President Obama hasn't yet done anything to stop the CIA's "rendition" program, where people suspected of being terrorists are kidnapped and often flown to other nations to be tortured by their state police. And it looks like Obama has no intention of stopping the rendition program, as an anonymous administration official says, "Obviously you need to preserve some tools, you still have to go after the bad guys. ... [Rendition] is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice." No, you anonymous son of a bitch, it isn't.
[ Chicago Tribune ]
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular."
Edward R. Murrow
An addendum to the above: Scott Horton at Harper's clarifies the important difference between the rendition program of Bush the Elder and Clinton (wherein suspected bad guys were kidnapped and delivered to some recognizable system of justice) and the extraordinary rendition of Bush-Cheney (wherein the people kidnapped are tortured, murdered, or disappeared for extended periods). Obama is continuing the rendition, but ending the extraordinary rendition, and that is an improvement.
[ Harper's ]
The Obama administration also plans to continue the Bush-era policy of using drone weapons to blow up suspected, alleged, or 'just maybe' terrorists in Pakistan. It's "justice from above" that's made headlines over and over again for obliterating wedding parties and schools. Accidentally, of course, but try explaining that to the dead.
[ Democracy Now ]
Obama seems to have quietly abandoned the Bush-era catch-phrase "War on Terror". A wise move, but what's the change of words worth if the deadly and wrong-headed policies of the war on terror remain?
[ Associated Press, distilled by ThinkProgress ]
Former denizens of Bikini and Enewetak, the remote Pacific islands where the US tested dozens of nuclear bombs in the 1940s and '50s, never got the compensation promised in the settlement of their lawsuit against the US government. And a US court has ruled that they quite probably never will, because another section of the same settlement described a separate, much smaller $150-million trust fund as "the full settlement of all claims, past, present and future." Sure sounds like the US government used the old "paid in full" ruse, where you write that line on a tiny payment on a much bigger debt, and if the creditor cashes the check you claim that it was accepted as "paid in full". Except, of course, that when real people try that in real life it's a ruse that rarely works. But it works like a charm when federal lawyers use the same tactic to screw the victims of government policies.
[ Agence France-Presse ]
The House Judiciary Committee, under the weak-kneed leadership of Rep John Conyers (D-Michigan), has delayed the deadline for Karl Rove to respond to the subpoena, though Rove has already publicly said he won't show up. Now he has until February 23. Talking
Points Memo says "the hold-off serves the interests of the White House", and their reasoning makes sense but to me it looks a lot like yet another Conyers cave-in. Here's hoping TPM is right and I'm wrong.
[ Talking Points Memo ]
OMG, Israel says that one of the Gazans' garage rockets actually reached Israeli soil, killing nobody and injuring nobody. This presumably means that somewhere between a few dozen and a few hundred random Gazans must die.
[ Daily Telegraph (London, UK) ]
A Spanish court is investigating seven Israelis for war crimes allegedly committed during Israel's 2002 slaughter of Gazans. Some things never change.
[ Reuters News Agency ]
A lot of the world's economic big hats are meeting at Davos, chatting amicably about what they've done to the world's economies, and some of them are better than Fred Astaire at dancing away from taking responsibility. It's almost funny. Here's the CEO of JPMorgan Chase: "God knows, some really stupid things were done by American banks. To policy makers, I say where were they? They approved all these banks." Here's the Managing Director of the Carlyle Group: "There are six billion people on the face of the earth, and probably about five billion participated in what went on. Everybody participated in some way or shape or form." [ Bloomberg News Service ]
There's still no meaningful oversight for the bank bailout program, which the Washington Post continues to laughably assert amounts to a mere $700-billion.
[ Washington Post ]
One bank that's not asking for a bailout is Michigan's University Islamic Financial Corp., the Sharia-compliant, federally insured institution that's making an honest profit without any handouts. They don't charge interest, because that would violate Islamic Law.
[ Associated Press ]
As US banks were collapsing, they increased their hiring of foreign workers at top-salary jobs.
[ Associated Press ]
"It's not coincidental that 1928 was the last time that the top 1 percent took home more than 20 percent of the nation's income."
