#
Rick Warren, the hatemonger Barack Obama pals around with, gets kudos from a lot of people for his work against AIDS in Africa, but if you peel back the public relations surrounding Warren's AIDS work, the reality is damned ugly -- and far worse than anything Warren's done to California. Warren's point man on AIDS in Africa is another charismatic preacher named Martin Ssempa, who calls for the arrest of homosexuals and the political prosecution and public harassment of gay activists. Ssempa and Warren's AIDS work in Africa is built around cheerleading for abstinence and fidelity, but they're adamantly and insanely opposed to condoms and family planning of any kind. So Rick Warren isn't just anti-gay rights, his work literally makes gay people dead. And he'll be delivering the invocation at Barack Obama's inauguration.
[ maxblumenthal.com ]
#
"I used to believe that people could pull together and change the course of the world, it was a matter of opening their eyes, taking responsibility, and realizing their own power. The longer I live, the more I have my doubts about humanity, and about just how much longer I'll live to continue doubting." --Chris D.
[ Unknown News ]
#
Thirty of 250 prisoners at the Guantanamo concentration camp are on hunger strikes -- more than 10% of the people illegally imprisoned there. And the source for these numbers is a US military spokesperson, so it's almost certainly a lie, with the real numbers being much worse. Even in a free society, it's hard to get 10% of any group to take direct action. In a place where radical conversations and protests and pamphleteering are, let's say, very much discouraged by the authorities, getting 10% of prison inmates to take a direct action that puts their lives in jeopardy and puts a tube up their noses is one hell of a remarkable accomplishment. It sends the massage -- again -- that conditions at Guantanamo are phenomenally awful and inhumane. And again, America's leaders (Republicans and Democrats) can be counted on to not give a damn.
[ McClatchy Newspapers ]
#
As the curtain finally comes down on an administration so blatantly criminal Bush and Cheney might as well have been wearing nylons over their faces, G.W. Bush again says that he personally authorized the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, but that such war crimes "were necessary and are necessary".
[ Crooks & Liars ]
#
Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) has introduced a bill that would establish a "blue ribbon committee" to investigate the myriad illegal and unConstitutional abuses of power by the Bush-Cheney administration. Sadly, though, Conyers is completely untrustworthy. He has been the most two-faced member of Congress over the past eight years -- loudly and repeatedly criticizing Bush's lawlessness while working to block oversight and impeachment. He's all about looking tough and never about being tough, and he wouldn't introduce or support such a measure unless he had quietly ascertained in advance that there's no chance it'll pass.
[ ThinkProgess ]
#
Sure, what Israel's doing in Gaza is shameful, but it's only the victims and people like you and me -- people who don't matter -- who are complaining. Dead kids now number 260, and the US Senate wants everyone who's infuriated by Israel's savagery to hate America too. And yes, obviously, what Israel's doing amounts to war crimes.
[ Wall Street Journal ]
#
Again it's reported (and again it'll be ignored) that there's virtually no oversight of the Bush-Cheney-Obama-McCain bailout program. And again, the bailout is falsely reported to be $700-billion, when in reality it's already into the multi-trillions of dollars.
[ Reuters News Agency ]
#
The comparisons between here and now and the Great Depression are seeming less and less hyperbolic.
[ Reuters News Agency ]
#
To keep the public from knowing who met with high-ranking officials of the Bush-Cheney administration, the White House entry logs of the Secret Service were illegally deleted, for several years. And Bush-Cheney is still trying to keep the records secret, from the time after 2004, when the illegal deletions were halted.
[ Associated Press ]
#
Remember that college kid who brilliantly monkeywrenched the auction of public lands that were supposed to be preserved but were instead sold by the Bush-Cheney criminal administration? Well, he's raised $45,000 -- enough to make the down-payment on the land he purchased, and enough to delay final disposition of the land until Obama's team takes office.
[ Eco Localizer ]
#
In many American states, judges have no constraint on their power to jail anyone they wish for the nebulous charge of "civil contempt". Some unlucky Americans have spent years in jail for civil contempt, without ever facing another judge.
[ Wall Street Journal ]
# "Last August, the US Army held a three-day conference in Portsmouth, Virginia, to look at new developments in military science and hardware. The confab was called the '2008 Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar.' Really."
There's mainly two things 'mad scientists' are noted for: attempts to take over the world, and being either dangerously insane (or evil) or both. This piece shows just how far the US military has sunk under Bush/Cheney, to entertain such a label (even if only as a joke; mass killings aren't funny; and that's the Army's reason for existence).
[ Wired ]
#
People who gave to California's Proposition 8 campaign opposing gay marriage now say they're fearful of harassment and want the record of their donations deleted. The notion that campaign donations are public records is fairly well established, but I'd be willing to consider arguments for changing that rule across the board on the grounds of privacy. I'm not at all willing to give privacy only to hatemongers, though, which is what Prop 8's backers want.
[ Associated Press ]
#
Senator Kit Bond (R-Missouri) has announced that after more than two decades working to push America into the 19th century, he's won't be running for re-election next year. Unless you live in Missouri, Bond's name probably won't ring a bell, since he's never gotten much national press, preferring to work his evil in the shadows and back rooms. But we saw more than enough of Bond when we lived in Missouri. He's opposed civil rights and anything that could protect the environment, and been a quiet but reliable supporter of Bush's torture policies. The Republicans will have a hard time coming up with a worse candidate, but I have a lot of confidence that they'll try.
[ Kansas City Star ]
#
Coal ash, similar to the sludge that's made a few hundred acres of Tennessee a toxic waste dump, can be found in 32 states. [ Associated Press ]
#
This is a one-hour radio interview with David Cay Johnston, author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill). In a wide-ranging conversation, Johnson explains how all aspects of American tax policy and law have been sculpted to the advantage of the rich, and how it's ruining America. Lots of common sense here, explained with uncommon clearness. The part that hit me hardest, though it lasted only a few minutes, was Johnson's recollection that when he went to college just a few decades ago, it was free -- the cost was paid by the government. Kids today can't get into even a state college for less than about $9,000 per year, an impossible cost for most poor and even middle-class families without a back-breaking loan. "What we're doing here is the functional equivalent of an agrarian society eating its seed
corn. We are taking the most valuable asset we have -- young minds -- and not investing in them, and in the long run it will make Americans poorer.
