Must See TV

number and their Date of Birth if they are performing, working, etc at the State fair....

Guess why?

"To crack down on sex offenders"

Uh huh...

Kellogg Company has finally named the chemical at the centre of its US tainted packaging incident that led to the recall of 28 million boxes of cereal last month
The food giant told FoodProductionDaily.com today that elevated levels of a number of hydrocarbons, including methylnaphthalene were responsible for the off-taste and smells in four types of breakfast cereals. The substance is normally present in paraffin wax and film linings.

However, the company did not supply information relating to the exact levels of the chemical that were responsible for sickening a number of consumers – only saying they were not present in harmful levels.

“Kellogg Company has concluded its investigation into the off smells present in the package liners in some of its cereals,” said company spokeswoman Adaire Putnam. “Working with external experts in medicine, toxicology, public health, chemistry and food safety, we identified elevated levels of hydrocarbons, including methyl naphthalene, normally found in the paraffin wax and film in the liners.”

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Kellogg-reveals-name-of-che...

Did BP Free the Lockerbie Bomber?
by Tom Bower

CEO Tony Hayward was blindsided by the fury over the company’s role in the release of Abdel Basset al Megrahi—which former CEO John Browne took credit for. Tom Bower on what it means for the Gulf.

BP CEO Tony Hayward was taken by surprise Tuesday by several U.S. senators' call for an investigation into BP's role in seeking the premature release of Abdel Basset al Megrahi, convicted in 2001 for the bombing of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland. Beleaguered by the continuing Gulf oil spill caused in part by the legacy of John Browne, BP's former CEO, Hayward finds himself stuck with another poisoned inheritance from Browne—who personally flew to Libya several times with MI-6 officers to secretly negotiate access to Libya's oil. The deal, announced in 2004 by Tony Blair, was hailed as a breakthrough.

BP officially admits that it made representations in 2007 to the British government about the slow progress of al Megrahi's release.

Unofficially, the corporation points out that the Bush administration was party to the comprehensive deal with Col. Muammar Gaddafi to renounce nuclear bombs and open up Libya's oil fields to American oil companies. Shell, ExxonMobil, Hess and other oil companies beat BP in getting Libyan oil licenses. Rex Tillerson, the current head of ExxonMobil, personally met Gaddafi in 2005, to begin negotiations. All welcomed BP's success without knowing all the details.

Al Megrahi was released in August 2009 on compassionate grounds that his prostrate cancer would kill him within 3 months. Last week, Dr Karol Sikora, a controversial oncologist who made the original diagnosis, admitted he might have been mistaken and the ex-Libyan intelligence officer “could live for another 10 years.” Sen Frank Lautenberg has called for an investigation into whether BP lobbied the British government to prematurely release al Megrahi as part of a deal to get access to Libyan oil. The corporation admits mentioning al Megrahi's continued incarceration as a block to an oil deal.

Al Megrahi was released by the Scottish government under pressure from then-British prime minister Gordon Brown. Currently BP lacks the political clout in Washington to fight the senators’ campaign, but will urgently seek help from allies.

Browne, blamed for the financial cuts which led to BP's weak safety and maintenance regime, took the praise for the Libya deal in 2004. But since the Gulf disaster started, he has refused to comment in detail about his responsibility. The corporation officially admits that it made representations in 2007 to the British government about the slow progress of al Megrahi's release.
Read More Here...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-14/bp-libya-deal-did-bp-free-the-lockerbie-bomber/?om_rid=NFw2$z&om_mid=_BMPa4JB8OYRP6y&

...are we going after the real terrorists?

The French lower house of Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a ban on wearing face-covering veils in a public place.

The legislation, part of an ongoing national debate on French identity, is expected to have no opposition in the Senate, which is due to vote on it in September. Once signed by President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has placed it high on his agenda, the ban would take effect next spring.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-france-veil-20100714...

Four of the men — former Officer Robert Faulcon, Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, Sgt. Robert Gisevius and Officer Anthony Villavaso — were charged with federal civil rights violations in the killing of 17-year-old James Brissette and the wounding of four others, all members of the same family, when the officers came across a group on the bridge in eastern New Orleans and opened fire.
In addition, Mr. Faulcon, who was arrested Tuesday morning by F.B.I. agents in Fresno, Tex., was charged with shooting Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man with severe mental disabilities, in the back, killing him, as he tried to flee.
All four of the men could face the death penalty.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/us/14justice.html?th&emc=th

Reuters) - He is Mexico's second-richest man and his mining company has had a run of bad publicity with a deadly coal mine blast and a long strike, yet German Larrea has managed to stay out of the news, cementing his reputation as the country's most secretive billionaire.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66C4QE20100713

Wealth, Income, and Power
by G. William Domhoff
September 2005 (updated July 2010)

...Figures on inheritance tell much the same story. According to a study published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, only 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more in inheritance. Another 1.1% receive $50,000 to $100,000. On the other hand, 91.9% receive nothing (Kotlikoff & Gokhale, 2000).

Thus, the attempt by ultra-conservatives to eliminate inheritance taxes -- which they always call "death taxes" for P.R. reasons -- would take a huge bite out of government revenues for the benefit of less than 1% of the population. (It is noteworthy that some of the richest people in the country oppose this ultra-conservative initiative, suggesting that this effort is driven by anti-government ideology. In other words, few of the ultra-conservatives behind the effort will benefit from it in any material way.)

Actually, ultra-conservatives and their wealthy financial backers may not have to bother to eliminate what remains of inheritance taxes at the federal level. The rich already have a new way to avoid inheritance taxes forever -- for generations and generations -- thanks to bankers. After Congress passed a reform in 1986 making it impossible for a "trust" to skip a generation before paying inheritance taxes, bankers convinced legislatures in many states to eliminate their "rules against perpetuities," which means that trust funds set up in those states can exist in perpetuity, thereby allowing the trust funds to own new businesses, houses, and much else for descendants of rich people, and even to allow the beneficiaries to avoid payments to creditors when in personal debt or sued for causing accidents and injuries. About $100 billion in trust funds has flowed into those states so far. You can read the details on these "dynasty trusts" (which could be the basis for an even more solidified "American aristocracy") in a New York Times opinion piece published in July 2010 by Boston College law professor Roy Madoff, who also has a book on this and other new tricks: Immortality and the Law: The Rising Power of the American Dead (Yale University Press, 2010).
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/opinion/12madoff.html?_r=1

For the vast majority of Americans, their homes are by far the most significant wealth they possess. Figure 3 comes from the Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances (via Wolff, 2010) and compares the median income, total wealth (net worth, which is marketable assets minus debt), and non-home wealth (which earlier we called financial wealth) of White, Black, and Hispanic households in the U.S.