[ Washington Post ]
Look who got it right on the economic collapse -- Peter Schiff. And look who got it wrong, on all these shows where Schiff appeared and dead-wrong experts treated him like a punch-line. [video link]
[ BoingBoing ]
ExxonMobil has set another all-time record for profits, screwing you to the tune of
President Obama signed an executive order on Friday, reversing anti-union rules imposed by the previous administration, and preventing federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses involved in anti-union campaigning. "We need to level the playing field for workers and the unions that represent their interests," Obama said. "I do not view the labor movement as part of the problem. To me, it's part of the solution," he said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement." That's a genuine liberal sentiment, and it's true, and it's heartening to hear it from the President. It's also a pretty minor adjustment at a time when the scale of the economic crisis requires bigger action that Obama seems fearful of.
[ Associated Press ]
A lawsuit against Pfizer for using Nigerians as un-knowing guinea pigs in drug tests has gotten a green light from an American judge. This means the case will be heard in an American court, not in Nigeria.
[ Washington Post ]
Regarding those shipments of contaminated peanuts from Peanut Corporation of America: The factory was apparently crawling with salmonella since at least June 2007, but Bush-Cheney FDA inspections were so incompetent that nobody noticed or gave a damn. Obama's people say that a criminal investigation is now underway. Hilariously, the President of Peanut Corporation of America is on the advisory board that sets peanut quality standards for the US Department of Agriculture.
[ Associated Press ]
Some people are angry at Pope Benedict's big welcome back for a holocaust denier and other schismatic bishops. Imagine that. And now, el Popo has promoted a priest who made news in 2005 by describing Hurricane Katrina as God's "divine retribution" for New Orleans' sinful ways. Man, you Catholics have an especially bonkers Pope this time around.
[ Associated Press ]
Mormon officials have reported almost $190,000 in in-kind contributions to the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California. That's more than 90x what the church had previously said it spent. And individual Mormons gave upwards of $20-million. It's not what Jesus would do, but maybe it's what Joseph Smith would do?
[ San Francisco Chronicle ]
"The whole world is in recession. But the United States is the only wealthy country in which the economic catastrophe will also be a health care catastrophe -- in which millions of people will lose their health insurance along with their jobs, and therefore lose access to essential care. Which raises a question: Why has the Obama administration been silent, at least so far, about one of President Obama's key promises during last year's campaign -- the promise of guaranteed health care for all Americans?"
[ Paul Krugman ]
"We want a "uniquely American" answer to the healthcare nightmare, they all say. I've heard that until my brain hurts just considering it. Oh, we're unique all right. We're the only industrialized nation on earth that tolerates the killing of its citizens on our own soil at the hands of this healthcare system and then wants to fix it all by handing more business, more money and more power to the same industry committing the murders. That's unique enough."
[ Donna Smith ]
"The battle in Washington is not between liberals and conservatives; it is between the Union and the South. The Republican Party that voted unanimously against the stimulus bill is, in essence, the party of the former Confederacy."
[ Michael Lind ]
"There will be many histories written about the Bush administration. What will they use for source material? The Bush White House was sued for losing e-mails, and for skirting laws intended to protect public records. A federal judge ordered White House computers scoured for e-mails just days before Bush left office. Three hundred million e-mails reportedly went to the National Archives, but 23 million e-mails remain "lost." Vice President Dick Cheney left office in a wheelchair due to a back injury suffered when moving boxes out of his office. He has not only hobbled a nation in his attempt to sequester information -- he hobbled himself. Cheney also won court approval to decide which of his records remain private."
[ Amy Goodman ]
America's 400 richest people had it sweet during the Bush-Cheney era. Their incomes more than doubled while their taxes declined to 17.2%, the lowest it's ever been sine the IRS started tallying and announcing such figures in 1992.
[ Bloomberg News Service ]
A federal judge has ruled that the full extent of the crimes of former CIA Executive Director Kyle "Dusty" Foggo will remain secret. If you're wondering who to thank for this idiocy, the judge, James C. Cacheris, was appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1981.
[ ABC News ]
Another mid-level Bush-Cheney crook bites the dust. Edgar A. Johnson was in charge of one of the kickback subsections at the Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs. He hasn't been sentenced yet, but the guidelines call for 12-18 months in prison.