[ Wisconsin Public Radio ]
#
A federal judge says no, the FBI needs a formal wiretap order before they can make note of all the phone buttons you push during a call -- button-pushing that might reveal your bank account or credit card numbers, your PIN# or other passwords, etc. The glass half-full view is, of course, that it's great the judge had the common sense to say no, but I'm taking the glass half-empty view -- isn't it a tad terrifying that your government thinks it can so casually note every button you push?
[ CNet News ]
#
The volume of mail being handled by the Postal Service is way down, for the same reasons newspapers are losing circulation. More people are sending emails than writing letters, and shopping and paying bills on-line instead of getting bills and sending payment by mail. Maybe this isn't unknown news -- I remember reading about the declining volume of mail a few years ago, but it had completely slipped off my news radar.
[ Kansas City Star ]
#
Is anyone really surprised that ABC-TV's Homeland Security USA is a tad reminiscent of Triumph of the Will?
[ TruthDig ]
#
Spurred to action by the firing of their favorite math teacher, high school kids in a California town passed petitions to recall the entire school board.
[ Los Angeles Times ]
#
Two years after leaving his mega-church over allegations involving a male hooker, famed charlatan Ted Haggard now says that his sexual identity can't be put into "stereotypical boxes". Come a little further out of the closet and renounce all the hatemongering right-wing ideologies you've endorsed in the past, Reverend Ted, and I'll give you a little hug.
[ Associated Press ]
#
The State Department's "OpenNet email system" is so strikingly limited that when some users hit "reply all" with very long cc lists, it "nearly knocked out one of the State Department's main electronic communications systems". If I'm reading this news correctly, OpenNet is an off-the-internet service for "sensitive but unclassified information", and US foreign affairs
are being conducted on a system that's held together with metaphorical chewing gum and fishing wire and duct tape -- and what do you want to bet it was purchased and installed by Bush-Cheney cronies?
[ Associated Press ]
#
This link leads to the first mainstream media coverage I've seen that actually (albeit briefly) addresses some of the problems with the coming transition of American TV from old-fashioned "analog" to newfangled "digital", instead of simply cheerleading for the wonders of digital TV technology. As we've mentioned before, we lost one of our local stations when we plugged in our converter box, and on the remaining stations the rabbit-ear reception is sharper when it comes in... but what's the real value of an improved image when watching reruns of The Simpsons, if the trade-off is that you lose reception entirely every time a plane passes by, a storm kicks up, or the neighbors upstairs step into their kitchen instead of their living room? The new technology simply sucks, and it isn't ready for prime time. It's a minor complaint for me -- I can live without channel 47 and heck, I lived without TV at all for several years in the 1990s -- but it's potentially going to be a major problem for a lot of poor people, rural people, and people who aren't as tech-savvy as we are (which isn't all that savvy). Like Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) says, "Television is a connection to the outside world for many people. But if you're 80 years old and living on Social Security, you may not be able to buy an antenna or hire someone to install it." The head of the FCC, Bush crony Kevin Martin, opposes any delay, which only adds evidence that a delay is needed. In Hawaii they're making the switch on Thursday, and I'm curious to see how it goes.
[ Associated Press ]
#
Warner Bros apparently doesn't want you to watch its DVDs.
[ maxbarry.com ]
#
So what happens when you "buy" an e-book and the e-book "provider" goes belly-up? Apparently, your e-book disappears from your e-library. [ Boing Boing ]
#
It's just another newspaper shutting down, but the Seattle Post-Intelligencer was one of my hometown's two papers and I briefly worked there, under the giant globe with its spinning electrically-lit motto, "It's in The P-I". It was the first paper I routinely read every day, and it was a pretty good paper day-in day-out, better than its cross-town rival The Seattle Times. Years after moving away The P-I was one of the few out-of-town papers I occasionally read at the library, and I'm sure sad that The P-I is coming to an end.
[ Associated Press ]
#
"I have never been one of those who saw Barack Obama with blinders on, projecting all my best liberal hopes upon him. However, that said, I will say that just days from his inaugural, it is heartbreaking to my liberal soul to see Obama become so deeply embedded into the Beltway Bubble crowd that he can validate all the logical fallacies that have had so many of us beating our head against the wall for the last eight years." --Nicole Belle
[ Crooks & Liars ]
Monday's comments from readers
Please send your news tips, comments, and criticisms to <unknownnews at inbox.com>. If that address ever fails, check our contact page for our alternate email addresses.
#
A MUST READ article on Hamas & Israel: While doing my reading of the news using the Internet, I saved this article. I can confirm that it is an EXCELLENT and a MUST READ article. It was written by Norman Finkelstein and it does what it sets out to do -- provides some FACTS.
Over the last 15 days since Israel started its attack on the Gaza Strip, I've really gotten caught up in it. Turkish TV is covering everything extensively, and Turks have been protesting and working to send humanitarian supplies non-stop. I've also been following Press TV's coverage. Despite living in the comfort of my own home, it's been an emotional experience. So for me this article takes me back to thinking instead of feeling. For those in a hurry, here are a some of those facts. BUT, reading the article IS worth your time.
SOME OF THE FACTS
(1) It was Israel that broke the ceasefire that began in June, 2008 as Mike Rivero at WRH has also pointed out.
(2) The reason Israel broke it is that they wanted Hamas to retaliate. It enabled them to move on with their plans for an invasion begun in March, 2008.
(3) The first main reason for the invasion -- "to transmit the message that Israel is still a fighting force [after their defeat in July 2006], still capable of terrorizing those who dare defy its word."
(4) The second main reason -- "Hamas was signaling they had joined the international consensus ... in seeking a diplomatic settlement. This is "what Israelis call a Palestinian peace offensive. And in order to defeat the peace offensive, they sought to dismantle Hamas."
(5) The blockade that has devastated the Gaza Strip began before Hamas won in the election of Jan. 2006. "The blockade doesn't even have anything to do with Hamas."
(6) "Israel doesn't want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn't want to resolve diplomatically the conflict ..." The Gazan leadership has "repeatedly made statements they're willing to settle the conflict [based on] the June 1967 border."
