From Washington Post:

Investigators initially focused on the wrong man, then had to pay him a nearly $6 million settlement. In 2008, they accused another man, Bruce E. Ivins, who killed himself before he could go to trial.

Now, in the latest twist, the government has argued against itself.

In documents deep in the files of a recently settled Florida lawsuit, Justice Department civil attorneys contradicted their own department’s conclusion that Ivins was unquestionably the anthrax killer. The lawyers said the type of anthrax in Ivins’s lab was “radically different” from the deadly anthrax. They cited several witnesses who said Ivins was innocent, and they suggested that a private laboratory in Ohio could have been involved in the attacks.

By Peter Hart,  FAIR

By the tone of  some of the media coverage, you might have thought Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced a plan to slash military spending yesterday.  On the front page of USA Today (1/27/12), under the headline "Panetta Backs Far Leaner Military," readers learn in the first paragraph:

The Pentagon's new plan to cut Defense spending means a reduction of 100,000 troops, the retiring of ships and planes and closing of bases--moves that the Defense secretary said would not compromise security.

Avoiding Disaster: The Consequences of Attacking Iran, and its Alternatives

- A Briefing on Middle East Security and Global Terrorism -

·  Paul R. Pillar, Georgetown University, Professor and Former National Intelligence Officer

·  Geneive Abdo, The Century Foundation, Director of the insideIRAN project

·  Jamal Abdi, National Iranian American Council, Director of Policy

·  Heather Hurlburt, National Security Network, Executive Director

·  Alejandro J. Beutel (Moderator), Muslim Public Affairs Council, Government & Policy Analyst

Monday, January 30, 2012

12:30–2:00 PM

121 Cannon HOB

- Lunch will be served -

Dear Colleague:

Rising tension with Iran has led some in Washington to wonder if the United States is inevitably sliding toward war. Iranian officials recently threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil, and an Iranian nuclear scientist was mysteriously assassinated in the fourth such attack in two years.

Sometimes lacking from these discussions is serious consideration of the potential consequences of a preemptive military strike against Iran. Many believe that such an attack could quickly escalate into a regional war.

In order to discuss the potential consequences of a military strike against Iran, the Muslim Public Affairs Council is hosting a briefing with some of the nation’s top Iran and U.S. national security experts.

Would a military strike eliminate Iranian ability to develop a nuclear weapon? How would an attack affect regional and U.S. security? What would be the effect on oil prices and the global economy? How would an attack affect the Iranian regime and pro-democracy activists?

http://www.mpac.org/events/mpac-to-host-capitol-hill-forum-on-avoiding-disaster-in-iran-on-jan.-30.php

Sincerely,

Keith Ellison                                                Barbara Lee

Member of Congress                                    Member of Congress

  Torture and Abuse in Libya - by Stephen Lendman

NATO's alleged "responsibility to protect" was subterfuge. Months of terror bombings left Libya a charnel house.

Africa's most developed country was ravaged. Tens of thousands were killed, multiples more injured, and millions left on their own sink or swim.

  Selling War

by Stephen Lendman

Throughout its history, America glorified wars in the name of peace. From inception, they're perpetuated against one or more domestic or foreign adversaries.

  Profile of a Rogue State

by Stephen Lendman

America's unmatched globally. However, pound for pound, based on size, its policies, and regional threat, Israel stands out.

Daily, its crimes against humanity continue. On January 23, Jerusalem police arrested two Palestinian officials, Khaled Abu Arafeh and Mohammed Totah.

By Dave Lindorff

Say it loud and say it proud: We’re Number 47! We’re Number 47!  Boo-yah!

If you want to know why the US -- beacon of freedom, land of the First Amendment --  is now ranked number 47th (out of 179) in terms of freedom of the press in the annual ranking put out by Reporters Without Borders, below South Africa, Botswana, South Korea and Comoros, and just above Argentina, Romania and Latvia, you could ask Mike Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York and himself owner of a huge news organization, or his Chief of Police Raymond Kelly.

biologicaldiversity.org

SAN FRANCISCO— A coalition of conservation and American Indian groups today sued the National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to protect thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions from U.S. Navy warfare training exercises along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington.

Daniel Jared Lakemacher Demanding Justice at Guantánamo and Around the World from Center for Constitutional Rights on Vimeo.

Andy Worthington Demanding Justice at Guantánamo and Around the World from Center for Constitutional Rights on Vimeo.