Besides illustrating the significance of home ownership as a measure of wealth, the graph also shows that Black and Latino households are faring significantly worse overall, whether we are talking about income or net worth. In 2007, the average white household had 15 times as much total wealth as the average African-American or Latino household. If we exclude home equity from the calculations and consider only financial wealth, the ratios are in the neighborhood of 100:1. Extrapolating from these figures, we see that 70% of white families' wealth is in the form of their principal residence; for Blacks and Hispanics, the figures are 95% and 96%, respectively.

And for all Americans, things are getting worse: as the projections to July 2009 by Wolff (2010) make clear, the last few years have seen a huge loss in housing wealth for most families, making the gap between the rich and the rest of America even greater, and increasing the number of households with no marketable assets from 18.6% to 24.1%.

Historical context
Numerous studies show that the wealth distribution has been extremely concentrated throughout American history, with the top 1% already owning 40-50% in large port cities like Boston, New York, and Charleston in the 19th century. It was very stable over the course of the 20th century, although there were small declines in the aftermath of the New Deal and World II, when most people were working and could save a little money. There were progressive income tax rates, too, which took some money from the rich to help with government services.

Then there was a further decline, or flattening, in the 1970s, but this time in good part due to a fall in stock prices, meaning that the rich lost some of the value in their stocks. By the late 1980s, however, the wealth distribution was almost as concentrated as it had been in 1929, when the top 1% had 44.2% of all wealth. It has continued to edge up since that time, with a slight decline from 1998 to 2001, before the economy crashed in the late 2000s and little people got pushed down again. Table 3 and Figure 4 present the details from 1922 through 2007.

Here are some dramatic facts that sum up how the wealth distribution became even more concentrated between 1983 and 2004, in good part due to the tax cuts for the wealthy and the defeat of labor unions: Of all the new financial wealth created by the American economy in that 21-year-period, fully 42% of it went to the top 1%. A whopping 94% went to the top 20%, which of course means that the bottom 80% received only 6% of all the new financial wealth generated in the United States during the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s (Wolff, 2007).
The full report and tables here:
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

...but they would just confuse sociology with socialism, of course, by cunning design of their fascist benefactors.

FCC indecency rule struck down by appeals court: A three-judge panel in New York says a rule on unscripted expletives on live broadcast TV and radio creates a 'chilling effect' in violation of the 1st Amendment. The ruling is a major victory for broadcast networks.

By Jim Puzzanghera and Meg James, Los Angeles Times
July 14, 2010

In a sharp rebuke of the Bush-era crackdown on foul language on broadcast television and radio, a federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government's near-zero-tolerance indecency policy as a violation of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech.

The ruling is a major victory for the broadcast TV networks, which jointly sued the Federal Communications Commission in 2006.

The case was triggered by unscripted expletives uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows earlier in the decade, and the court's decision calls into question the FCC's regulation of foul language and other indecent content on the public airwaves.

"It does make it much harder for the FCC to regulate this area," said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who specializes in 1st Amendment law. He called the ruling "a very important decision" whose ultimate fate could rest with the U.S. Supreme Court.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals did not have the power to strike down the 1978 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the FCC's right to police the airwaves for objectionable content. But it reversed the aggressive stance the agency took starting in 2004 that found even a slip of the tongue that got by network censors was a violation subject to fines for the stations that aired it.

The court said that policy on so-called fleeting expletives was "unconstitutionally vague" and created a "chilling effect" on the programming that broadcasters chose to air. The court echoed complaints from network executives that the FCC's standards were nearly impossible to gauge, noting that the agency allowed the airing of the f-word and s-word in broadcasts of the World War II movie "Saving Private Ryan" but not in the PBS miniseries "The Blues."

"Under the current policy, broadcasters must choose between not airing or censoring controversial programs and risking massive fines or possibly even loss of their licenses, and it is not surprising which option they choose," U.S. Circuit Judge Rosemary S. Pooler wrote in Tuesday's 3-0 decision. "Indeed, there is ample evidence in the record that the FCC's indecency policy has chilled protected speech."

Fox Broadcasting Co., which was the lead plaintiff on the case, cheered the ruling. But Carter G. Phillips, the network's attorney on the case, said it would not lead to a flood of indecent content between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., when the FCC's restrictions are in place because children are most likely to be watching or listening.

He noted that even though networks are free to air expletives after 10 p.m., such as on late-night talk shows, they rarely do.
Continue reading here:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-indecency-20100714,0,5995911.story?om_rid=NFw2$z&om_mid=_BMPa4JB8OYRP6y&

July 13, 2010 7:06 PM
NAACP Passes Tea Party Racism Resolution
Posted by Brian Montopoli

The NAACP has passed a resolution condemning racism in the Tea Party movement.

The resolution was approved in a vote by more than 2,000 delegates at the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Kansas City.

Versions of the resolution condemned "explicitly racist behavior" in the Tea Party movement and called on people to "repudiate" what it described as racist elements of the Tea Party. The final text of the resolution has not yet been made available, however, and that language may have changed.

As the Associated Press notes, NAACP President Ben Jealous has said the Tea Party movement needs to "be responsible members of this democracy and make sure they don't tolerate bigots or bigotry among their members."

Members of the Tea Party movement vehemently deny that their movement is racist.

A CBS News poll in April found 52 percent of Tea Party members believe too much has been made of the problems facing black people Far fewer Americans overall -- 28 percent -- believe as much. Among non-Tea Party whites, the percentage who say too much attention has been paid to the problems of black people is 23 percent.

The original NAACP resolution, submitted by the group's Kansas City branch, said the Tea Party movement has "displayed signs and posters intended to degrade people of color generally and President Barack Obama specifically."

It condemned "racist elements" of the movement as "a threat to progress" and referenced instances in which black congressmen said they were verbally and physically abused by Tea Party activists.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20010467-503544.html?om_rid=NFw2$z&om_mid=_BMPa4JB8OYRP6y&

..."don't pay attention to our signs and what we yell. 'They' made us carry them and told us what to say."

Tuesday, July 13. 2010

Letter to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Fannie and Freddie

Dear Chairman Bernanke:

On July 17, 2008, David Rogers, the respected Congressional reporter for Politico wrote an article titled “Pelosi-Paulson tension Rises,” in which he had the following paragraph:

“Earlier in the day, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke assured lawmakers that Fannie and Freddie, the two government-supported enterprises, are ‘adequately capitalized’ and ‘in no danger of failing.’”