(7) Every year since 1989 there's been a UN resolution entitled the "Peaceful Settlement of the Palestinian Question" and in the voting its been "the whole world on one side, the United States, Israel, and ... Dominica on the other side."
(8) "We have the Arab League ... favoring a two-state settlement ... the Palestinian Authority [and] we now have Hamas favoring that two-state settlement ..." "The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States."
(9) "The record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade."
(10) "The record shows that for the past twenty or more years, the entire international community has sought to settle the conflict [based on] the June 1967 border with a just resolution of the refugee question."
(11) "The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at Camp David [Sept. 2000] ... at every single point, all the concessions came from the Palestinians. Israel didn't make any concessions."
(12) "The law is very clear. [In] July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world ... ruled [that] Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza. They have no title to Jerusalem ... [and] all the [Israeli] settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law."
(13) As for what needs to happen -- the US and Israel "have to join the rest of the international community, have to abide by international law."
(14) "If Israel is in defiance of international law, it should be called into account, just like any other state in the world."
He concludes saying that "the main challenge for all of us as Americans is to see through the lies."
P.S. (1) To do some checking of the info., I went to Norman Finkelstein's own site and found only an article called "The Facts about Israel's War on Gaza" by Adam Sheets. Thus, I have wondered whether the article on the Middle East Online site was a compilation of ideas from Finkelstein's writings and interviews done by their staff or whether he wrote the piece exclusively for them. Either way, the article does represent his views.
P.S. (2) This article confirms the ideas in the article about the International Court of Justice's judgments related to the Israel-Palestinian conflict: .
Marie K.
# Merck is poisoning girls and women with Gardasil but oh boy won't they look fabulous in the meantime?
I hate what this f*cked-up society does to girls and women. Long eyelashes, my ass.
Helen & Harry Highwater
The really scary thing about it is that I live in LA. Women will be hocking their stuff to
pull together the money for this crap. Or doing even more unappetizing things.
It makes sense because "one size fits all" is inefficient for consumers. For example, almost of my driving is in my own town. I go "to town" about twice a week, a 4 mile round trip, which could easily be handled by a battery powered car or truck. For the rare occasions when I actually need to make a long trip I could rent a long haul vehicle.
Other opinions...
1) There are two things about the Israeli war/genocide in Gaza now: 1) I object to having my country pay for this. Ron Paul says this *is* blowback resulting from past interventions. Obviously there will *be* blowback from this monstrous slaughter. The only good thing about this is that the martyrdom of the people in Gaza will change the world. Israel is trashing *itself* by this action.
2) Obama's stimulus plan is crap. What is needed can be compared to getting medical help. First we need triage. Then someone needs to diagnose what is structurally broken in our economy and use the scarce dollars we still have to fix those things -- while providing assistance to individuals who have been damaged by the irresponsible behavior of corporations and the government; corporations should be allowed to go out of business and restructure themselves to be competitive in the world economy. I don't see any point in writing to change.gov. Once was enough -- it just landed me on their spam list. I think the "fix" is in, and whatever they come up with will have blowback and actually do more harm than good.
3) I am also beginning to see that Obama has surrounded himself with people responsible for the status quo. There is no way he will create "change we can believe in" because the people he hired have been wrong about everything for years; how can they fix what's wrong if they cannot diagnose the cause of the problems? It is totally obvious that the US is headed in every wrong direction. I just wonder why people who have been right aren't being given positions of authority. Why isn't Ron Paul being asked to serve -- everything he predicted has come true and individuals are worse off with the government's help than if the federal government did not exist at all; how can we people be helped by being "governed" by a gang of liars, crooks. The government is like the Mafia except less competent and more corrupt. :-) I could crap better decisions than our government pays people $100k a year to make...
4) OT: Look into Panasonic (PC) and Anglo-American (AAUK). Both are selling at a big discount to equity value (if my computations are correct.) Both will be damaged by the global recession and we'll have to see how much damage is done, but I am wagering that these very old companies survive quite well.
Mr. Chuckles
#
The fact below remains unknown news to almost everyone -- despite being
readily available info-wise for generations. Only extensive marketing
manipulation and propaganda (and consumer naiveté) allow diamonds to remain
expensive.
I believe in Orwell's 1984, television display screens were also cameras. Which the government used to watch you.
== == ==
I've been wanting to see the gadget below for some time now. Unfortunately, the antipode to my location is even more of the middle of nowhere than my home! Ha, ha.
Excerpt: A federal judge ordered a north Alabama sheriff jailed this week, saying the lawman intentionally served jail inmates "woefully insufficient" meals in order to pocket more than $200,000. ...
[US District Judge U.W.] Clemon ordered Bartlett released from the federal Talladega Correctional Facility the following day after the sheriff's attorneys pledged to provide better and healthier meals to inmates.
Could I please be jailed for a single day (with the same safety from bodily harm the sheriff enjoyed) to make $200,000? It may be even Paris Hilton didn't get that great a deal for her own brief jail time!
I must be missing something. How on Earth could Republicans see Al Franken as their arch nemesis? Seems to me he'd be at the bottom of the list rather than the top. Unless of course they want the weakest possible politician as a nemesis?
But if they do that, they risk repeating the mistake George Bush made of turning one other ant hill into a mountain: namely, Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden was little more than the leader of a rag tag bunch of criminals, until George Bush elevated him to arch nemesis not only of America, but the entire civilized world. Thereby vastly boosting bin Laden's reputation among his own kind. And now, so many years later, bin Laden seems to have evaded capture, while Bush himself is about to lose his job.
Might it be possible that the Republicans will empower Franken in a similar manner? So that come next election, he'll win handily, rather than scraping by like this time?
In the article, Politico seems to side with the Republicans it quotes in believing that Franken did something awful...when he talked about Republicans like many Republicans have talked about Democrats for years now. In other words, he fought back; something Democrats shouldn't do(?)
I see headscratching articles like this quite often, at Politico. There's a weird agenda there, a somewhat rightward tilt but a more pronounced bias for controversy, even if it's a controversy Politico has to make up from scratch.