Vince Warren Demanding Justice at Guantánamo and Around the World from Center for Constitutional Rights on Vimeo.

OCCUPY PEACE HOUSE - HOUSEWARMING & FUND RAISER
Tuesday 1/31/2012
7pm to 10pm
1233 12th St NW
Washington,DC 20005

The Freedom Plaza Occupation in Washington D.C. has officially moved
into Phase 2 to become One Occupation with Three Locations.

One of the three locations is what has been known in D.C. for years as
Peace House.  While the hoped-for mission is to raise enough funds to
purchase Peace House (one major investor is already on board to fund
half the purchase price) as an education, research and organizing
center for the Occupy Movement, the current owner has agreed to a
short term lease-option while investors are sought.

In the first two weeks of becoming a part of the occupation, Peace
House has already become a bustling movement center hosting activities
such as:  Backbone Campaign occupied a large conference room to build
props and rehearse staging for the Occupy the Courts action;  Occupy

Lee: National Strength Tied to Economic Strength 

Members join Lee in penning letter to President asking for restraint on military spending

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) issued the following statement in response to the Pentagon’s preview of the 2013 budget request:

On Thursday, Leon Panetta held a press conference announcing what he called "cuts" to military spending.  The first question following his remarks pointed out that the "cuts" are to dream budgets, while the actual spending will be increased over Panetta's 10-year plan.  Is there any year, the reporter asked, out of the 10 years in question, other than the first one, 2013, in which spending will actually decrease at all?  Panetta replied that he was proposing really truly to cut the projected dream budgets that he had hoped for.  In other words, he did not answer the question.

Now, there are additional minor cuts "on the table" as the saying goes, cuts that Panetta has described as disastrous, cuts that would take U.S. military spending back to about 2007 levels, cuts nowhere close to what a majority of the country favors.  (How we survived 2007 and all the years preceding it has never been explained.)  Earlier this week, Republican members of the House Armed Services Committee sent President Obama a video denouncing these cuts.  They are, of course, the cuts mandated by the legislation that created the Super Committee, which failed, resulting in supposedly automatic cuts.

The video (available here) is itself packed with lies.  It falsely claims that cuts have already been made.  It uses dollar figures derived from lumping 10 years of budgets together to make cuts sound 10 times larger.  It pretends the automatic cuts would all be to the military, whereas many could be to the State Department and other subsidiary arms of the military.  These Republicans propose slashing 10% of non-military government jobs and describe this as saving jobs, even though non-military spending produces more jobs for the same dollars than military spending does.  And of course there is no mention in this video or in any official discussion of exactly how outrageously huge the U.S. military has become.  But a crazy video, and a bill to go with it, can not only pass the House and make its way into the Senate (Senator John McCain is already working on companion legislation), but the President is already in agreement with this bill's primary purpose of undoing any actual cuts to the military.  The history of lame duck officials, by the way, is that of becoming less, not more, representative of the public will. Caveat emptor!

In 2004 2008, three times in three debates Senator John McCain proposed cutting military spending and Obama avoided the topic. Candidate Obama proposed significantly enlarging the largest military the world had ever seen.  And he has done so.  He now proposes not to cut it while pretending to cut it.  The best bit of rhetoric in this week's State of the Union address was this:

"Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home." 

On Thursday, Panetta put that in real dollar terms.  Setting aside any possible supplemental spending bills, and ignoring increased war participation by the CIA, the State Department, etc., and apart from the much larger "non-war" military spending that continues to inch upward, not downward, Panetta claimed that, if Congress would agree, we would spend $88 billion on wars next year, instead of $115 billion this year.  That $115 billion is fairly typical of the past decade, in which we have spent between $100 billion and $200 billion on wars each year (not counting veterans care, fuel price impacts, lost opportunities, debt interest, etc.)  I suspect it also does not include Libya.  So, we're saving $27 billion, maybe.  Take half of that for debt, and we've got $13.5 billion with which to do our nation-building right here at home.  Let's be generous and round it up to $100 billion. That's still in comparison with an overall war and "security" budget of well over $1 trillion annually.  And $13.5 billion is less than a quarter of the $60 billion Panetta now claims he will save purely through "increased efficiency."  (Granted, that actually could be done in the Pentagon if it were not, you know, the Pentagon.)