[ Washington Post ]
Tom Daschle's people say it was an honest mistake when he forgot to pay $128K in taxes on his limo and driver, over three years. The limo and driver were fringe benefits that came with an obviously shady arrangement that paid him a million dollars a year "to advise a private equity fund". Daschle, a longtime Democratic Senator from South Dakota), is now Obama's disappointing choice to fix healthcare. Or more accurately, to fix healthcare reform.
[ Washington Monthly ]
Wester Cooley, a Republican Congressman from Oregon in the 1990s, has been indicted in an investment fraud scheme.
[ Associated Press ]
The Republican Party has named its new National Chair, one Michael Steele. He's black, which has its Republican PR opportunities, but he must be comfortable with the Republicans' traditional bigoted politics or they'd never have chosen him. When he was running for Chair, Steele specifically distanced himself from the smears that he might be even vaguely sane. "I'm proud to say I'm a conservative, have been, always will be. So this notion that I'm a moderate is slightly overblown and, quite frankly, a lie." So it's going to be more of the same, more cro magnon Republican leadership. I suspect that'll be fine for the dwindling ranks of the Republican Party, and it's fine with me. [ Cable News Network ]
Sarah Palin, who's seriously albeit inexplicably considered a front-runner for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2012, showed her keen political savvy by lying to Congressional Republicans. Invited to speak at a House Republicans' confab, she declined, stating that she had important business to attend to in Alaska. Then she jetted to Washington DC to attend an even bigger mucky-muck event the same weekend. Run, Sarah, run.
[ ABC News ]
At Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi, a school in Ceredigion, Wales, they've installed security cameras in the students' toilets. At least one pupil and her father think that's an invasion of privacy, but not to worry, says a school spokeslady, because only "senior members of staff having Criminal Records Bureau clearance" are allowed to watch the videos.
[ Security Info Watch ]
Andrew Card, White House chief of staff during the early years of the Bush-Cheney catastrophe, thinks the Obama administration is insufficiently respectful of the office
of the President... because they don't require suit jackets be worn by everyone in the Oval Office.
[ Washington Monthly ]
The shoe statue in Tikrit, honoring shoe-tosser Muntazer al-Zaidi, has been removed, apparently by police.
[ Associated Press ]
Here's TrackMeNot, a free application that's supposed to keep search engines from prying into your surfing habits. I don't know enough to know whether this is as cool as it sounds, but it does sound pretty dang good.
[ New York University ]
"Cash4Gold", the laughably sleazy outfit running ads on American TV pitching a 'service' where you send them your gold jewelry and they'll send you a check, is every bit as, well, laughable and sleazy as they look in their ads. But apparently you can make pretty good money from them by slamming them in a blog post, because they'll then offer thousands of dollars if you'll take the blog post down or re-write it.
[ cockeyed.com ]
Bruce Springsteen has pretty much apologized for his exclusive marketing deal with Wal-Mart. Now that's boss.
[ Associated Press ]
President Obama's Kenyan half-brother has been arrested for marijuana possession.
[ Los Angeles Times ]
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.
#NO WAY am I forgetting the Gaza Strip + Turkey's PM at the Davos Forum:
Since I consider it very important to write about the Gaza Strip whenever an opportunity arises, writing about a surprising incident that has become a BIG story in Turkey seems like a good idea.
During the evening of Jan. 29, 2009 in Turkey's time zone, breaking news indicated that Turkey's Prime Minister Erdogan had walked out of the Davos World Economic Forum and that he was returning home before the others in the delegation. He did return at about 2:00 a.m., and he received a HERO's welcome at the airport where a large crowd had gathered. I watched him speak at the airport until 3:00 a.m. -- no sleeping here in Turkey!
Ever since, there has been a lot of discussion about his sudden decision to leave. Basically, his behavior has been seen as not being very diplomatic by some Turkish diplomats, but as he himself has pointed out, he's a politician and not a diplomat. What everyone sees as heroic are the things that he said before leaving -- both in his panel presentation and in his later comments.
Sitting next to him at the panel discussion was Israel's President Peres. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was also there, as this BBC article points out. Erdogan became upset by several things -- the late start, the unequal apportioning of time for the initial presentations, Peres's comments and the way he made them, and, finally, his not being allowed more time to speak. It was the moderator's repeated interruptions and attempts to cut him off that were the last straw.