Al Franken, of course, is a nice enough fellow but politically he's the yellow stripe down the middle of the road, and just by virtue of being a newbie he'll be the weakest member of the Senate after Roland Burris. Franken will win re-election in six years because he'll be the incumbent, and the incumbent (unless he's a blatant criminal) gets a 10% or so edge automatically.
I skimmed the article and saw no mention of one possibility why the US might be stockpiling: to continue the Bush-Cheney legacy. That is, by loading Israel up with lots more weaponry than it needs, it'll greatly reduce Obama's ability to rein in Israel military-wise any time soon by cutting such supplies. Bush-Cheney have indicated in many other ways they're trying to tie Obama's hands every way they can. This is just one more such travesty.
I find this hard to believe, when there's so much mounting evidence of gross incompetence in our so-called 'top expert' facilities at the FBI and other investigative agencies. Couldn't this latest story be just the same as all those other 'Gee-whiz' articles that made our law guys sound like supermen -- only to turn out to be the exact opposite of the truth a couple years down the road? I tend to think this is more of the same propaganda.
Keep in mind that if our leaders can successfully make us believe them capable of feats like this, we'll be more likely to believe them when they say 'trust us; we have to [fill in the blank].'
Blindly accepting claims of extraordinary feats from our leaders easily amounts to the same thing as giving them a blank check.
The article cites no sources until the 18th paragraph, and what the source actually says offers little support for the article's headline or claims. I've never heard of Daily Express, but despite its motto is that it's "the world's greatest newspaper", it looks rather tabloidy and its top columnist is "Richard and Judy". So I have to agree with you, JR, that this news just doesn't look 'real' yet...
Helen & Harry Highwater
#1/13/2009:
Well, I guess I was right to find it hard to believe! Ha, ha.
I'm not familiar with the various tabloid brands around the world-- so might not recognize them when I visit a link. Sometimes I go to the home page and see what the topics of other stories there are, to gauge the credibility of a source -- but I didn't do that this time.
My usual skimming rather than in-depth reading likely also makes me more vulnerable to such things than I'd otherwise be (I have to do an awful lot of stuff in a hurry these days).
However, I have seen reports from sources like CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, and others over past years which wound in and out and all around this topic of super-advanced forensics being performed on 9-11 remains -- and similar investigative endeavors -- in ways which made this latest item sound like more of the same (possibly government-sponsored) hype. Hence, the comment.
The finale of the conversation between God and the atheist in this piece reminds me of a conversation I had months back with teenage relatives, where I basically told them I wouldn't want to live in Heaven with the sort of God who'd allow the present level of evil which exists in the world, and appears to have existed for all of history and pre-history.
My area is prone to potholes. I don't think this idea would work here. In the winter the roadway freezes to maybe a half foot below the surface. Then warmer weather moves in and the top crust of the road thaws while the subsurface remains frozen. The top crust can then shear away from the frozen subsurface.
SirJ
Yeah, it's the same story here. In places where there's a real winter, like Wisconsin and wherever the heck you are, the cold can wreak havoc on pavement and make potholes breed like teenagers in Alaska. Kudos to the heavy thinkers who came up with the idea -- does it strike you as practical?
Helen & Harry Highwater
#1/15/2009:
The first project was started in 2000, according to ooms.nl. The technology
would have caught on by now if the idea had much merit.
Excerpt: Some Iraqi army leaders are worried that reward money for information on enemy fighters and hidden weapons will dry up when American units leave their areas.
So which side of his mouth is Obama talking out of today?
== == ==
Can someone answer the question of -- Why Obama is talking of "TAX CUTS' to stimulate business? To follow the Republican theory of the last eight years that all their tax cuts were so beneficial for the economy's growth which is now a catastrophic economic disaster seems to my mind the same old same old.
Fixer-upper houses are now selling for as little as $1,000 in several American cities.
[ Cable News Network ]
An Associated Press reporter in Gaza describes what it's like to watch his apartment being reduced to rubble by the Israelis. No, it isn't impartial journalism, and a pat on the back to A.P. for publishing it anyway -- but only a 100% ass could cover this kind of state-sponsored terrorism and remain impartial.
[ Associated Press ]
"Revenge operations" against the Americans are a fine idea, says baby-faced Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Today he's not pissed about the occupation of Iraq, he's pissed about America's support for Israel as it kills hundreds in Gaza.
[ Los Angeles Times ]
The Bush-Cheney administration is stonewalling again, refusing to turn over evidence regarding some unlucky patsy who's been imprisoned at the Guantanamo concentration camp for six years.
[ Associated Press ]
The incoming Obama administration has asked Congress to delay the conversion from analog to digital television. Why? Because, like everything else in the Bush-Cheney administration, the converter box program was poorly planned, and they're out of funds for those rabbit-ear boxes.
[ TV Guide ]
This information (I take ex-Pres Jimmy Carter to be an honest reporter of facts) makes it perfectly clear that it was the deliberate policy of the Israeli government to refuse the passage of normal supply lines that led to the Israelis' deliberate provoking the Palestinian's rocket attacks.
[ Washington Post ]
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is full of crap about marijuana, but I'm not sure that matters -- there's nobody in the Obama administration whose head isn't up his or her ass on that issue, and Obama's not going to nominate a Surgeon General who's not full of crap about marijuana. But the good folks at The Daily Green have compiled a short list of Gupta's dumbest positions, and he really would be a disappointing choice for Surgeon General.
[ The Daily Green ]
The US Air Force has a response strategy for bloggers who don't like the Air Force. Of course, we're too tiny to bother with, but in a society where common sense was allowed, everyone involved in the Air Force "counter-blogging response" would be fired and lucky to land a job at Dairy Queen.
[ Wired ]
Glenn Greenwald pretty well sums up why it's imperative that Bush and Cheney be prosecuted for their war crimes, and of course they won't be.
[ Salon ]
A high-ranking Vatican official, Renato Martino, says that two weeks of Israeli attacks have made Gaza "increasingly resemble a big concentration camp". Martino's official title seems to be Vatican justice and peace minister, which sounds like a quadruple oxymoron to me. Some high-ranking Israeli official is pretending to be outraged, and I won't be surprised if the Vatican apologizes, and of course none of it means diddly-squat.