Given what you knew at that time, when Freddie Mac common shares were selling for about $9.25, down from about $60 a year earlier, what was the basis for your assurance to the many trusting shareholders of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac who were likely to interpret your statement as reason to hold on for a recovery?

At that time, there were students of these GSEs such as Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Stanton, who in early critiques of these GSEs concluded that they were seriously undercapitalized.

How could you have been so mistaken? Do you have any explanation that you would like to share with the public? What do you wish you had said in the light of what happened in the following months?

Finally, what role do you envision for the present common shareholders if Fannie and Freddie wish to raise capital in the private markets as part of their recovery?

There is often an inclination by Fed Chairmen to let their statements stand and not have to explain them either when they are made or in retrospect. However, the enormous losses incurred by common shareholders of these GSEs in the past three years due to their trust and reliance on the statements of responsible federal officials, including one might add, the statements in the spring of 2008 by Mr. James Lockhart, director of OFEO, invite a different brand of candor if investor confidence means anything anymore to these companies and their conservator.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Ralph Nader

The findings of a study on media freedom in the U.S. do not show up its print media in a good light in terms of its degree of freedom and independence of the government.

When a country engages in self-aggrandising talk of being the world's oldest and freest democracy, at the very least one would expect it to be home to a free press. When that country also regularly berates other nations across the world for stifling media freedom, it would be expected to have a government that tolerates criticism from its own media. And when that country unabashedly uses “lack of media freedom” as a tool in its policy arsenal for promoting regime change abroad, then it would be hypocritical for it to have a subservient, self-censoring media on its soil.

And yet, according to a recent, empirically rigorous study of media freedom in the United States, none of these conditions applied to the country. Torture at Times: A Study of Waterboarding in the Media, authored by students of Harvard University, takes a close and statistically uncompromising look at the degree of media freedom in the U.S. The papers studied were The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article512591.ece?homepage=true

By Chris Hedges

A close reading of the new health care legislation, which will conveniently take effect in 2014 after the next presidential election, is deeply depressing. The legislation not only mocks the lofty promises made by President Barack Obama, exposing most as lies, but sadly reconfirms that our nation is hostage to unchecked corporate greed and abuse. The simple truth, that single-payer nonprofit health care for all Americans would dramatically reduce costs and save lives, that the for-profit health care system is the problem and must be destroyed, is censored out of the public debate by a media that relies on these corporations as major advertisers and sponsors, as well as a morally bankrupt Democratic Party that is as bought off by corporations as the Republicans
(more)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_health_care_bill_is_enough_to...

diabetic drug Actos is safe according to the AMA but the Avandia IS way more dangerous. so why are they still marketing the bad one? WHO is not looking out for U.S.?

More straights need to pretend to be gay.

Steinbenner would have fired barack a year ago.

George Steinbrenner: A Kennedy Democrat?

The late Yankees owner preferred Dems in Congress but the GOP for the White House.

...As you might expect, politicians in New York and Florida (where Steinbrenner lived) received a disproportionate share of his largess. In the past decade, Steinbrenner gave $6,300 to Sen. Charles Schumer and $9,600 to Rep. Charles Rangel. He also donated $2,300 to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson was another of his favorites, to judge from his giving....
http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/07/13/george_steinbrenn...

I used to listen to a little bit of Rush to keep me in a state of mild rage. Now I just listen to Bill Press.

Bill's developed a new argument this week to attack liberal critics of the prez: 'Americans are spoiled brats, and barack deserves better subjects.'
Seriously. This is Bill's argument now. 'Shut up. obama deserves better.'

The Diane Rehm Show held a provocative debate on:
The Future of America's Empire
Broadcast Date: July 14, 2010

A look at how the U.S. chooses to use its power in the world and lessons to be learned the rise and fall of empires through the ages.

Guests
Bruce Fein former associate deputy attorney general, Republican counsel during the Iran-contra hearings, and founding partner with the Lichfield Group

David Cole professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center and author of "The Torture Memos: Rationalizing the Unthinkable". Previous books include "Less Safe, Less Free," and "Terrorism and the Constitution."

David Frum editor, FrumForum.com, dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement.
author of "Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again", and co-author of "An End to Evil: What's Next in the War on Terror;" former speechwriter and special assistant to President George W. Bush (2001-02).
Listen here:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-07-14/future-americas-empire

Japan's sumo scandal

A major scandal is brewing in Japan's sumo wrestling arena, with revelations of links to organised crime threatening to hurt the traditional Japanese sport.
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia-pacific/2010/07/2010714250158762...

Five US soldiers die in Afghanistan

Twelve Nato troops have been killed in southern Afghanistan in the last two days

Four American soldiers have been killed after a bomb exploded in southern Afghanistan, according to the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/07/2010714123346449802.html

Plans to commit terrorist acts in Venezuela were impeded

Venezuela captures a top Latin American terrorist

By Jean-Guy Allard and Eva Golinger

Francisco Chavez Abarca was captured entering Venezuela with a falsified passport. The El Salvadoran is known as the “right hand” of Cuban terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for bombings and terrorist acts against Cuba and its allies during the past 40 years

Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez announced the capture of Salvadoran terrorist Francisco Chavez Abarca after he attempted to enter Venezuela’s international airport with a false passport last Thursday.

The Salvadoran criminal nicknamed "El Panzon" not only organized a series of explosions that killed young Italian tourist Fabio di Celmo in 1997, he also recruited, trained and dispatched several other mercenaries to Havana, in addition to personally making three trips to the island to conduct several attacks against Cuban installations........
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/07/venezuela-captures-top-latin-american....

Yes gd....South America....

...but first, Iran....

Clinton joins job creation meeting at White House

The White House is seeking help from former President Bill Clinton in its efforts to create jobs.

Clinton is joining President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Wednesday for a meeting with business leaders. The White House said the meeting would focus on new ways to create jobs in the private sector and increase investments in the clean energy industry....

Chief executives from Bank of America and Honeywell are among those scheduled to attend the meeting with Obama and Clinton...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9173136

Happy Days are here again.

I'm not sure of that now.
Obama needs a win.
Grenada was easy pickings for Raygun. I expect the Iranian campaign. But that's going to a messy affair.
Grabbing control of another Central American country and announcing a 'major break in the War On Drugs' is clean and quick.

the tell...

