis or rising oil and food prices.

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The Ticking Iraqi Clock

by John Bruhns

As an Iraq veteran it's very hard for me to grip the strong possibility that the troop surge in Iraq was all for naught. So recently I have been focusing on the successes of the surge in Iraq without political or ideological blinders. I recently wrote a piece to touch on a different angle than my usual argument that the war is unjustified and illegal in the eyes of millions of Americans and the world community. However, this was all based on a hypothetical scenario that we actually had a compelling reason to invade and occupy Iraq in the first place.

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PsyOp: Is Washington intent on sabotaging the Beijing Olympics?

by Michael Chossudovsky


In the weeks leading up to the Beijing Olympics, an atmosphere of fear and insecurity is unfolding.

China has not only been targeted for its human rights violations, a China based Islamic terrorist organization has announced that it is planning to "create havoc" at the outset of the Olympics.

According to media reports, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) has claimed responsibility for several pre-Olympic terror attacks including the July 21 bombing of three buses in Kunming, capital of Yunnan, which killed two and left 13 injured, as well as a similar Shanghai bus bombing in May. The TIP also claimed responsibility for an attack in Wenzhou on July 17 using an explosives-laden tractor and the bombing of a Guangzhou plastics factory on July 17 (Sydney Morning Herald, 27 July 2008).

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Anthrax Roundup

Glenn Greenwald:

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News
The FBI's lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government's biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).

Salon Letters to the Editor: I question you, as you question NBC and ABC
I am suprised that this article, which both attacks and questions the legitimacy of ABC & NBC news' reporting isn't remotely interested in questioning the legitimacy of the media claims of Ivins' supposed "guilt."

I have been reading news articles about the case and am disgusted by the inconsistencies and blind accusations that are being made about Ivins. Certainly there is cause for suspicion: the FBI investigating him. But has it been forgotten that the FBI falsely accused Steven Hatfill and Richard Jewell of crimes? The FBI ruined the reputations of innocent men in a rush to close a case...are you starting to see a pattern?

Journalists, their lying sources, and the anthrax investigation
The death of government scientist Bruce Ivins has generated far more questions about the anthrax attacks than it has answered. I want to return to the role the establishment media played in obfuscating the anthrax investigation for so long and, at times, aiding in what was clearly the deliberate deceit on the part of Government sources. This is yet another case where the establishment media possesses -- yet steadfastly conceals -- some of the most critical facts about what the Government has done, and insists on protecting the wrongdoers.

Additional key facts re: the anthrax investigation
It's perfectly possible that Bruce Ivins really is the anthrax attacker -- that he perpetrated the attacks and did so alone. Perhaps the FBI is in possession of mountains of conclusive evidence that, once revealed, will leave no doubt that Ivins is the guilty party. But no rational person could possibly assume that to be the case given the paltry amount of facts -- many of which contradict one another -- that are now known. Several points to note:

Now, moving on to where Glenn does not go...

The Patsy: Was Bruce Ivins the anthrax killer? by Justin Raimondo
he media narrative now being woven around the apparent suicide of U.S. government scientist Bruce E. Ivins – a prominent anthrax researcher who worked at Ft. Detrick's U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases bio-weapons research lab (USAMRIID) – is that he was a lone nut, a "homicidal maniac" who poisoned the five people killed in the 2001 anthrax attacks and was determined to go on another killing spree at his workplace as the Feds closed in on him.

'Suicide' of anthrax scientist - another Mossad frame-up? - crescentandcross
The last week of July, all across America could be heard an almost audible sigh of relief as headlines blared the news on the hour every hour that ‘he’ had finally been caught, the ‘he’ in this case being the infamous bioterrorist (unknown and unnamed up to this point) who sent deadly anthrax through the US mail system a mere week after the attacks of 9/11, leading to the deaths of 5.

What should have been heard across America however was a disquieting ‘hmmmm,’ as Americans scratched their heads and pondered the likelihood that the story being fed them concerning the ‘suicide’ of Ft. Dietrich bioweapons lab scientist Bruce E. Ivins was just another in a long string of lies, that it was not a suicide at all, but rather just one more cog in a Zionist-organized cover-up that has continued now for almost 7 years, beginning with 9/11.

8.04.2008

Forget impeachment. Try them for murder.

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Smoking Mirrors: 9/11...The ship goes down while the band plays on

It’s the most amazing thing about the 9/11 attacks. You’ve got hundreds of professionals in the sciences and engineering fields that are on record and supported by irrefutable evidence who say that 9/11 could not have happened the way they say it did. You have hundreds of professional pilots, military pilots and aviation experts who say that those accused of piloting the planes could not possibly have done so. You have former leaders from Japan and Germany as well as intelligence chiefs from Italy and other places who say that 9/11 was an Inside Job and that those who carried it out were members of the CIA, the Israeli Mossad and elements of British intelligence.