The talk of cuts serves more than a political purpose for Panetta and Obama.  It also serves to justify actual cuts to services for troops and veterans even while increasing spending on weapons and occupying new nations.  Also announced on Thursday, Obama is working on re-occupying the Philippines.  To his credit, there has been no mention of the benefits to "our little brown brothers."  There will be an increased Asian presence, Panetta said.  The Marines will maintain their Pacific presence, he noted in particular, horribly smashing the hopes of the entire population of Okinawa.  There will be no cuts to bombers.  We will have a "posture forward" and be able to "penetrate defenses" strengthening "the ability to project power in denied areas," also known as other people's countries.  But healthcare fees and deductibles for troops and veterans will have to go up, Panetta said.  

The second question asked at Panetta's press conference (how did actual reporters get in there?) was why a tiny reduction following a massive increase in troops in Afghanistan was really sufficient.  Panetta was unable to explain.  Can you?

From Democracy Now:

The United States could be expanding its military presence in the Philippines as part of the Obama administration’s avowed intent to focus on the Asia-Pacific. According to the Washington Post, the White House and the Philippine government are resuming talks in Washington today after beginning preliminary negotiations last spring. The talks come two decades after the United States was forced to leave its military base at the Philippines’ Subic Bay.

http://ReplaceVY.org

Entergy Nuclear of Lousiana is giving those of us who care about our futures a golden opportunity to exercise our power. This multi-national corporation is a poster boy for the callous pursuit of profit at the expense of health, safety and even state sovereignty.

By Steven Kull, World Public Opinion .org

This article was originally published in tandem with an article by R. Jeffrey Smith on IWatch, a publication of the Center for Public Integrity.

What do average Americans say when they are faced with the budget tradeoffs on national security that policymakers face today? When polls ask in the abstract about defense spending, Americans are often reluctant to cut it. However when Americans are asked to consider the deficit and presented with tradeoffs, majorities cut defense and cut it more than any other area of the budget. Furthermore when they learn how much of the budget goes to defense, large majorities cut it, on average quite deeply.

(Image Credit: Greg West)

This issue has become confused in public discussion, because many polls simply ask Americans whether they favor cutting defense, increasing it, or keeping it the same. These find that more favor cuts than increases, but those favoring cuts are still fewer than half of those surveyed. A February 2011 Pew poll found only 30% ready to cut, while fewer (13%) favored increases, and most (53%) said they accepted current levels.

When pollsters frame the issue in terms of the budget deficit, the number ready to cut defense may rise to about half. Most recently, an October Washington Post/Bloomberg Poll asked respondents whether they supported or opposed "reducing military spending" to help reduce the nation's budget deficit. Fifty-one percent supported it and 42 percent were opposed. Some polls have found lower numbers in support.

As respondents are given more information, support for reductions rises. When Quinnipiac University in March simply told respondents that defense, Social Security and Medicare together constitute more than half of the federal budget, 54% favored cutting defense spending.

And when they are asked to choose between defense and other programs, defense is consistently the most popular program to cut. When CBS/NY Times, on several occasions over the least year asked respondents to choose where they would prefer to cut Medicare, social security or the military, 45-55 percent chose the military, 16-21 percent Medicare, 13-17 percent Social Security.

If respondents are given choices between large and small cuts, overall support for cutting rises even more. In a Kaiser Foundation poll conducted in September, 67% favored some reduction in defense to address the deficit, with 28% favoring a major reduction and 39% a minor reduction.

Bruce Gagnon reports:

Today, in the Gangjeong sea protest, 5 people including Catholic brother Park Do-hyon, Ms. Oh Doo-hee, Abigail Yu, Lee Jong-hwa and Kim Dong-won, were arrested by Jeju maritime police agency. The purpose of barge ship was to move the tetra pods near the Gangjeong port so the Navy (and lead contractor Samsung) can prepare the site for blasting the rocky coastline which the villagers fondly call Gureombee.

Also from Gagnon:

Youngsil Kang from Gangjeong village on Jeju Island joined me at Bath Iron Works yesterday as workers streamed out of the shipyard at 3:30 pm. Youngsil is traveling around the U.S. for two months and did a talk in New York City last week. We were lucky to have her visit Bath yesterday. Two local newspapers covered her visit - one of the stories will appear in the paper today and the other next Thursday.

It was a surprise for the workers to see the Korean banner Youngsil held (No Navy Base) but of course they did not know what it said. I called out to them as they passed by telling them she was from South Korea and that she came from a place where the Aegis destroyers they build will be ported.