Unlike what the article says, in the replays I saw, Erdogan did NOT shout anything as he left. His announcement that he was leaving and would not return to Davos was said while he was seated and pretty calm.
For me, the real story is what both Erdogan and Peres had to say during their presentations. I have searched for transcripts but found none. One TV channel here did finally show the videos of SOME of what both said in their presentations. Unfortunately, it was the scenes with Erdogan leaving that got the most play.
So that's left me with the job of finding some quotes of what each said. Since I've already been calling Israel's operation a massacre of Palestinians, you can guess that what I'll say about any comments I find made by Peres will probably NOT be complimentary. On the other hand, I believe that Erdogan DID do something important -- he challenged the story that Israel has been presenting to the world and offered another view also to the world -- unlike other leaders.
In the BBC article there ARE some quotes of Peres's comments that seem like lies to me, e.g. "There was no siege against Gaza . ... There was never a day of starvation in Gaza."
His comment that "Israel was forced on to the offensive against Hamas by thousands of rockets and mortars fired into Israel" also seems incorrect to me. Hamas HAD kept to the ceasefire agreement until Israel broke it at the time of the US election. Of course, Israel's breaking the ceasefire was needed in order to start off the attack that was being planned by Israel even before the ceasefire began.
Not in the article was that Erdogan had said that there were no deaths caused by the rockets fired once the ceasefire was ended and that he had received confirmation of this from Israeli officials.
Now it seems that Erdogan is being accused of anti-Semitism which is the case in this Jerusalem Post article. Erdogan himself points out that he has not been speaking out against Jews or Judaism, and he condemns such anti-Jewish statements as he condemns prejudice against Muslims and Islam. According to the Jerusalem Post, another sign of Erdogan's anti-Semitism is that he's said that Israel controls the media and has been disseminating false reports. I hadn't heard that one before, but it's possible and not one bit anti-Semitic to me. As far as I can tell, Erdogan's comments and the protests in Turkey have been solely related to the recent actions taken by the Israeli government in the Gaza Strip.
In the Jerusalem Post article Erdogan's comments can only be guessed at based on the spin they receive. The story says that Erdogan has accepted the Hamas narrative -- whatever that means. What Erdogan has VERY IMPORTANTLY been saying (see the P.P.S. below) is that the Hamas leaders were fairly elected by the Gazans whether others like it or not and that democracy is all about accepting the elected leaders and not imprisoning them as the Israelis have done. Thus, they need to be included in any talks that take place. AND organizing talks all over the Middle East and Central Asia has been the mission Turkey has taken on.
The Jerusalem Post article also talks of anti-Semitic billboards and posters in Turkey. I've been out and about in Istanbul and I've seen NOTHING I'd call anti-Semitic. I've watched the demonstrations, too, and can verify that they were focused on protesting the violence that Israel has been meting out.
SO, there's some chance that Turkey might help in bringing about some agreement in line with what the Palestinians would like to see, and who knows -- as Erdogan defends himself against the pretty stupid accusations of anti-Semitism, some headway might be made in stopping Israelis from so loosely throwing around this accusation.
The fact is that Turkey has rightly figured out that its economic development is literally based on peace in the Middle East and Central Asia. Not only do they want to export their goods and services to their neighbors in the Middle East and Central Asia, but they want to transport all of the oil and natural gas from the region to wherever it can be sent, e.g. natural gas through the proposed Nabucco pipeline to Europe and oil and gas to Israel's proposed Medstream pipeline that will see it sent on to Asia.
Related to the Medstream pipeline, it seems that Israel is so focused on stalling and then stealing the Palestinian lands that they aren't properly paying attention to their own economic development in the region. Of course, they still have other sources of income such as the monies (military grants and free weapons, too) they get from the US and probably monies from Europe, too, but in the long-run these monies based on aggression/intimidation and perhaps, as some info. suggests, on blackmail could dry up.
Finally, despite the out of date Russophobic geopolitical outlook of Obama's less than exciting appointees, it is the new multi-polar world geopolitical thesis that makes the most sense to me, as I've said before, and I believe also makes sense to Turkey's foreign policy planners because it is based on fair play, regional trade, and peace.
Marie K.