The Army and Air Bases in Columbia and Honduras are being reinforced... now all they need is a Latin American Naval Base....

Costa Rica and Drug War Escalation

US clears Iroquois lacrosse team for travel to UK

The U.S. government on Wednesday agreed to let a Native American lacrosse team travel to England for a tournament under Iroquois Confederacy passports, but their travel plans were still on hold because they lacked visas from Britain and because some players needed clearance from Canada...

The players regard U.S. government-issued documents as an attack on their identity, but U.S. officials have said their Iroquois documents did not meet new, stricter passport standards....

The Iroquois Confederacy oversees land that stretches from upstate New York into Ontario, Canada.

The Iroquois, known to members as the Haudenosaunee, helped invent lacrosse, perhaps as early as 1,000 years ago. Their participation in the once-every-four-year world championship tournament is a rare example of international recognition of their sovereignty.

Crowley stressed Wednesday that the waiver was a one-time event and that the team would need U.S. passports for future overseas travel...

The U.S. and other nations have a history of recognizing Iroquois Confederacy passports, but the documents lack new security features now required for border crossings because of post-Sept. 11 crackdowns on document fraud and illegal immigration.

New U.S. passports, for example, contain embedded radio-frequency identification chips, similar to the ones inside highway toll transponders. The Iroquois documents are plain paper, with some information written in by hand....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9173190

Period.

Extremist Christians Aim to Create Armed Militias Against "Godless" Federal Government
Christian Reconstructionists believe civil government should be reformed according to the dictates of biblical law. Some advocate for followers to take up arms.
July 12, 2010

Herb Titus, a lawyer for the far-right Gun Owners of America, is jubilant over last week’s Supreme Court decision in the case McDonald v. City of Chicago, finding that state and local regulation of gun ownership must comport with the Second Amendment right to bear arms
http://www.alternet.org/story/147453/extremist_christians_aim_to_create_...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25928.htm

By Tom Melle

July 13, 2010 "Morning Star" -- Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro warned on Monday that a US-Israeli attack on Iran is "imminent" and predicted that this could trigger a global nuclear war.

In a special appearance on state-run television for the first time in nearly a year, the Communist leader described US and Israeli sabre-rattling over Iran's civil nuclear energy programme as "the most serious crisis" on the international scene because "the Iranian government will not retreat."

"The Iranians have been preparing themselves for 30 years, and have acquired all the Russian and Chinese aeroplanes and weapons necessary for their defence," Mr Castro said.

"They are training all people between the ages of 12 and 60 - just the Guardians of the Revolution have a million members," he added.

And Mr Castro insisted that the US sank the South Korean Cheonan warship in order to justify an attack on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He said that "in the face of a massive attack against Iran, North Korea will not wait to be attacked, and a nuclear war will also break out in that zone.

"When they decide to attack Iran, one war after the other will be unleashed," he declared.

The veteran Communist spoke out at a delicate time politically for Cuba, as it begins releasing 52 prisoners under a landmark deal brokered with Spanish officials and the Catholic church last week.

The men were all arrested in a crackdown on US-backed subversion in 2003.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney underwent surgery last week to have a tiny pump implanted to assist in the functioning of his heart, a family spokesman says.
The surgery, to insert a left ventricular assist device, was performed at Fairfax Hospital in Virginia.
Cheney, 69, has suffered five heart attacks, the first when he was 37. His most recent heart attack, described as "mild," was in February.
"A few weeks ago, it became clear that I was entering a new phase of the disease when I began to experience increasing congestive heart failure," Cheney said in a statement. After a series of recent tests and discussions with my doctors, I decided to take advantage of one of the new technologies available and have a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) implanted."
A doctor, who is part of his medical team, told NBC News that Cheney is "doing well now," but that the former vice president was short of breath and was experiencing "heart failure" before the device was implanted. He was "running on 3 cylinders. Now he's on 8," the doctor said.
The American Heart Association website defines the LVAD device as "a battery-operated, mechanical pump-type device that's surgically implanted. It helps maintain the pumping ability of a heart that can't effectively work on its own."

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38248507/ns/politics/

A tiny mushroom, little known to scientists, is behind some 400 sudden deaths in China, experts say.

For 30 years, during the rainy season, scores of villagers in Yunnan province have died suddenly of cardiac arrest.

Following a five-year investigation, researchers from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Beijing say they have the culprit.

The mushroom, know as Little White, belongs to the Trogia genus and has three toxic amino acids, experts say.

Researchers found that the deaths, known as Yunnan Sudden Death Syndrome, occurred almost always during rainy season (from June to August), and at an altitude of 1800-2400m (5900-7900ft).
more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10630155

please send some over to Darth Veder for his heart healthy salad he is now eating.

By JOHN ELIGON
A former New York City police officer convicted of lying about a confrontation with a bicyclist in Times Square was given a conditional discharge on Wednesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The former officer, Patrick Pogan, had faced up to four years in prison, but will avoid any time behind bars. He also will not be placed on probation.

In April, a jury found Mr. Pogan guilty of filing a criminal complaint that contained false statements concerning a 2008 collision with Christopher Long, who was participating in a Critical Mass bike ride. Mr. Pogan’s complaint alleged that Mr. Long knocked him to the ground by intentionally steering his bicycle into him. But video footage of the episode, which was a viral presence on the Internet, showed that Mr. Pogan remained on his feet, while Mr. Long flew to the pavement.
Mr. Pogan was acquitted of falsifying the initial arrest report filed against Mr. Long. The jury also acquitted Mr. Pogan of a less serious charge of assault.
Mr. Pogan, who was on the job for less than two weeks when the collision occurred, resigned from the police force. Because he was convicted of a felony, he would not be allowed to attempt to rejoin the Police Department.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/ex-officer-avoids-jail-time...

by A.C. Thompson, ProPublica
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder yesterday announced the indictment of six current or former New Orleans Police Department officers in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, which occurred during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The new indictments stem from the shooting of six civilians on Sept. 4, 2005 by a squad of police officers, a bloody episode that left two people dead and four severely wounded. Our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune have the details on the fresh charges here .

The troubled New Orleans police force -- which is the subject of at least eight ongoing investigations -- "is a priority for this Department of Justice," said Holder in a press conference streamed live on local TV news websites.

Since February, federal prosecutors have charged 16 current and former cops for offenses allegedly committed during the chaotic days after the levees failed, inundating the city and crippling the local government. So far, five have pleaded guilty.

