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Dear Carrie,

You are a kind lady so I hope you will take the time to read what I have written here. Israel deserves your support but not the kind you are used to giving.

Thursday 19 August 2010

by Ellen Brown, t r u t h o u t

Over 62 million mortgages are now held in the name of MERS, an electronic recording system devised by and for the convenience of the mortgage industry. A California bankruptcy court, following landmark cases in other jurisdictions, recently held that this electronic shortcut breaks the chain of title, voiding foreclosure. The logical result could be 62 million homes that are foreclosure proof.

In a Newsweek article a year ago called "Too Big to Jail: Why Prosecutors Won't Hit Wall Street Hard in the Subprime Scandal," Michael Hirsch wrote that we were unlikely to see trials and convictions like those in the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, because fraud and blame have been so widespread that there is no one to single out and jail. Said Hirsch:

Morphed with the help of the Neo-Cons in this Country, the U.S., and their supporters hate rhetoric which not only continues but has ramped up in condemnation still of a whole peoples as well as their religious beliefs, made by those who are no different then the extremists they should be condemning!

August 26, 2010 - THE likely independent MP Andrew Wilkie said the Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, had apologised for the Howard government's vilification of him over his opposition to the Iraq War.

Snip

This week Mr Wilkie called for Australia to separate its Afghanistan war policy from the United States and get out.

The Israeli Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence - by Stephen Lendman

James Petras' powerful 2006 book titled, "The Power of Israel in the United States" explained the enormous Jewish Lobby influence on US Middle East policies. Often harming American interests, they're pursued anyway because of its grassroots and high-level control over government, the business community, academia, the clergy and mass media since at least the 1960s.

Intolerant of opposing views, they're suppressed for its own agenda, funded by PR propaganda domestically and overseas, America's top publications paid off to go along, now revealed by a secret document subpoenaed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) investigation into the American Zionist Council (AZC), AIPAC's parent lobbying arm.

Yale now has two war criminals on it's faculty. Just recently it hired Retired General Stanley McChrystal to teach a graduate level seminar on leadership. War Criminal John Dimitri Negroponte has been teaching at Yale since 2009.

SEE LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/the-culpable/36-the-culprits/78-j...

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/the-culpable/36-the-culprits/257-...

By John Grant

“Taft is a fathead.” (Theodore Roosevelt, 1912)

The anti-gay blog QueerHunt has just launched an expose that General David Petraeus is gay and has a secret Arab boyfriend he periodically meets in a Dubai hotel. The young man goes by the code name ‘awrence, an apparent reference to how T. E. Lawrence was known by his beloved Arab boys.
Just imagine the legs this will get in the blogosphere.

But wait. There is no blog called QueerHunt (that I know of) and I just batted out the lead paragraph above on my keyboard. I totally made it up. But in this freaky world we live in, it’s now a meme out there for any nutcase with a blog to run with.

My apologies to General Petraeus for abusing him to make a point, but there's really no difference between this hypothetical scenario and the absurdity that 18% of Americans and 31% of Republicans think President Barack Obama is a Muslim.

JOIN in with this Coalition!! Past time to teach what this Country is supposed to be about and what real Religious Ideologies of Tolerance are!!

Coalition Including 9-11 Families To Support Ground Zero Mosque

A newly formed group that includes a number of family members of 9-11 victims is rallying today in support of the building of a mosque near Ground Zero.
The 9-11 families group "September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows" is teaming up with at least 40 religious and civic organizations to form a coalition called "New York Neighbors For American Values." The coalition is expected to hold an afternoon rally at the municipal building in Manhattan. {read more}

by Robert Jensen

When the 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division rolled out of Iraq last week, the colonel commanding the brigade told a reporter that his soldiers were “leaving as heroes.”

While we can understand the pride of professional soldiers and the emotion behind that statement, it’s time for Americans -- military and civilian -- to face a difficult reality: In seven years of the deceptively named “Operation Iraqi Freedom” and nine years of “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, no member of the U.S. has been a hero.

25 August 2010 - Television news divisions may be thinking twice about ambitious travel plans.

That was the ominous message delivered to the "CBS Evening News" last week. The Nielsen Co. said Katie Couric's broadcast reached just under 5 million viewers, a low point for evening newscasts for at least two decades and probably much longer.

The week's centerpiece was a two-day trip to Afghanistan, where some striking work was done by Couric and reporter Terry McCarthy. Each of those telecasts had fewer than 4.7 million viewers.