P.S. This a link to the article I believe Erdogan was prevented from quoting from. It is by an Israeli, Avi Shlaim, now an Oxford professor. It is definitely a MUST READ article I hope to refer to again.
P.P.S. This is a link to a Newsweek interview with Erdogan after he walked out. The first page provides some background to another reason why Erdogan has gotten frustrated. The second page clearly indicates his views about Hamas especially the idea that if you accept democracy, you have to accept the outcomes of elections and not reject the winners. On the last page, Erdogan rejects the view that anti-Semitism has increased in Turkey or that his views are anti-Semitic.
Some Israelis and Jews shout anti-Semitism whenever Israel is criticized, and I just have no patience for such weaselly whiners. Israel is a country with an official policy of brutal disregard for human life. That's a valid, factual complaint, and to respond by whimpering of anti-Semitism is to mock the millions of Jews who've suffered and/or died from real anti-Semitism.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#It will not be the CHANGE you expected! When the euphoria over the election of Barack Obama wears off, and the
uncertainty of a rapidly deteriorating economy and the revulsion of the
continuing bloodletting in the Mideast begin to once again penetrate the
thick skulls of the naive and gullible fools who were taken in by the
mass media election hype wake up, they will find to their disappointment
the same corrupt and incompetent government in Washington whose
irresponsible policies have brought America to the edge of the abyss.
Obama, despite all his rhetoric of change and hope, has no intention of
carrying out the will of the people, nor does he have the power to do
so.
Contrary to the propaganda of the mass media, and the adoration of his
mindless devotees, Obama has not come from the wilderness to lead the
chosen ones out of the ever deepening morass of war and economic chaos
to some utopian paradise, but will dutifully follow in the footsteps of
those Presidents which preceded him, continuing to support the interests
of the greedy Globalist Capitalist class who hold the real power in
America. Obama's actions thus far has reinforced the suspicions of many
that he is going to be just another empty barrel echoing the same loud
noises we have all heard so many times before.
Only the noise coming from this empty barrel sounds so much more
convincing in comparison to the almost illiterate former President GW
Bush. Obama can speak clearly and eloquently, and his youth suggests a
new beginning seductive to the thinking of the average empty headed
American voter more concerned with image than substance. This modern day
snake oil salesman is just what the bankrupt political system needed to
regain the credibility which it has lost in the eyes of the people.
With polls taken in recent months showing the approval ratings of both
President and Congress falling to their lowest levels in recent history,
a public relations campaign centered around a candidate like Obama was
inevitable.
With the help of the politically embedded mass media, and the support of
egotistical high profile hypocrites in the entertainment industry, have
succeeded once again in hoodwinking a significant portion of the public
into supporting the status quo. A hint of what is in store for the
American people can be gleaned from the comments of the new nominee for
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, a Wall St. insider and admitted tax
evader who advocates giving trillions more of taxpayer dollars to his
former Wall St. associates while scaling back entitlement programs such
as Social
Security to help pay for it all. It is apparent that Geithner's remarks,
and those of former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who advocates that
white males should be excluded from any taxpayer funded construction
projects, is part and parcel of the tactics of the ruling capitalist
class of attacking social programs as wasteful and race baiting to
divide and conquer.
Judging from the men and women who make up Obama's
Cabinet it is reasonable to assume that Obama's support for Wall St. and
the war against the American worker begun by corporate hack and grade B
actor Ronald Reagan, will continue.
While Obama promised to withdraw American troops from Iraq by 2010, many
of these troops will not be coming home at all but redeployed to
Afghanistan in an attempt to salvage a war which many consider already
lost. In fact, only hours after taking office Obama approved airstrikes
into Pakistan, and in so doing wasted no time in establishing himself as
the new warmonger in chief. His actions so far will no doubt be a
disappointment to anti war activists who supported Obama and the
Democrats during the election. as well as risking a further expansion of
the war into Pakistan. However, those Americans against the war who
voted for Obama should have known better, having already been burned
voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006, and whose promises were never
kept. If the actions of the new President are a let down to the anti war
crowd, Obama's economic stimulus package will be nothing less than a
total disaster for working Americans, whose support helped win the
election.