Last month, federal investigators charged an officer with murdering Henry Glover , an offense that could carry the death penalty, and others with torching Glover's body and attempting to conceal the crime. Federal agents are also scrutinizing several other post-Katrina episodes, including the shootings of Keenon McCann , Danny Brumfield, Jr ., and Matthew McDonald by cops.

One of the people indicted today played a role in several of these cases. Former NOPD Sergeant Gerard Dugue, who is accused of trying to cover up the true circumstances of the Danziger shootings, also investigated Glover's death and supervised the police department's probe into the killing of Brumfield, who died after being shot in the back at a close-range. This spring Dugue retired from his job as a homicide detective.

The Justice Department is also conducting a broader survey of the police force's policies, which could lead to federally supervised reform and restructuring of the department. In May, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who was elected earlier this year, invited Justice to conduct the review , saying in a letter that "I have inherited what is described by many as one of the worst police departments in the country."

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/14-2

Published on Wednesday, July 14, 2010 by Al Jazeera English
A Libyan aid ship originally bound for the Gaza Strip has been diverted to a port in Egypt after the Israeli navy warned the vessel against trying to break an Israeli blockade on the Palestinian coastal territory.

An Egyptian official said the Amalthea arrived in El Arish, on Egypt's Mediterranean coast, about 45km south of the border with Gaza, in mid-evening on Wednesday.

"Medical supplies and passengers will enter Gaza through the Rafah border [crossing], while food will enter through the Awja border," Captain Gamal Abdel Maqsoud, who is in charge of the port, said.

He said Egypt's Red Crescent would be responsible for taking the 2,000 tonnes of food and medicine over both borders and had trucks waiting in El Arish.

Yousseuf Sawani, executive director of the Gaddafi Foundation which chartered the vessel, confirmed earlier that it had decided to divert the ship away from Gaza for safety reasons.

Confrontation 'unacceptable'

"It was unacceptable for us to enter into a confrontation and risk bloodshed," Sawani said.

"The aims of Amalthea have been achieved without bloodshed and the result is gains for the Palestinians."

He said earlier on Wednesday that eight Israeli warships had surrounded the Libyan aid ship, preventing it from continuing its journey to Gaza.

Amr el-Kahky, Al Jazeera's correspondent in El Arish, said the Egyptian foreign ministry had officially accepted a request from the ship to dock in El Arish.

"Off loading of the ship and loading [the supplies] onto trucks to travel to Gaza is due to take place tomorrow [Thursday], el-Kahky said.

The Amalthea is carrying 12 crew members and at least nine passengers, including six Libyans and one each from Algeria, Morocco and Nigeria.

Another aid mission

A separate attempt to deliver aid relief and medical supplies to Gaza is also currently under way.

A convoy of 150 people, including "unionists, journalists and academics", is travelling overland in 25 vehicles from Jordan to the Egyptian Rafah crossing.

These challenges to the blockade come a day after Israel's military admitted mistakes in the May 31 attack on a flotilla of aid vessels trying to breach the blockade.

Nine pro-Palestinian activists, eight Turks and a dual US-Turkish citizen, were killed after Israeli soldiers boarded the lead ship Mavi Marmara.

Following an international outcry over the raid, Israel recently eased restrictions on the Gaza Strip, allowing some previously banned items into the territory.

But construction materials remain heavily restricted, Gazans have very limited freedom of movement, and Israel still enforces a naval blockade on the territory.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/14-4#

Caracas, Venezuela, June 24, 2010 (venezuelanalysis.com)-- The head of the Venezuelan state oil company PdVSA declared yesterday that thepetroleum firm after the company closed down production and refused to negotiate a new services agreement.

PdVSA President Rafael Ramirez said that the nationalisation would “boost domestic production of hydrocarbons and strengthen the policy of full oil sovereignty.”

The firm, Helmerich & Payne, ceased operations in the state of Anzoategui nearly a year ago, claiming it was owed $49 million from the Venezuelan government in service payments.

Ramirez, however, argued that the company had not even sat down to negotiate.

He cited ulterior motives for the conduct of its management, saying: “There is a managerial class within the drilling sector that has refused to negotiate service tariffs with PdVSA.”

He said Helmerich & Payne’s actions were part of a plan by private companies within the industry to reduce oil production in order to weaken the government of President Hugo Chavez.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5449

Report – 08/07/2010

Rebels, militias and army units have hijacked the trade in mineral ores from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while subjecting the civilian population to massacres, rape, extortion, forced labour and forced recruitment of child soldiers. Congo's ‘conflict minerals' are laundered into the global supply chain by export houses, before being transformed into refined metals by large international smelting firms.

The metals are then used in a wide range of products, including consumer electronic goods such as mobile phones and computers. Some of the world's most famous brands are now coming under scrutiny to address their role in this devastating trade.

Nobody forces companies to purchase minerals or metals mined in war zones. It is their choice. Those that source minerals or metals originating from eastern DRC need to show the public that they have procedures in place to prevent direct or indirect involvement with serious human rights abuses and other crimes. This is what is called ‘due diligence'.
(continues)

http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/1019/en/do_no_harm...

The world is addicted to oil - and it is running out. With worldwide demand outstripping supply, Global Witness Founding Director Simon Taylor appears on Al Jazeera's Empire to discuss the environmental and social consequences failing to address our energy needs.

Video – 08/07/2010
\!/

http://www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/1020/en/addicted_t...

barack Bashers: 'It's all in your heads...'
new
Submitted by ghettodefender on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 3:16pm.
I used to listen to a little bit of Rush to keep me in a state of mild rage. Now I just listen to Bill Press.

Bill's developed a new argument this week to attack liberal critics of the prez: 'Americans are spoiled brats, and barack deserves better subjects.'
Seriously. This is Bill's argument now. 'Shut up. obama deserves better.'
==================================

Maybe "barack deserves better subjects" should be read "barack requires obedient subjects"?

http://www.mediafreedominternational.org/2010/06/09/kosovo-drug-for-euro...

Serbian military analyst and an authoritative expert on the situation in Kosovo, Milovan Drecun says that, according to the Europol and Interpol, the largest amount of heroin is delivered to Europe from Afghanistan via Kosovo. According to some estimates, some 65% of all the world’s heroin is channeled through the former Serbian province; while 90% of all drugs that reach Europe are shipped via Kosovo.

According to the Canadian detective Stewart Kellock, the Albanian drug mafia operates with the connivance of the United States. Mr. Kellock said in an interview that US diplomats prevent the detention in Kosovo of notorious drug traffickers.