America's Gulf: Updating the Greatest Ever Environmental Crime - by Stephen Lendman

For months, US media reports distorted and lied about its severity, running cover for BP and the Obama administration, now practically avoiding the crisis altogether as it worsens. An August 20 Inter Press Service report is revealing, quoting Biloxi, MS fisherman Danny Ross saying hypoxia (depleted oxygen) is driving horseshoe crabs, stingrays, flounder, dolphins, and other sea life "out of the water" to escape. Another area fisherman, David Wallis said he's "seen crabs crawling out of the water in the middle of the day."

by Linda Milazzo

Photo by Hagen for News Blaster, NY Daily News

I've always believed in unions. I come from a long line of union members: steel workers, sanitation workers, office workers, police, fire, you name it. They're all in my family. My American family typifies the American working class. In fact, if all the unions represented by my family were to strike for a week, the whole country would suffer. Construction would stop. Crime would go undeterred. Fires would go unextinguished. And in my case, students would go untaught. Yes, I, too, am a union member. I'm a teacher.

By Dan De Luce

From AFP

WASHINGTON — US troops will still be in combat and taking on Islamist militants in Iraq even as the American military moves to an "advise and assist" role with a smaller force, officials said Thursday.

The withdrawal of the last US combat brigade on Thursday was hailed as a symbolic moment for the controversial American presence in Iraq, more than seven years since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

But while the remaining 50,000 troops will no longer have a formal combat mission after September 1, they will be well-armed and possibly coming under fire as they join in manhunts for Al-Qaeda figures or other extremists.

To Read Entire Article:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/651-8-19-10-d...

Stephanie Tang from World Can't Wait joined anti-war veterans Josh Stieber and Ethan McCord on the Lettieri & Poole show, KGO Newstalk Radio (San Francisco) Saturday August 21, for a talk about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and WikiLeaks.

Josh and Ethan were in Iraq with Bravo Company 2-16, the unit whose Apache helicopter attack on civilians is now known to the world thanks to the WikiLeaks "Collateral Murder" video. Ethan is seen in that video, carrying a wounded Iraqi child to find a medic. After returning from Iraq, Josh and Ethan wrote An Open Letter of Reconciliation and Responsibility to the Iraqi People: From Current and Former Members of the US Military.

Aug. 24, 2010 - A Defense Department task force devoted to preventing suicide in the military presented a grim picture of the trend Tuesday, with suicides rising at a near steady pace even as commanders apply various balms to soothe a stressed, exhausted fighting force.

The military has nearly 900 suicide prevention programs across 400 military installations worldwide, but in a report released Tuesday, the task force describes the Defense Department's approach as a safety net riddled with holes.

Last year, 309 men and women slipped through.

In 2008, 267 service members committed suicide. In 2007, the number was 224.

Notes from Besieged Gaza - by Stephen Lendman

On June 17, Israel's Cabinet issued a six point plan, agreeing to ease access for civilian goods entering Gaza without loosening inflexible security measures to restrict them. So what's changed? Not much. Increased truck traffic has been modest at best. The consumer ban was partially lifted, permitting previously prohibited items like ketchup, chocolate and children's toys.

By Dave Lindorff

It’s time for us progressives to stop playing defense on Social Security.

We’ve watched the retirement system suffer years of attacks by conservatives and by class traitors in the Democratic Party. We have seen the retirement age raised since 1983 from 65 to 67, and the cost-of-living calculation altered so that our benefits have declined in value over time, while the tax rate on working people has risen.

It’s time to stop fighting rear-guard actions and to go on the offense.

No, the war is not over, troops are still dying and they are still engaged in combat.

In the week since the much publicized withdrawal of "combat" troops from Iraq it has become more evident that the Iraq War continues under a new name: "Operation New Dawn."

Iraq Pullout: Mission Accomplished or Strategic Retreat? - by Stephen Lendman

In an August 2 speech to disabled veterans, Obama touted his planned withdrawal, saying:

"As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end....Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy....for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010, America's combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing - as promised, on schedule."

At two or more recent fundraisers, he repeated the "pledge:"

"We are keeping the promise I made when I began my campaign for the presidency: by the end of this month, we will have removed 100,000 troops from Iraq, and our combat mission will be over."

August 23, 2010 - In the earliest production stages of “Witness: Katrina,” filmmakers Jon Siskel and Greg Jacobs culled a few home-video clips from the Internet to assemble a kind of pilot for their project.

 

Washington Orders Shahbaz Airbase Saved, not Pakistan's Flood Victims - by Stephen Lendman

With 20 million or more people affected, about 12% of the population, the equivalent of 37 million Americans, Pakistan's devastating floods are truly of biblical proportions, described by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as worse than anything he'd ever seen, saying:

"Thousands of towns and villages have simply been washed away. Roads, buildings, bridges, crops - millions of livelihoods have been lost. People are marooned on tiny islands with the floodwaters all around them (without food, sanitation, medical help, or shelter). They are drinking dirty water. They are living in the mud and ruins of their lives. Many have lost family and friends. Many more are afraid their children and loved ones will not survive in these condition."

By James Ridgeway

President Obama’s Deficit Commission is all smoke and mirrors. Its members are making a big show of laboring over ”painful” choices and considering all options in their quest to bring down the deficit. But  inside the Beltway everyone knows what’s going to happen: The commission will reduce the deficit on the backs of the old and the poor, through cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Some opponents have taken to calling it the Cat Food Commission, since that’s what it’s victims will be forced to eat once the commission gets done slashing away at their modest entitlements.