With the details of the Obama economic stimulus package being made
public, it is being viewed by its critics as nothing more than another
wasteful Washington spending bill filled with the usual pork, with
hundreds of billions more going to the same banks and corporate crooks
who gave themselves millions in bonuses, corporate jets, buyouts,
vacations, and remodeled offices with taxpayer dollars from the first
bailout which the Jr Senator from Illinois we recall, interrupted his
election campaign to rush back to Washington to vote for despite
overwhelming public opinion against. Not even a month has gone by since
Obama has taken office than it is becoming painfully obvious that the
new President and his Administration will be nothing more than the
toadies and lackeys of the same powerful lobbies and special interests
whose cash has bought and sold successive governments in Washington for
decades resulting in Americas declining fortunes, and whose fall draws
near.
Leon Fisher
My hopes for Obama's administration were never too high, so I'm not yet disappointed. He's actually surprising me in a positive way, with not quite so many major doublecrosses as I'd expected, at least so far. But que sera sera -- give me a few years and maybe I'll hate Obama as much as you do.
Robert Reich has never said "white males should be excluded from any taxpayer funded construction projects", nor anything that could be construed as such. He's one of about, well, one major political voices who seriously give a damn about working people, so it's very much to the right-wing bastards' advantage to smear him, and that's what they've done. I'm surprised you've bought it. He's denied it, and it's a pretty obvious Limbaugh lie even without a denial.
Helen & Harry Highwater
#
This morning while I was meditating/resting, my subconscious popped up the idea that Wal-Mart
will be unionized while the Democrats are
in control of D.C. Supporting factoids?
First, the new Ledbetter law is worker-friendly
and has the greed heads crying like babies:
Second, Obama's recent executive orders to help "level the
playing field" for labor unions in their struggles with
federal contractors.
Third, the horrendous economic recession puts political
pressure on the corrupt imbeciles in Congress while
motivating the low/middle class to support workers'
rights ... and to want to punish corporations ... so
the cheapest thing Congress can do is to allow stuff
to happen to (supposedly) benefit workers without
having to actually allocate much money.
Further reasoning. Wal-Mart is having problems expanding
in the US because they are hated. In Canada they
shut down stores which unionize, but in China they
embrace the Communist Party union with patriotic
fervor. Assuming that unionization could make people
in the US learn to tolerate or even like Wal-Mart
again, Wal-Mart management might one day be persuaded
to go along without putting up too much of a battle.
Also, universal/nationalized healthcare would remove
a cost burden from Wal-Mart. And, in any event, if
all of the big retailers got unionized the playing
field would be level and Wal-Mart might have to
raise prices a nickel ... and I believe it would
help the economy if millions of people suddenly
started receiving fair, livable wages plus
healthcare benefits!
The time for this has come, I think. If you want
to put a pointy stick where it will do the most
good, pass this idea along and help if you can.
Here is the #1 search result from Google for
"unionize Wal-Mart":
I read this article, was impressed by what I read and wanted to share it with you.
The Canadian
#The final common pathway to social collapse: The rich continue to get richer, and the poor continue to get poorer, until the very rich come to regard the poor as subhuman, a form of livestock, and the poor come to regard the rich as personifications of evil, as not fully human, depraved and incorrigible until the whole system destroys itself.
== == ==
Just wondering: What really happened to the Madoff swindle money? Could it have been a covert operation by intelligence services to funnel money to black ops, to Israel?
== == ==
The part of the 9/11 mystery that gets virtually no attention is the question of what happened to all the gold that was stored in the subterranean vaults.
Herb Ruhs, MD
I've got a lot of questions about the official story of 9/11 and precious few answers, and the longer the questions remain unanswered the longer my list of questions grows. But I don't know anything about gold under the towers.
Excerpt: There appear to be no reports of precious metals discovered between
November of 2001 and the completion of excavation several months
later. Assuming that the above reports described the value of
precious metals in the vault before the attack, and that the $230
million mentioned by Giuliani represented the approximate value of
metals recovered, it would seem that at least the better part of a
billion dollars worth of precious metals went missing. (It is not
plausible, of course, that whatever destroyed the towers vaporized
gold and silver, which are dense, inert metals that are extremely
unlikely to participate in chemical reactions with other
materials.)