[ antiwar.com ]
Says here, a new federal law might make it illegal to re-sell children's toys or clothing. I'm skeptical that this is for real, and hesitant to take it too seriously when the first and only coverage of some new outrage is from a TV station, but if you know something about this please let us know.
[ KVUE (Austin, Texas) ]
A Gallup poll from almost a month ago reports that Americans give Republicans in Congress even lower marks than they give the Bush-Cheney administration. I'd like to think we're in for a long national wake-up after the long national nightmare of 2000-08, but I'm doubtful.
[ Gallup, Inc. ]
"When it comes to fixing the financial system, it's eerie how closely the US seems to be following in Japan's footsteps, only at an accelerated pace."
[ Business Week ]
"President-elect Obama claims he wants to shift some serious money from DoD into other areas of international affairs (such as the State Department and the foreign aid program). Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State-designee Hillary Clinton are said to be on board with this idea. I'll bet they try, but I'll bet the actual sums involved turn out to be peanuts."
[ Foreign Policy ]
"President Bush inherited a peaceful, prosperous America. As he exits, Salon consults experts in seven fields to try to assess the devastation."
[ Salon ]
Friday's comments from readers
Please send your news tips, comments, and criticisms to <unknownnews at inbox.com>. If that address ever fails, check our contact page for our alternate email addresses.
At other websites (mercifully not at Unknown News) I keep seeing people arguing that it's a two-sided conflict in Gaza, that there's plenty of blame for both sides and all that horsesh*t. It's a two-sided conflict like rape is a two-sided conflict. Far as I'm concerned Israel has forfeited any right to exist.
I feel the same way about the United States of America, but rotten governments rarely just fade away, so people who give a damn have to holler and protest and stomp our metaphysical feet for better, saner leadership.
Excerpt: The repulsion can be used to hold molecules aloft, in essence levitating them, creating virtually friction-free parts for tiny devices, the researchers said.
I know this sounds like pretty much nothing. But it could lead to almost frictionless motors and other machines. Which would mean more and more gadgets lasting us a lifetime, with no repairs or replacements EVER necessary-- except where we physically bash it with something.
It also means ever shrinking power consumption, as newer gadgets replace older in factories and households.
Basically this is one element of nanotechnology. But maybe not so far off as you might think, in practical terms. For we're already using quite a bit of other nanotech items here and there in daily life, in our smallest devices. So this new item might ramp up faster than many might expect.
I found this fairly entertaining. I suppose because I'm way past any surprise about the truth of the matter. It takes a little longer for the lion to start talking than it should. I'm surprised this video didn't get more upvotes on Reddit.
OK: this has to be the second-best thing we could ever hear about Olbermann from a rabid right-winger like Palin (the first would be if the right-winger saying it was noted for their intelligence; or is an 'intelligent right-winger' an oxymoron? Oh, surely you could get one in reality by way of an otherwise smart person suffering a dash of mental illness, faulty education, or incomplete recovery from a trauma).
If I had a list of things I'd like to achieve before I died, one item on the list would be for someone like Palin to say I was evil because of my political opinions. I mean, one of the few things that'd be better than that would be living during WWII, and finding out that Hitler is really alarmed by you! Ha, ha.
Come on, say it: this MUST boost Olbermann's standing with you! At least a little! Ha, ha.
== == ==
The Perfect Solar Storm could produce a catastrophe on earth, inducing extreme currents in wires, disrupting power lines, causing wide-spread blackouts and disrupting the internet.
I wrote about this and a few other possibilities in 2003, when I was trying to show the various ways America could be unexpectedly humbled, and thereby be hurt by its Bush-Cheney-led animosity in the world, just when we needed friends and allies the most.
"A massive solar flare could strike our hemisphere square on, lasting only a few moments, but effectively destroying 99% of our electronics in use and storage, leaving us with only a few sparse military installations up and running, and all else dead as a doornail. This could be like the mother of all electro-magnetic pulses -- phenomena which can kill unshielded electronic circuitry over vast distances.
No one really knows if or when such a strike could occur, as we've only had roughly a hundred years of experience with widespread electrical circuits and solar flares, and just around 50 years with more delicate electronics. So for all we know a killer flare like this may splash Earth every 100+ years or so, and we're about due.
Much of the entire western hemisphere could be shut down for months, maybe years afterwards. The US might be left virtually defenseless, with no air force or mechanized ground forces, or even much in the way of communications. The world almost certainly would suffer another Great Depression in the wake of such an event."
Besides the solar storm/flare element, here's a few other choice quotes:
"America could suffer a crisis of confidence in its government and financial systems which crashed its markets, depleted its reserves, and caused a collapse in the value of the dollar.
If the US government failed to stem the tide quickly, America could plunge into an economic depression, possibly not to emerge again for years."
"Like many of the other cataclysms listed here, this too could take place with breathtaking speed. One day average Americans could be going about with their hum drum daily routines, and the next, they could find word of mass layoffs, runs on the banks, and declaration of martial law in many cities."
-- 2-20-03: Possible downsides to American hubris: the tables could turn on the US literally overnight
== == ==
WHAT THE HECK? This definitely appears to be unknown news-- and even better,
unknown news worth hard cold cash!
I'm a little uncomfortable with the concept, further commingling whatever information is encoded on the magnetic stripe of your driver's license with the public record of your banking activity and purchases. Also, in case anyone's thinking of clicking along, I must mention that the URL you sent, despite its https protocol implying security, triggered a rarely-seen warning from my computer's security software.
Helen & Harry Highwater
What in the WORLD is happening to our American citizens? From what I'm reading they're either foaming at the mouth, crying, or curled in the fetal position in front of the TV. Good Christ grow a set already! Obama has people shopping in the adult diaper section due his "potential behaviors."
Bush didn't scare people at all -- they mocked him right until he put the country right in the toilet but it seems as if people view Obama as hell on Earth and not just another politician. Where was this freaking out when Bush was losing his grip on reality and taking away every right he could?