In fact, the true intent of the Deficit Commission was evident before it was even formed. That intent was only driven home when Obama appointed as its co-chair Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming who is well known for voicing, in the most colorful terms, what Paul Krugman calls the “zombie lie” that old-age entitlements will soon bankrupt the country.

By Ladd Everitt, Waging Nonviolence

On August 28, conservative radio/television host Glenn Beck, 2012 Republican presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the National Rifle Association, and the Special Operations Warrior Foundation will conduct the “Restoring Honor” rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. The date and location are significant. It was on August 28, 1963, on the steps of the memorial that Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington. Beck has billed the rally as a “non-political event” that will pay tribute to America’s service personnel and “help us restore the values that founded this great nation.”

This drug induced Country, the U.S., is one of the Main Suppliers of the weapons and ammunition being used across the border in the Mexican Drug Wars as well, and the middlemen gun runners aren't illegal aliens!!

'Straw' gun buyers leave a bloody trail

August 23, 2010 - Authorities are cracking down on those who buy guns for criminals who can't. Experts say "gray market" supplies 90 percent of guns used in crimes.

Give Mark Koscielski the slightest indication that the gun you want to buy from him may not be for you, and the sale's over.

"Say a couple comes in, and the male is looking at guns while the female doesn't do anything, and finally he says, 'I will take this gun,'" said the owner of Koscielski's Guns and Ammo in south Minneapolis. "We hand him the federal form, and he will hand it to his girlfriend or wife. Can't do that."

I woke up this morning thinking of Abeer, did a new search online and found this Youtube that I had not seen before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8VBR608YjM

Although we all learned the basic horrible facts of this story years ago, it continues to haunt me. I wonder and worry about Abeer's little brothers and what they are doing now. They were away at school when these heinous crimes were perpetrated on their sisters and parents by US soldiers.

This past week was Abeer's birthday. She would have turned 19.

Political Killings in Colombia - by Stephen Lendman

Colombia, America's closest South American ally, is a corrupted narco-state, a repressive death squad faux democracy, threatening regional neighbors, and reigning terror against trade unionists, human rights workers, campesinos, pro-democracy organizations, independent journalists, and legitimate resistance groups like the FARC-EP. Established in 1964, James Petras calls it the "longest standing, largest peasant-based guerrilla movement in the world," persisting valiantly for decades.

Thanks to Plan Colombia and other support, the state is heavily militarized, more than ever now serving as Washington's land-based aircraft carrier against regional targets, including neighboring Venezuela.

Timothy McVeigh, convicted of killing 168 people in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, was parented by Irish Catholics. He referred to himself as agnostic yet wrote to a friend, prior to his crime: “I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause.” McVeigh didn’t explain his concept of God. He did, however, request a Mass and a Catholic chaplain as his execution neared.

Are you wondering where I’m going with this?

Straight to Ground Zero and the Cordoba Initiative’s proposed building of an Islamic center within a couple of blocks of the huge hole where the World Trade Center once towered. Straight to confront the firestorm of opposition to a plan that includes a prayer room, an athletic center, culinary school, and art studios.

What if members of the Catholic Church wanted to build a center within a few blocks of the Oklahoma City National Memorial? I doubt there’d be a problem.

But we are living a problemathon.

August 18, 2010 - Seeking to uncover information about the U.S. government’s 2008 overseas “proxy detention” of American citizen Naji Hamdan, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed a lawsuit in federal district court here today. The suit asks the CIA, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and other intelligence agencies to turn over records about their surveillance of Mr. Hamdan in the United States, and their involvement in his detention and torture in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates. {read more}

 

Related

* Watch an interview between Hamdan and Pasquarella.

By Shashank Bengali

From McClatchy

WASHINGTON — In June, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Canadian man who contends that U.S. authorities mistook him for an al Qaida operative in 2002 and shipped him to a secret prison in Syria, where he was beaten with electrical cables and held in a grave-like cell for 10 months.

Four years earlier, however, the Canadian government had concluded an exhaustive inquiry and found that the former prisoner, Maher Arar, was telling the truth. Canada cleared Arar of all ties to terrorism and paid him $10 million in damages, and his lawyers say he's cooperating with an investigation into the role of U.S. and Syrian officials in his imprisonment and reported torture.

READ MORE AT:

http://warcriminalswatch.org/index.php/news/40-recent-news/646-8-18-10-o...

This photo essay could have gone on and on, just on the so called religious ideologies some preach and demand others must follow, as to All the intolerance episodes that have plagued this Nation since Europeans came over and took from the Natives what was theirs for thousands of years prior!

With recent episode of inflaming hatreds we're playing right into the hands, we already have during the previous decade, of those that used extremist ideologies as many here have picked that up and respond just as those they condemn!