[end excerpt]

"...a battery-operated, mechanical pump-type device that's surgically implanted. It helps maintain the pumping ability of a heart that can't effectively work on its own."

A sickly monster, like our sickly economic system, that survives on our impoverishment.
What nauseating event his state funeral will be.
'A champion of American freedom has just passed..."

Karel wants poetic justice where Cheney gets a new heart via heart transplant, is tried for war crimes and then he spends the rest of his life behind bars, his young fresh new heart beating well and keeping him alive in prison for 20 years.

http://www.green960.com/pages/karel.html

UK won't let Iroquois lacrosse team go to tourney

NEW YORK — The British government is refusing to allow an American Indian lacrosse team to travel to England using passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy.

The decision Wednesday means the team will miss a world championship lacrosse competition in Manchester.

A British Consulate spokeswoman says the team would be able to travel only with documents the United Kingdom considers valid.

Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a member of the Onondaga Nation who works with the team, says it was told by British officials that members would have to use American or British passports in order to travel to Britain.

The decision was announced hours after the U.S. cleared the team for travel on a one-time waiver at the behest of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iI149z8c0uBRphmB54w06N...

the Finnish Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen -Kilde?

I came actross her youtubes last night and watched them until 5 A.M. It was the most interesting interviews I heard for a long time. She discussed mind control, electromagnetic warfare, HAARP, doctors, swineflu (fraud), global warming (fraud), ETs, Nasa space program, UFOS and so much more. Needless to say, today my mind is spinning.

I watched a full length interview in two parts first, then another interview in 4 parts, and then one interview in 13 parts. This one really went into detail of all the various subjects. For instance, she discussed the history and make-up of the swine flu shot, global warming and the whole fraud, Chemtrails, ETs, body energy, the danger of cellphones (esp. for children under 18), etc.

====
Just wanted to let you know I read all your posts on the other thread, taozen. Also the post in response to air-ono's qs and your interesting music background. Loved it.

I have bookmarked the health links and will order the newsletter. Thanks so much :-)

btw. I eat "tamed" oats every day. We bake our own muffin-type breads every four days w. oats, walnuts and high fiber cereal since I don't eat flour and sugar.

How do you eat the wild oats? As cereal? Bread?

:-)

than Cheney will be tried. Plus, that serial killer probably will get a new heart straight from an infant.

{...don't know to laugh or cry.., :):( }

ghettodefender on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 8:25pm. ... sick humour ;}

"...his young fresh new heart beating well and keeping him alive in prison for 20 years."

Nora hahaha...sicker but perfect humour LOL

RE:

What would make Karel happy
new
Submitted by nora on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 8:28pm.

Karel wants poetic justice where Cheney gets a new heart via heart transplant, is tried for war crimes and then he spends the rest of his life behind bars, his young fresh new heart beating well and keeping him alive in prison for 20 years.

http://www.green960.com/pages/karel.html
»

* reply

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-9677-0-5-5--.html

Top Clinton Official: Only A Terror Attack Can Save Obama
Published on 07-14-2010

By Paul Joseph Watson

A former senior advisor to President Bill Clinton says that the only thing which can rescue Barack Obama’s increasingly tenuous grip on power as his approval figures continue to plunge is a terror attack on the scale of Oklahoma City or 9/11, another startling reminder that such events only ever serve to benefit those in authority.

Buried in a Financial Times article about Obama’s “growing credibility crisis” and fears on behalf of Democrats that they could lose not only the White House but also the Senate to Republicans, Robert Shapiro makes it clear that Obama is relying on an October surprise in the form of a terror attack to rescue his presidency.

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” said Shapiro, adding, “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”

Shapiro’s veiled warning should not be dismissed lightly. He was undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs dung Clinton’s tenure in the Oval Office and also acted as principal economic adviser to Clinton in his 1991-1992 campaign. Shapiro is now Director of the Globalization Initiative of NDN and also Chair of the Climate Task Force. He is a prominent globalist who has attended numerous Bilderberg Group meetings over the past decade.

[end excerpt]

Yeah .... very possibly.

So glad I didn't watch TV and radio shows during most of the primaries and ever since ... at least this way my mind remained my own.

And after watching Dr. Rauni Kilde from Finland last night I also stepped into another realm of reality. This Opened up all kinds of door to subjects unexplained.

For instance, I never understood the Obamamania. But Nobody was able to explain the Obama phenom to me when I asked for an explanation. Except he wasn't Hillary. Duh.

Then Once the debates started I was amazed how boring Obama was. Not smart at all, not charismatic, def. not Jack Kennedy (hello, tweety), and not trustworthy (for me that goes back to his Katrina comments). But not only the young people who didn't have a clue went Obamanuts but also women and men who experienced the Vietnam war and the 60's "flower power" and should have known better had their brains washed and loved it. And Now? The Dems love the wars and everything else they hated under Bush. They seem to be completely content to give up any rights they still had. Is it Insanity, Mr. Press?

Or is it Mind Control?

:):(

Is Castro is a prophet?

should get published in January. The author just sent an email.

Dorothy Hearst
Book I: Promise of the Wolves (The Wolf Chronicles)

Book II: Journey of the Wolves (published in Jan. 2011)

Book III is called Spirit of the Wolves
we don't know yet when this will be published

The Promise of the Wolves was absolutely amazing.

You will love it.

:)

These oligarchs ARE secret society ritualists who believe in the power of the mind. WHY else keep this operation a secret until it was clear Cheney was recuperating? Because they didn't want any interference in the process from "negative" thoughts from Cheney's victims or unapproving public perhaps? Just asking. Because there ARE more people who disapprove of Cheney than there are people who approve of him.

Yep. I'm ashamed to have supported someone who based his campaign on an Alcoa ad.

Maybe. Like Nancy Raygun.
How long was the news withheld when Cheney shot his dumbass bud in the face. I thought it was a full day. I remember finding out on Sunday afternoon before Seder On Sunday. I was excited because I hoped Bush would ask him step down on the basis of being senile.

yet the lemmings prefer to remain in denial ...

--------
What can save Obama?
Submitted by nora on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 9:01pm.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-9677-0-5-5--.html

Top Clinton Official: Only A Terror Attack Can Save Obama

-----
"He is a prominent globalist who has attended numerous Bilderberg Group meetings over the past decade."

[While Obama and Hillary Clinton "acted" like rivals during the primaries, they attended a Bilderberg Group meeting together. I watched the clip but can't remember the exact date right now.]

the Finnish Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen -Kilde,
the one I talk about in above post to taozen, would say it is all about human "energy." She even discussed the possibility that sending "positive energy" to the destructive leaders (globalist) we have now, could change the world we live in. She says we live on a very negative planet where humans are used for experiments for the last 50 years or so.