I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and realize this is just another politician. If there are race wars, armageddon, or some such nonsense then surely you've been expecting it right? Calm the hell the down, take a valium, make a plan on how you will be dealing with whatever it is he decides.(I mean you do it every four years right?) and GROW UP. I can appreciate the frustration and fear but now it's just pathetic to watch the moaning and groaning on what he has done and what he "might" do. Jeez be Americans -- the ones the history books should be writing about -- not the ones sobbing on the floor at the horror of it all. This isn't a teen vampire movie. Take off the adult diapers and make a plan. Go with LARGE actions. Sheesh.
I always love your venting, but yikes -- I haven't seen any nutball apocalyptic rantings about Obama since the first few weeks after the election. You must be reading some sources that I've been skipping. When the hysteria bubbles up and out of the right-wing's insanity corner and into the corporate media, I'll be worried.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#1/11/2009:
Forgive my rant. I had been doing for days what I SWORE I wouldn't do -- which is to read world news in addition to U.S. news with all the regulars (CNN,USAtoday,New York Times, blah,blah,blah). So at least a few times a day I'd read a ridiculous article(Or ten or twelve) about some coming nightmarish tragedy due to Obamas choices and possible decisions. Of course by 8 o'clock that night the story would have gone from a line on the front page to the archive section. So it's newsbreak time for me again :) I've unfortunately also had a number of friends send me a variety of articles from what I consider shady sites that amazingly enough have a huge amount of frighteningly dedicated readers and that was bugging me as well. I'm going to blame it on the full moon :)
Blessings~
Sherri B.
If it's newsbreak time for you, I hope it's a short break. Occasional notes from you and a few other kindred souls are among the very few strands of a very thin rope from which my sanity dangles.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#1/11/2009:
I'm an addict :) It'll be short. My rope is less a rope than a string of dental floss.
If "we" means Americans in general, I'd say standing idly by is an improvement. "We" flopped into our collective couches and munched on potato chips for five years, while our own country committed the same atrocities on a far grander scale.
Harry Reid, the US Senate Majority Leader who personifies Democrats' spinelessness, says he wants to remain as Majority Leader until at least 2015. Reid is the guy who cowers in the corner whenever Republicans whisper the word 'filibuster', and then promptly yields without requiring them to actually filibuster, so what he's really saying is that Republicans will control the Senate for at least six more years.
[ Politico ]
45. That's the latest count of how many people were killed when Israel fired mortar rounds into a United Nations school. A UN spokesman says they're "99.9 percent certain there were no militants in the school or the compound".
[ Democracy Now ]
As Israel kills hundreds of Gazans for no reason that stands up to the slightest scrutiny, they're accomplishing one thing, clearly -- they're manufacturing the next generation of suicide bombers and terrorists.
[ Informed Consent ]
But if you want the bottom line and you're brave enough to take it bluntly, there's always the War Nerd: "Will Obama be more hard-nosed with the Israelis? I doubt it. Why would he? You're not supposed to say out loud that there's a big rich Israeli lobby, but everybody knows there is. And more to the point, what's their counterweight? Who cares about the Palestinians, even in the Arab world, never mind DC? So there's a big net gain to any US politician who backs Israel and no reason at all to back their opponents."
[ Exiled Online ]
The giant swamp of coal ash that's made several hundred acres of Tennessee into a toxic wasteland was, prior to the disaster, not subject to federal regulation. But the EPA has, we're told, been studying the question of whether coal ash waste should be regulated.
[ New York Times ]
Even disregarding the slipshod economics, just considering the politics of it all, it makes no sense for Obama to be compromising with Republicans on his so-called stimulus package. Whatever the compromises, it will be perceived as Obama's stimulus package, and when it fails it won't be a "compromise", it'll be Obama's failure. [ Crooks & Liars ]
Here's a quick list of twenty Bush-Cheney scandals that evaporated without a fraction of the attention paid to, say, Bill Clinton's alleged tarmac haircut or Barack Obama's phantom connection to Rod Blagojevich.
[ The Daily Beast ]
The Bush-Cheney administration rebuffed Barack Obama's request to stay at Blair House, not because Blair House was booked, but because it was a small rudeness they could plausibly pull off.
[ ThinkProgess ]
Five former Blackwater mercenaries pled not guilty to manslaughter charges on Tuesday, for a massacre that occurred in Baghdad in September 2007. The trial is taking place in Washington DC, not in Iraq, which raises questions about whether justice is being pursued or sidestepped.
[ Associated Press ]
John McCain's instant celebrity friend Joe the Plumber (who's not a plumber) will now play war correspondent. He's flying to Israel, where he'll cover the attacks on Gaza from the attacker's perspective for something called PajamasTV, described as a conservative website. As Kent Brockman would say, "It's in Revelations, people."
[ Washington Independent ]
Jack Shafer details the ways newspapers were trying to adapt to new technologies since the early days of radio, an interesting challenge to the common perception that newspapers didn't do enough to respond to the emerging web.
[ Slate ]
I get the impression that this new Bollywood movie mocking President Bush, The President is Coming, will be a lot more interesting than Oliver Stone's W.
[ Reuters News Agency ]
Thursday's comments from readers
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Earthweb by Marc Stiegler is now part of the free library at Baen Books , and may be downloaded in a variety of formats including zipped html.
At a superficial level the plot line, about an invasion by extraterrestrials, is more than a little bit juvenile. But the story line itself is full of educational wonders. Stiegler explains the value and necessity of online anonymity, free access to information and training via portable/handheld networked computers, and ... wait for it ... gambling.
This last bit, gambling, is fairly interesting. The idea is that when people wager their own real money on future events/predictions, that their opinions count for more than the opinions of people who are just blabbing (opinions are like assh*les, everyone has one).
In addition, over time, the winning of wagers transfers money from the incompetent gamblers, who tend to be guessers and trend-followers, to the smart, well-informed gamblers -- who can then reinvest their winnings into high-tech intelligence gathering equipment and staff members, thus producing even better information in the future. It is in this way, using gambling over the internet, that the intelligence of all of mankind can best be harnessed!
The book also has some information about how the internet could be used to eliminate poverty and to help people find jobs. So I rate it an A-. It just is not a bad book at all, and it is action-packed for easy reading.
I used to love reading novels, especially science fiction, but my willingness to invest all those hours in someone else's imaginary universe has dwindled. Yes, I've become one of those dummies who wait for the movie.