Usually on such a day I've had at least a dozen workers take my flyers but yesterday, with three cameramen snapping photos, only two took Youngsil's letter. (One of those taking photos was BIW worker Peter Woodruff who shares a weekly radio show with me on WBOR at Bowdoin College. Youngsil was impressed that Peter had the courage to come out when so many workers at the shipyard scurried away from us.) We submitted her letter to the local newspaper as a Letter to the Editor so hopefully the content will still be available to the public.

"U.S. Navy shipbuilding programs will not be slashed to meet an expected Pentagon-wide reduction in spending. We've placed a priority on shipbuilding," Sean Stackley, the Navy's top acquisition official, told reporters on January 12. "You can see a lot of alignment between the [new Obama] defense strategy and what the Navy does."

With the new Naval fleet, "We span the globe.....We have enormous payload capacity in our big boys," bragged Navy Undersecretary Bob Work at the Surface Navy Association symposium in Washington DC.

In a related story the Washington Post reported yesterday that "Two decades after evicting U.S. forces from their biggest base in the Pacific, the Philippines is in talks with the Obama administration about expanding the American military presence in the island nation, the latest in a series of strategic moves aimed at China. If an arrangement is reached, it would follow other recent agreements to base thousands of U.S. Marines in northern Australia and to station Navy warships in Singapore."

Obama is moving quickly to implement his "pivot toward the Asia-Pacific" as outlined in the Pentagon's recent Defense Guidance. This coming massive U.S. military buildup bodes ill for the likes of Jeju Island, Guam, Okinawa, the Philippines, Hawaii and more.

These military moves on the grand chess board make the coming Global Network meetings in Hawaii (Feb 18-21) and on Jeju Island (Feb 24-26) all the more important for our work. It is through these meetings that we will learn much more about the real impacts this "pivot" will cause to the people across the Asia-Pacific. From these meetings we will also be able to develop organizing strategies to increase our ability to support the beleaguered people who are always the ones to suffer from U.S. imperial designs.

As Obama and the Pentagon make their "pivot" toward the Asia-Pacific it is incumbent on the peace movement to also make an intellectual and organizing pivot toward that region as well.

By Linn Washington, Jr.

I made a mistake.

An article I wrote recently for TCBH about the Pennsylvania prison system’s latest punitive assault on now ex-death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal (unnecessarily continuing his solitary confinement) contained a factual misstatement.

Most journalists consider any inaccuracy an error, regardless of how small.

The Code of Ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists calls for admitting “mistakes” and correcting them promptly.

  Obama's Failed State of the Union

by Stephen Lendman

It was typical Obama, taking credit for what should be condemned. He's a fraud, a crime boss, a war criminal multiple times over, a moral coward, and serial liar. 

  Independent Libyan Fact-Finding Mission

by Stephen Lendman

A joint report was released by the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR), Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), and International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC).

In 2007, when the Bush regime was threatening to attack Iran, with substantially the same justification that the U.S. is now using to impose sanctions, carry out secret operations, and prepare the population for more war, World Can't Wait made a quiz.  We administered it on dozens of college campuses, and on street corners. 

Leslie Harris was there and wrote this report.

RT will launch an exclusive interview series by Wikileaks founder Julian Assange called "The World Tomorrow" in March 2012.

Host and show author, Julian Assange, will engage with ten key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries – figures who in the author’s opinion will be shaping the political agenda of tomorrow.

Julian Assange is filming the series from the location of his house arrest where he has been confined, with no charge, for 413 days. Filming commences a week before his Supreme Court hearing.

"Upheavals and revolutions in the Middle East have commenced an era of real political change that is still unfolding. Wikileaks, as the world's boldest publisher, has been at the frontline of this global movement for change, and our project is designed to catalyze the global discussion about the world of tomorrow, - said Assange. - Are we heading towards utopia, or dystopia and how we can set our paths? Through this series I will explore the possibilities for our future in conversations with those who are shaping it”.  

RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said "We're proud to host Julian Assange's new project. RT has rallied a global audience of open-minded people who don't take things around them for granted. Our viewers are open to the discussions that will be presented at Julians' show on our channel”.

In this new report (PDF), the Congressional Research Service gives its stamp of approval to law-altering presidential signing statements, emphasizing that both Obama and Bush used them, and blurring the distinction between how these presidents and their predecessors (Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton) used them. The CRS is "nonpartisan" in the sense of "bipartisan."  When both parties do it, that means it is not illegal.