Absolutely amazing stuff. All v. new to me.

Have you watched any of Dr. Rauni Kilde's interviews?

Submitted by bridge on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 8:34pm.
the Finnish Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen -Kilde?

No, Dr. Rauni Kilde was unknown to me until your post which I followed, and after listening a few minutes to several of the separate interviews, I can say I'll be watching it at next opportunity. She has an extraordinary resume.

Thanks, Bridge.

Penn Jillette is an American magician, comedian, and author, and is half of "Penn and Teller." Jillette began his career as a juggler, graduating from Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown College, and in 1981 he teamed up with his friend Teller for a famous off-Broadway show. Since 2003, Penn and Teller have hosted the popular television show "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!" in which they debunk popular misconceptions or pseudo-scientific beliefs. Jillette is an outspoken advocate of atheism and libertarianism, and is the author of the novel "Sock."

http://bigthink.com/users/pennjillette?utm_source=Big+Think+Main+Subscri...

Bohemian Grove 2010 to starts Saturday, July 17.

http://norcaltruth.org/2010/07/05/2010-bohemian-grove-is-here/

The Bohemian Grove retreat for the wealthy is fast approaching this July. Normally the 2nd weekend of July is the first ceremony known as the “Cremation of Care” at the campground for the rich, and this year is no different. This coming Saturday, July 17th will be a crowded day at the gates of the Grove as arriving guests meet protesters at the famous corner of Bohemain Ave and Railroad Ave. Although there have not been as large of rallies as in the 1980′s and 90′s, small groups of people have not forgotten the fact that some of the most influential and powerful men in the world gather at the Grove each July.

===============================

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100714/ARTICLES/100719809/1033

Weighty guests arrive for annual Bohemian Grove

By BOB NORBERG
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Published: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 5:07 p.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 5:07 p.m.

Some of the world’s wealthiest and most prominent begin arriving today for the annual encampment at the Bohemian Grove, a gathering some describe as a benign men’s club and others as an insidious gathering of power.

New standoff over Bohemian Grove timber plan Bohemian Grove, summer camp for powerful The encampment is expected to have 2,000 attendees at any one time, a guest list that has included U.S. presidents and foreign heads of state, politicians, industrial barons, actors, artists and musicians.

As in the past, their identities and a description of the programs are closely guarded by officials of the San Francisco-based Bohemian Club.

Club General Manager Matt Oggero declined to discuss the event, although he did say the grove has hired 600 to 800 local workers, mostly high school and college aged.
...
[more at link]

...is there any hope for those who dissent?

Journalists on Gulfcoast-- within 65 feet of BP activities and reporters can be arrested, charged with a Class F Felony (journalism now comparable to stalking and harassing!).

Dissenters who hang a sign seeking a green jobs program-- threatened with years in jail, and when given 'leniency' by the court lose their right to free speech while on "probation".

Oh, and Whistleblowers-- For example, facing 52 years in prison for releasing data thst shows war crimes are being committed in the name of promoting 'democracy'....

It would be comical if it weren't so unjust. The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of Senators Feinstein and Inhof obviously favors those who profiteer on animal suffering.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/13/BANR1EDTUD.D...

[excerpt]

Animal activists freed from terror charges
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer

San Francisco Chronicle
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

A federal judge has thrown out terrorism charges against four animal-rights activists who allegedly threatened researchers at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, saying prosecutors filed a vague indictment that failed to specify any illegal acts.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose did not permanently bar prosecution, but said in Monday's ruling that the next grand jury indictment must spell out the alleged lawbreaking so that the defendants know what they're accused of doing.

Joseph Buddenberg, Maryam Khajavi, Nathan Pope and Adriana Stumpo were charged in March 2009 with violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act and conspiracy, punishable by a total of 10 years in prison.

An FBI agent's affidavit said the four had taken part in protests outside UC Berkeley professors' homes in October 2007 and January 2008, chanting, "five, six, seven, eight, smash the locks and liberate, nine, 10, 11, 12, vivisectors go to hell," and calling the professors animal abusers and murderers.

In February 2008, the agent said, protesters banged on the door of a UC Santa Cruz animal researcher, whose husband opened the door and was struck by a "dark, firm object." Khajavi owned the car that drove the protesters, and two other defendants were in her home when police arrived, the agent said.

The grand jury indictment contained none of those details, however, but merely accused the defendants of engaging in illegal threats, harassment and intimidation.

[end excerpt]

============================

ALSO--

http://www.thesunnews.com/2010/07/13/1584697/terror-charges-dismissed-ag...

...
The U.S. Attorney's office in San Francisco, which prosecuted the case, had no comment on the ruling.

Federal prosecutors can refile the charges, but spokesman Jack Gillund would not say whether they plan to do so.

The four were charged under the federal Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act for allegedly using force, violence or threats to interfere with animal research.

Prosecutors said they participated in threatening demonstrations in early 2009 at the homes of UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz scientists whose research involves animals.

Defense attorney Rachel Meeropol, of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said the decision is "a huge victory for people everywhere who care about the First Amendment."

"When our government seeks to punish speech and protests as a crime, it cannot avoid First Amendment scrutiny by failing to provide details about what that defendant is

========================

AND--

http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/judge-dismisses-animal-ent...

“These activists are peaceful individuals exercising their rights as guaranteed by the United States,” said attorney for the AETA 4 Bob Bloom. “This law is a blatant attempt to silence dissent and curb fundamental rights in the interests of industries that abuse our natural resources.”

“To characterize protest and speech as terrorist activities is ludicrous,” said CCR cooperating attorney Matthew Strugar. “It is no surprise that these indictments were vague and general—otherwise it would be obvious to the public and the courts that the prosecutors are casting peaceful leafleting and protest as terrorism.”

For more information on the AETA, visit CCR’s website or CCR’s legal case page.