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Professor Nocera claims 'almost 100%' conversion efficiency

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have combined a liquid catalyst with photovoltaic cells to achieve what they claim is a solar energy system that could generate electricity around the clock.

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Who will start the war against Iran?

This one makes a lot of sense to me. Unfortunately. - Ed.

By Bob Finch

An increasing number of commentators have pointed out that Israel, and the Zionists in America who give primary loyalty to the Jews-only state, are at the forefront of the campaign to push America into a war against Iran. However, which country, America or the Jews-only state, would initiate an attack on Iran is a matter of speculation.

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The minimum security prison of America

For those just tuning in here, I live in the state of Michigan. As such, I am surrounded on two sides (north and east, a little south if you want to get trivia-esque) by Canada. While I haven’t gone recently (a few years) due to a lack of funds, earlier on this decade I would go to Canada when I had the chance - especially when I spent a couple of years in northern Michigan in the tiny city of Sault Sainte Marie, MI, which is a stone’s throw from its twin city of the same name in Canada. The border crossing process had usually been rather simple for me, with the most that I got asked is “Where’d you go? How long were you there? Bringing back lots of money? Alright have a good one.” I suppose it was a bit naive of me to think that things would go south in the couple of years since I’ve been to Canada, especially in lieu of revelations that Homeland Security can take your laptop at the border if they feel like it.

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The Real State of the US Economy

Henry Paulson has lost the control over US finance

by William F. Engdahl

When Henry Paulson agreed to leave his job as chairman of the powerful Wall Street investment bank, Goldman Sachs to go to Washington as Treasury Secretary in 2006 he demanded extraordinary powers as de facto economic czar. He got it. Paulson is also head of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets -- the secretary of the treasury and the chairmen of the Federal Reserve Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The Working Group is the financial world's equivalent of the Pentagon war room. Paulson, not Fed chairman Bernanke, is the person running the Administration’s crisis management. And his recent actions indicate he has lost control as the snowballing problems from the semi-government mortgage companies Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to the collapse of the multi-trillion dollar market in Asset Backed Securities (ABS) to the real economy are compounding into the worst crisis since the 1930’s Great Depression.

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AF Officer Dead; Likely a Suicide

Tools, tools, tools, everywhere. - Ed.

by Sharon Weinberger

The Air Force's bad year just got a whole lot worse. A general who spent nearly two years as the executive officer to the recently ousted Air force chief of staff has died in an apparent suicide at his home in Alaska.

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Syrian President's Top Aide Assassinated

The order of countries that Israel wants taken out: Iraq, Iran, Syria. And, Mossad's motto is By Way of Deception, thou shall do war. - Ed.

by Hana Levi Julian

(IsraelNN.com) Syrian President Bashar Assad's top aide and adviser, General Mohammed Suleiman, was assassinated on Friday, according to Arab news sources.

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Winter Patriot: Clarity at Last

Border guards don't need a reason to seize your laptops, cellphones, cameras, iPods, tapes, books, handwritten notes...

We've heard some scary stories, and we've wondered. We've had murky questions and dark suspicions, but we didn't really know anything.

Now -- lucky us -- we have answers! We have clarity! We finally know what to expect in border inspections.

According to the government, border guards can seize any data storage medium, and copy any data -- from your laptop computers, cell phones, digital cameras, memory cards, iPods, portable disk drives and such, as well as from traditional analog media such as tapes, books, pamphlets and even handwritten notes. And they can do it for no reason, without any grounds for suspicion, without any hint that you might have done anything wrong.

We will all be comforted to have answers to longstanding questions.

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The Planned Collapse of America

By: Peter Chamberlin

There is no shortage of speculation about “why” our leaders are still adamantly planning for the destruction of Iran, in the face of overwhelming popular opposition, even though everyone except the neocons and their allies believes that America would not survive our own actions. An irrational attack is planned and apparently the decision has been chiseled in stone. It may be for Israel. It may be for oil. Maybe it is for world domination?

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Orwell Today

Comparing the world George Orwell described in "1984"
with the world we are living in today, 2001/2/3/4/5/6/7 2008

Visit website

My questions for Langevin about Iran

by iStockAnalyst

Apparently under orders from AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Rhode Island's U.S. Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin co-sponsored HCR 362 -- a mysterious and dangerous resolution calling for a blockade of Iran (http:// thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.CON.RES.362:).

Unable to understand the resolution, I called the office of Mr. Langevin -- a congressman who seems to represent AIPAC more than Rhode Island. The gentleman who answered knew little or nothing about it, but he promised to relay my questions to him. I sent him the following questions about HCR 362 in writing:

How did you learn of "Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons"?