Herb Ruhs, MD
Looks like another dang good question, unanswered. I like how their coverage ends: "Until there is a genuine investigation that probes all the relevant facts and circumstances surrounding the attack, we can only speculate." My sentiments exactly.
So environmental toxins are not only slowly turning present and future newborn men into women (feminizing them) -- but slowly making women sterile. And Republican politicians and pundits simply ignore information like this, as they blindly lobby for 'just say no' to regulating anything and everything done by industry.
I agree (based on what I've read the past 30 years). It seems a
huge mistake to unnecessarily rile our biggest source of credit just when
we're going to need them most. So far I'm stumped as to why Obama thinks
this Geithner guy is so smart. I've seen not a single smart thing out of him
yet. And the markets are still deteriorating fast, too.
Wall Street Journal editorial: If Congress is going to start setting legal limits on salaries and bonuses
in the US, it is going to drive talent out of Bank of America and these
other banks and into institutions without such limits, perhaps abroad. The
same goes for Attorney General Cuomo's implied threat of prosecutions.
According to their own accounting departments, the only talent many
of these execs have is for theft and fraud on an unimaginable scale, and
driving entire countries into bankruptcy at rates unmatched by anyone else
in history (the only other explanations are gross negligence or
incompetence). So why in hell would anyone want to keep such guys on the
payroll?! And yet [Fox News owner] Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal is
apparently
arguing for just that!
It's also (surely!) an inside joke from the WSJ that such execs might go abroad to bypass any imposed caps to continue their financial pillaging -- as virtually all other industrialized nations already have far more stringent limitations on executive pay than America. The execs' best bet for such options would be some questionable and possibly despotic regimes in southeast Asia, maybe. But even there, it's unlikely they could make anywhere near what they make in America without soon being lined up in front of a firing squad.
The richest drug dealers, arms smugglers, and human traffickers in the world don't make anywhere near what the worst US execs and financial crooks do.
Another WSJ defense is that the income of these bastards dropped precipitously in 2008 -- thereby making their bonuses perhaps not look quite so bad, as they did in the years preceding THE CRASH OF 2008(!) Which these crooks helped bring about! WTF, WSJ?!
The WSJ also seems to say these S.O.B.s have already suffered enough. Oh really?
Then the WSJ goes on to say Obama only mentioned the obscene Wall Street bonuses because he needs to butter up the masses so they'll accept the enormous costs required to fix what those Wall Streeters broke. But if he's too hard on the crooks for what they've done, they won't help fix the problem. Hmmm.
I seriously wonder if the WSJ's circulation numbers aren't going to take a tremendous hit for crap like this?
Just as any thinking person might expect, unhappiness, boredom, loneliness, pain, and desperation tend to drive people to drugs and alcohol, to violence, as well as into credit card debt, and a great many other ills of modern society. Ergo, make society more just, more opportunity-filled, more interesting, more healing than stressing, and more socially engaging, and you automatically reduce problem behaviors across the board.
Bottomline: it's suicidal to vote for Republicans.
While there may be some useful info in this presentation, there's one glaring flaw. Namely, it reinforces the notion that regressing to gold and silver-backed money might somehow save the world. This notion is extremely dangerous, as trying to shoehorn a global economy consisting of a bounty of diverse industries and some 6 billion people or more into a primitive exchange system which didn't work all that well even for a tiny fraction of that whole, would surely lead to catastrophe.
Plus, it ignores the fact that precious metals by no means define true value in the modern system. Production of goods and services is the real value: not pretty lumps of rock. Devolving the world economy to declare super-rare rocks are the only certain store of value could cause a collapse we might never recover from. We spent thousands of years trying to find a better and more flexible system than rare rocks, and we finally found it. You might say this breakthrough was as important as the industrial revolution itself. The only problems we've had with it are letting politically connected thieves basically counterfeit money at times on huge scales, thereby destabilizing the system as a whole.
Yes, it's true that going back to rare rocks would make it lots tougher for these sorts of thieves to do their thing. But it would also cause at the very least a massive die off of the human race. Thus, it'd be far better to simply police the counterfeiters as fiercely as required instead. And a major component of that policing requires comprehensive and ongoing investigations and prosecutions of the responsible parties. Something we haven't even begun to do for the present crisis, so far as I can tell.