But the gambling premise is intriguing. I suppose we have such gambling now. I know nothing about such stuff, but I'd assume such gambling is controlled by the house and regulated by the state. So a lot of legislators would have to be bribed. But if the gambling was removed from the control of Vegas-style operatives, put on the web with easy access, security, and a design that lets gamblers define their own scenarios and gamble against others, I might make a few nickel wagers myself.
Followed several clicks ... it looks like a hobby one could really sink into. Have you ever wagered? Under the Wikipedia entry's "legality" section, we read about Iowa Electronic Markets" which gets around the US law against such gambling "under the cover of a no-action letter from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and allows bets up to $500." Makes me curious haw they scored their "no-action letter" and how I can score one.
Helen & Harry Highwater
1/9/2009: I have only used the other prediction markets --
like the NASDAQ, NYSE, etc.
Check out the book if it doesn't bore you too much. The concept also involves prize money, on top of the wagering. And there is a central authority sponsoring the process trying to focus the wagers on specific research goals (i.e. how to defeat the alien invaders *this time* -- four previous invasions were defeated with the help of the collective intelligence of earth beings...)
1/9/2009: Much of science fiction is symbolic and the plots are frequently superficially juvenile. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an excellent example. It is rated in the top ten science fiction movies of all time.
Although I haven't read Earthweb, the description of "gambling" matches that of stock market investing in the real world. Companies can raise new capital by selling stock. If the stock price is high, they will raise much more capital than if the stock price is low. In fact, when the stock price is low, the company will likely decide not to sell stock at all. The price of the stock is dictated by the bets placed by all investors, betting on the future events of the profits of that company. In theory, this transfers wealth from the incompetent to the competent. In reality, stock prices are governed in the short term by fads and trend followers.
Huge piles of money were raised by start-up dot-com companies at the turn of the century. As the chart on this page
illustrates, most of those bets have never paid off.
The cumulative intelligence of humanity is vastly overrated. Or as Einstein put it, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
I've got no substantial response, just a few bits of chit chattery.
The cumulative intelligence of humanity is vastly overrated -- compared to what? I've got nothing much to say about the individual intelligence of humans, but the cumulative intelligence of mankind built the keyboard and monitor in front of me.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is two of my favorite movies -- with Kevin McCarthy in 1956 and Donald Sutherland in '78. I've seen both versions half a dozen times, but only read Jack Finney's novel once, years and years ago. About the more recent remakes, Abel Ferrara and Nicole Kidman, ugh, the less said the better, except that the Ferrara version really pissed me off -- he was one of my favorite moviemakers at the time, and I was really looking forward to his telling of the tale.
Anyway, sure, I guess Invasion of the Body Snatchers is juvenile, as you say -- I started liking the movie adaptations when I was just a kid. My childhood wasn't a particularly happy one, but my juvenile years were the good old days ...
Helen & Harry Highwater
#1/10/2009:
I saw your remark to Sir J. about "Earthweb": "The cumulative intelligence of mankind built the keyboard and monitor in front of me." I am continually amazed by your brilliantly incisive commentaries.
(Also, I recalled one key point of the book, which is that the lesson for people to learn about wagering in Earthweb is to wait until a question is posed for which you have special expertise. That is how you get paid, not guessing or trend-following.)
Amber Perez
I don't know if you saw this article at whatreallyhappened.com, but even if so, the concluding paragraphs are serious and in my view, quite correct.
(I put a few comments of mine after the excerpts...)
Excerpt: The long-held assumption that US assets -- particularly government bonds -- are a safe haven will soon be overturned as investors lose their patience with the world's biggest economy, according to Willem Buiter.
Professor Buiter, a former Monetary Policy Committee member who is now at the London School of Economics, said this increasing disenchantment would result in an exodus of foreign cash from the US. ...
Writing on his blog , Prof Buiter said: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."
He said that the dollar had been kept elevated in recent years by what some called "dark matter" or "American alpha" -- an assumption that the US could earn more on its overseas investments than foreign investors could make on their American assets. However, this notion had been gradually dismantled in recent years, before being dealt a fatal blow by the current financial crisis, he said.
"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," he said. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognize that its financial system has collapsed."
He said investors would, rightly, suspect that the US would have to generate major inflation to whittle away its debt and this dollar collapse means that the US has less leeway for major spending plans than politicians realize.
(me again...)
1. India "blew up" today due to a massive Enron-style fraud at Satyam Computer. Scratch India from the list of safe haven countries, at least for a few months -- these scandals are devastating to a country, as we have all learned so, so well.
2. About the dollar collapse... The Congressional Budget Office estimates this year's federal budget deficit at $1.2 trillion -- which does not include Obama's $775 spend-orama stimulus plan, or new war spending "emergency" bills, or even the continued looting of the Social Security trust fund (in which spending of FICA withholding by the government is not counted in the deficit!) So that means at least a $2 trillion deficit this coming year -- to say nothing of what the Federal Reserve is spending.
So, the threat of dollar collapse is very, very serious and imminent, especially if Obama's stimulus plan fails to work well. At best, really, the stimulus plan is a Hail Mary into the end zone. If the dollar hangs tough for five years it would be miraculous.
I could accept Dr Gupta as Surgeon General. He's very telegenic, so he'd probably get lots of media coverage and he could do some good for Americans' health. All I'd ask, more like demand, is that he first publicly apologize for the lies he told on CNN about America's health care system, in trying to debunk Michael Moore's Sicko. And I'm not a big Michael Moore fan -- his movies are meandering messes, but his facts are generally factual. All of Gupta's "gotchas" on Sicko were lies and Gupta's no dummy, he had to know they were lies. But like I said, I could forgive it if he'd just apologize. I'm a big believer in redemption.
Like the URL says, this website is about "unknown news". We present a brief round-up of reports we think merit more attention, gathered from mainstream, professional journalists, or (rarely) other sources we trust entirely.
We believe in liberty and justice for all, so of course, we oppose many US government policies. This doesn't mean we're anti-American, redneck scum, pinko commies, militia members, or terrorist-sympathizers. It means we believe in freedom, as more than merely a cliché.
We believe you have the right to live your own life as you choose, and others have the equal right to live their lives as they choose. It's not complicated.