Why is your source more reliable than the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) and the reports of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)?

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8.03.2008

Revolution: The aftermath of creating an American peasantry?

By Jane Stillwater

Last week I went to the Berkeley Public Library, looking for a book-on-tape to listen to while driving around town in my 1990 Toyota Tercel that gets 35 miles per gallon but still takes $45 worth of gas to fill up its puny little tank. But the only book-on-tape I could find there was John Reed’s “Insurgent Mexico”. Didn’t they have anything better than that?

“John Reed is old hat,” I said to myself. “That book was written in 1910. How could it possibly be relevant today?” Well it was. It turns out that John Reed was the freaking INVENTOR of Gonzo Journalism. And the Mexican Revolution? Aye, Carumba! Totally exciting. This revolution came about after Mexico’s peasant class had been deliberately and systematically pushed to its very limits of endurance by wealthy land-owners, bankers, industrialists and government officials — to the point where these hard-working bottom-of-the rung peons finally stood up to the rich dudes and said, “Basta!” Enough! “We can endure no more.”

The book made for great driving entertainment. It’s a wonder I didn’t run any more red lights than I did.

Then a journalist friend called me this morning and we started chatting about Africa. “Let’s talk about possible American military intervention in Darfur,” he said. “Remember when Mia Farrow suggested that they should send in Blackwater? That was a crazy idea. Sending in Blackwater would just create another Somalia or even end up igniting all of Africa. What Farrow should have said is that Americans need to put economic pressure on China instead.”

And why would that work?

“Because if China’s economy goes too far downhill, then its leaders will have to deal with China’s peasant class once again — like the mandarins had to do back in the old days. You gotta remember that China’s peasant class is still a major force to be reckoned with. Look how Mao was able to organize it and use it to take over the country. And the leaders in China today know this. At all times they are totally aware that this particular wolf is galloping along behind their sled, that their peasant class is already operating without a safety net, are the poorest of the poor and, if further bad times arrive because China can no longer sell its goods to the West, they might find another leader like Mao and stage another revolution.”

That got me to thinking. “You know, there’s no peasant class here in America, so American corporatists and politicians don’t have to worry about that.” Well, maybe we have some illegal aliens. And some homeless guys and some ghettos…but….

But what WOULD happen if American corporatists and their politcians in Washington continue to be allowed to chisel away at the American economy, and things really get bad here too? Would a new American peasant class be created? And if so — and if things in America really got desperate enough — would there be a revolution here too? “Insurgent America”? Aye, Carumba!

As American corporatists continue to work their little butts off in order to create their ultimate wet-dream of “cheap labor” here in the US as well as abroad, might they also be creating some kind of Frankenstein’s monster peasant class that will eventually come back and bite them in said little butts — when the villagers they are trying so hard to create out of America’s former middle class start coming after them with torches and pitchforks?

American corporatists need to be careful what they wish for.

Perhaps they too would benefit from driving around town (past all those home-foreclosure signs and boarded-up banks) while listening to John Reed’s “Insurgent Mexico” book-on-tape.

A revolution in America — either by peasants or not — might be happening here sooner rather than later if the economy continues to fail at the startling rate that it is now bob-sledding straight down. According to Kitco columnist Darryl Robert Schoon, “Since 1913 when the Federal Reserve first issued its debt based paper money in the US, the paper US dollar has lost 95 % of its value, a loss of 95 % over 95 years. Perhaps in five more years, 100 years after the creation of the Federal Reserve, the US dollar will have lost 100 % of its value—which means in five years the US paper dollar will be worth nothing.”

According to journalist Mike Whitney, our current banking system is also hard at work trying to create a new American peasant class. “As the bank-runs increase, the FDIC will be forced to admit the truth, that they don’t have the resources to deal with a problem this big. Currently, the FDIC has only $53 billion in reserves to guarantee $4 trillion in total bank deposits. The entire system has a mere $267 billion cash in the vaults.”

And Whitney is also pretty pissed off about that new housing bail-out bill. He claims that American homeowners probably won’t see a penny of that money. “None of congress’s back-room maneuvering has anything to do with ‘providing a lifeline for the struggling homeowner’, as Senator Dodd claims. That’s all bunkum. The homeowner won’t get a lick of help from this bill. Its just another handout for the brokerage fraternity…. The whole system has been rejiggered to serve the needs of a few greedy bankers on top of the food chain…. The truth is, the big money guys have taken a wrecking-ball to the financial system and now they’ve moved on to the real economy. By the time they’re done, we’ll be picking through the rubble just to feed our families.”

Welcome to Peasantville, America.

My only question now is, “Just exactly how bad must the economy get before the soon-to-be-nascent American peasantry finally starts to wake up?”


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