Excerpt: Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.) emerged yesterday as a serious contender
to fill the remaining post in President Obama's Cabinet, saying he is under
consideration by the White House to become commerce secretary, which opens
the possibility of a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate.
Recall that in a pinch Lieberman could still allow the Republicans
to filibuster, although that might also force him to once and for all
declare his true allegiance, and lose some clout in the Senate for at least
a couple years (until the next election).
There will also be intense pressures on Gregg NOT to accept the offer -- or
for the NH governor NOT to appoint a real Democrat to the seat. Maybe
including huge under the table bribes to somebody somewhere (or blackmail
threats). At least that's my expectations based on past history, and the
awful gang-like mass US Republicans have turned into.
Bottom line: don't let this article get your hopes up. It seems more than
likely the Repubs will keep their filibuster power, somehow.
The scuttlebutt is that Gregg wouldn't accept unless the New Hampshire's Democratic Governor agrees to appoint a Republican to fill Gregg's Senate seat. But I just can't see the logic in that -- what on earth does Gregg bring as Secretary of Commerce (he was a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of Bush's economic policies) except a Senate seat for a Democrat? Take that away, and I can't see any reason for Gregg to get the gig.
Like the URL says, this website is about "unknown news". It's a thrice-weekly round-up of reports we think merit more attention, from mainstream, professional journalists, or (rarely) other sources we trust entirely.
We're not at all interested in Area 51, the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, eyeballs inside pyramids, flying saucers, FreeMasons, Paris Hilton, "Holocaust revisionism," the Illuminati, JFK's assassination, Vince Foster's suicide, the North American Union or its alleged Amero, Protocols of the Elders, the Rockefellers, Rosicrucians, Rothchilds, Skull & Bones, space aliens, technologies supposedly suppressed, the Trilateral Commission, or theories you don't really understand about the collapse of the World Trade Center.
We'll never link to 'news' from unreliable sources such as americanfreepress.net, Art Bell, cloakanddagger.ca, Tom Flocco, David Icke, Lyndon LaRouche, Wayne Madsen, Henry Makow, Al Martin, Prison Planet, Sherman Skolnick, Edgar Steele, Webster Tarpley, or your brother-in-law.
We try to avoid linking to sites that require registration, so if you click any links here that ask for registration or a password, please let us know and we'll try to find a not-so-nosey link to similar coverage elsewhere.
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.
No, Democrats aren't plotting the return of the Fairness Doctrine. Claiming that Obama would bring back the Fairness Doctrine was one of the minor lies of Republicans during the 2008 campaign, and after the election it became a cornerstone right-wing lie, repeated everywhere. But here in the real world, there's no groundswell for restoring the Fiarness Doctrine. There's no serious discussion of the idea among any people who matter. There's no support for restoring the Fairness Doctrine, even among Democratic office-holders. No legislation has been drafted or introduced. Nobody who's anywhere near the reins of power is talking about restoring the Fairness Doctrine, except the right-wing liars. It's bullsh*t.
No, Democratic leaders in the US House are not discussing the confiscation of 401(k)s and IRAs.
Reports like this one, claiming that Democrats are plotting such seizures, are hysterical over-reactions that amount to a 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.
No, Pepsi hasn't prepared an ad making light of rape. Please stop sending the link to this blog post, or this one, or this one. The images aren't ads, they're art from this graphic design blog. And next time, try a little common sense: Why would Pepsi run ads that would alienate at least half their customers?
There's no evidence that Sarah Palin's son entered the military as punishment for drug dealing. Three of our readers have sent us this link, but the author's remark is based not on fact but on a 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, it's just another rumor. The record is sealed because Track Palin was a minor, so there's no knowing whether it's true.
No,there's no Florida cash machine dispensing Ameros. 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? It's a canard.
No,Sarah Palin probably didn't use racial slurs to describe Obama and Eskimos. It wouldn't surprise me at all to learn that 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.
No,Karl Rove is not the spawn of Nazis, or the grandspawn of Nazis. His grandfather was not Carl Röver, Karl Rovener, or Karl Roverer, and was not the Gauleiter of Oldenburg, a high-ranking Nazi Party official, or the senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo A. G. Engineering, the firm built the Birkenau death camp. That's an internet legend, and it's not 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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