We believe freedom leads to peace, progress, and prosperity, while its opposite -- oppression -- leads to war, terrorism, poverty, and misery.
We believe it's preposterously stupid to hate people because of their appearance, their race or nationality, their religion or lack of religion, how they have sex with other consenting adults, etc. There are far more apropos reasons to hate most people.
We believe in questioning ourselves, our assumptions, each other -- and we especially believe in questioning authority (the more authority, the more questions). We believe obedience is a fine quality in dogs and young children, but not in adults.
Like America's right-wingers, we believe in
individual responsibility,
hard work to get ahead,
and stern punishment for serious crimes.
We believe big government should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most right-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like America's left-wingers, we believe in
equal treatment under law,
war as a last (not first) resort,
and sensible stewardship of natural resources.
We believe big business should not be blindly trusted.
But unlike most left-wing leaders, we mean it.
Like libertarians, we believe it's wrong and reprehensible to arrest people for what they think, believe, look like, wear, eat, smoke, drink, inhale, inject, or otherwise do to themselves.
But unlike many libertarians, we're not obsessed with the gold standard, we don't believe incorporation is humanity's highest achievement, and we don't believe everything in life comes down to dollars and cents. We've read and enjoyed Ayn Rand's novels, but we understand that they're works of fiction.
We're skeptical, and we're sick of so-called 'journalists' who aren't skeptical at all.
A reader asks, what are our solutions? We propose no solutions except common sense, which is never common. We like the principles of democracy, and the ideals broadly described as 'American'. The US Constitution is a fine and workable framework for solutions, when it's actually read and thoughtfully understood by intelligent statesmen and women. So, no manifestos from us. We don't dream that big, and if there's one thing the world doesn't need it's yet another manifesto.
Our suggestion is: think. A fact-based instead of faith-based approach leads to solutions for most of the recurring issues of our time, from abortion to global climate change, pollution to universal health care, careful but real regulation of industry and economy, hunger, war, terror, human rights for humans not for corporations, science not religious doctrine in public schools, equal protection and prosecution under law, etc. Approach problems without glorifying stupidity, without demonizing intelligence, and answers usually come into focus.
These pages are published by Harry and Helen Highwater, happily married low-income nom de plumes and rabble-rousers from Madison, Wisconsin (with a few friends scattered around the world helping out).
We try to spotlight news that hasn't gotten enough (or appropriate) attention in American media, along with our opinions and yours.
We bang our keyboards against the wall, because it doesn't hurt as much as banging our heads.
Excerpt: ... the conservative drumbeat over the Fairness Doctrine is much ado about nothing. It's fearmongering -- which may be good for fund-raising. Conservatives claiming that the Obama administration will mean the death of right-wing radio seem to forget this fact: Limbaugh and other conservative talkers thrived during the Clinton years.
Excerpt: Democrats in the US House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts -- including 401(k)s and IRAs -- and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.
Comment: Relax, this report is just another flat-out lie. The proposal comes from exactly one economist you've never heard of, Teresa Ghilarducci of Notre Dame (not New College, as the article falsely reports). She's one among dozens of economists who briefly testified in low-level Congressional hearings in early October, and she's the only one who made this proposal, and there's been not a peep of interest in the idea from any member of Congress. The claim that Congress is "conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers' personal retirement accounts" is more Republican fearmongering, from the liars who brought you "Obama is pallin' around with terrorists" and "the Democrats will confiscate your guns".
Excerpt: The imagery sure doesn't sell me a soda, which would be the top priority of an ad for Pepsi. Seems much more likely it's someone's idea of an joke. It's a blog post, and it links back to another blog called "Feminist Law Professors" by Ann Bartow, a real law professor who writes an interesting blog, but her source is a blog about advertising, which cites another blog which posts a wide assortment of images and very few words, and where a site-specific search led to all three of Pepsi images. That whole blog seems to be artistic imagery, and much of it's actually quite good, but there's no claim that it's a Pepsi ad, and a quick web search yields nothing as yet to validate any claim that it's a real Pepsi ad.
Excerpt: Three of our readers have sent us this link to this news, but we're not convinced. The author's remark is based not on fact but on long-simmering rumor that Track Palin was prosecuted for vandalism and/or drug dealing, and offered a choice by the judge -- join the Army, or face a jail stint. Problem is, the record is sealed because Track Palin was a minor, so there's no knowing whether it's true.
Excerpt: What customers of what bank in Florida are going to accept Ameros, the fictional currency of the fictional North American Union? At what business can Floridians spend these Ameros?
Excerpt: It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that Sarah Palin is a racist. She's a Republican in a position of power, so I'd be a little surprised if she wasn't a racist. But before we can put it in the news section on our website, we'd need to hear about her racism from a more reliable source than "Dick & Sharon's LA Progressive" quoting "a waitress" and "an insurance agent" and "Juneau observers" -- a bunch of anonymous Alaskans who may or may not exist.
H&HH
*** *** ***
Every news link on this page traces back to a mainstream professional journalistic site, or to an alternative source or reporter we (Helen & Harry) trust entirely. Listen closely and you'll hear us sigh as we add: Art Bell, Tom Flocco, David Icke, Alex Jones, Lyndon LaRouche, Wayne Madsen, Al Martin, Sherman Skolnick, Edgar Steele, and your brother-in-law are not what we consider "reliable sources."
There's no 'news' here about Area 51, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, eyeballs inside pyramids, flying saucers, FreeMasons, "Holocaust revisionism," the Illuminati, JFK's assassination, Vince Foster's suicide, the North American Union or its alleged Amero, the Rockefellers, the Rothchilds, Skull & Bones phobia, space aliens who walk among us, technologies supposedly suppressed for decades or generations, or theories you don't really understand about the World Trade Center's collapse.
Except for debunking purposes, we don't report 'news' we don't believe is true.
Congress of the United States begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution expressed a desire in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several states as Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures to be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the said Constitution. viz: Articles in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress and Ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
Of course not. Nobody will know the answers until there's an open and honest investigation.
But anyone courageous enough to think can see that the pertinent questions for any serious "investigation" were never asked, let alone answered, by the official investigators.
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