[end excerpt]
==============================

FINALLY--

http://thomaspainescorner.wordpress.com/2010/07/12/breaking-aeta-4-case-...

http://www.stopbiotechlooting.org/news.htm

[excerpt]

AARP Responds to BIO Attack Ad From: AARP Press Center

AARP press Release / July 8, 2009
http://www.aarp.org/aarp/presscenter/pressrelease/articles/BIO_attack_ad...
WASHINGTON — AARP Spokesman Jim Dau released a statement today in response to new advertising by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which is advocating for an unreasonable 12-year exclusivity period for brand name biologic drugs. Such a deal would create a windfall for the brand name biologic drug makers and keep needed prescription drugs out of the hands of patients. Dau's statement follows:

"The biologic drug makers are hiding behind the same arguments used by big pharmaceutical companies 25 years ago when they said big pharma would go out of business if they had to compete with generic drugs—and we all know how that turned out. BIO is going even further this time by asking for a protection deal twice as sweet as big pharma got back then, so the real question is, 'How much more money do they think they can wring out of patients and taxpayers?' ...

[end excerpt]

From one of the Dr. Rauni Kilde videos...

"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play." -- Joseph Goebbels

"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic, and/or military consequences of the lie...It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the enemy of the State." -- Joseph Goebbels

and lucky to even move to even close here FINALLY ...

but thanks Bridge I will copy later Wolf Info {by hand or by my "crazy" mouse...} :o

{...thought this was sent. :}

Americans in 73% Majority Oppose Deepwater Drilling Ban
By Kim Chipman - Jul 14, 2010 Most Americans oppose President Barack Obama’s ban on deepwater oil drilling in response to BP Plc’s Gulf of Mexico spill, even as they hold the company primarily responsible for the incident.

Almost three-fourths, or 73 percent, say a ban is unnecessary, calling the worst oil spill in U.S. history a “freak accident,” according to a Bloomberg National Poll. Barely more than a third say they support drilling less than they did a few months ago. The BP rig sank in April. The administration issued a new moratorium this week after a court rejected a six-month one imposed in May.

“A ban will destroy the economy in that area over nothing,” said poll respondent Ron Smallcomb, 64, a used-car dealer in Mountaintop, Pennsylvania. “This is crazy. If there’s a plane crash you don’t ground all the airlines and stop flying completely.”

Eight in 10 of those questioned in the July 9-12 poll say London-based BP should pay for all damage caused by the spill. Six in 10 say BP, not the federal government, should reimburse wages lost by oil workers laid off because of the moratorium, with 56 percent saying even the possibility of bankruptcy shouldn’t allow the company to escape paying.

Asked who was most to blame for the spill, 44 percent say BP, and 19 percent say lax federal regulations and oversight. One in five say no one is to blame.

“It’s their fault,” Dan Urban, 45, an unemployed restaurant manager in Las Vegas, said of BP. “They are ultimately responsible for what they did whether they go bankrupt or not.”

‘Economic Catastrophe’

While public objections to a drilling ban echo the views of Republican leaders such as Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the sentiment is strong regardless of political leaning: 85 percent of Republicans, 73 percent of independents and 65 percent of Democrats oppose a ban, according to the poll.

Jindal, whose state has been hardest hit by the spill, says a prohibition on drilling is an overreaction that will turn an “environmental disaster into an economic catastrophe,” costing as many as 20,000 jobs in Louisiana alone.

“We need the federal government to do their jobs to ensure drilling is done safely without killing thousands of jobs for our people,” Jindal said in a statement July 13.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says a ban is a reasonable response to the crisis. “Industry must raise the bar on its practices and answer fundamental questions about deepwater safety,” he said in a statement on July 12.

Not ‘Impending Doom’

“The fact so many people say it was a freak accident is especially telling,” said J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co., a Des Moines, Iowa-based company that conducted the telephone survey. “People say BP must pay, but there’s no sense of impending doom at the hands of the entire industry.”

The length of the spill, now in its 84th day, may explain why there’s not a broader sense of outrage, she said.

“Perhaps because it’s gone on so long there’s a sense that it is what it is,” Selzer said. “BP is accountable for what they are accountable for, but any sense of vindication you might look to find is absent.”

The Bloomberg National Poll is based on interviews with 1,004 U.S. adults ages 18 or older. Percentages based on the full sample may have a maximum margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Making BP pay for the economic damages from the spill even at the risk of bankruptcy is backed by 61 percent of respondents who said they are Democrats, and 54 percent of both Republicans and independents.

‘Accidents Happen’

Eight in 10 of those questioned say BP shouldn’t be assessed penalties beyond payment for damages, such as being banned from future drilling in the U.S. The House Natural Resources Committee yesterday approved an amendment that would bar the company from new offshore leases in the U.S.

“I totally expect them to pay for the damages done, but to ban BP or other companies from future drilling is ridiculous,” said John P. Sennet, 65, a retired manager from AK Steel Corp. in Middletown, Ohio. “I just don’t understand the logic in that -- accidents happen,” he said.

While 73 percent of Democrats say BP should pay for the wages of rig workers laid off because of the drilling moratorium, Republicans are evenly split, with 42 percent saying BP should pay and the same number saying the government should.

BP has allocated $100 million to pay for the missed wages of workers idled by the drilling ban. That money is separate from a $20 billion fund BP has created to cover economic damages caused by the spill.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-14/americans-in-73-majority-oppose-ban-on-deepwater-drilling-after-oil-spill.html?om_rid=NFw2$z&om_mid=_BMPwEyB8OsH77L&

...even when it "pops".

Ian Cobain and Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 July 2010 20.43 BST
Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizensPreviously secret papers show true extent of involvement in abduction and torture following al-Qaida attacks of 2001
• Read the torture documents in full
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2010/jul/14/toture-files-key-p...

The true extent of the Labour government's involvement in the illegal abduction and torture of its own citizens after the al-Qaida attacks of September 2001 has been spelled out in stark detail with the disclosure during high court proceedings of a mass of highly classified documents.

Previously secret papers that have been disclosed include a number implicating Tony Blair's office in many of the events that are to be the subject of the judicial inquiry that David Cameron announced last week.

Among the most damning documents are a series of interrogation reports from MI5 officers that betray their disregard for the suffering of a British resident whom they were questioning at a US airbase in Afghanistan. The documents also show that the officers were content to see the mistreatment continue.

One of the most startling documents is chapter 32 of MI6's general procedural manual, entitled "Detainees and Detention Operations", which advises officers that among the "particular sensitivities" they need to consider before becoming directly involved in an operation to detain a terrorism suspect is the question of whether "detention, rather than killing, is the objective of the operation".

Other disclosed documents show how:

• The Foreign Office decided in January 2002 that the transfer of British citizens from Afghanistan to Guantánamo was its "preferred option".

• Jack Straw asked for that rendition to be delayed until MI5 had been able to interrogate those citizens.

• Downing Street was said to have overruled FO attempts to provide a British citizen detained in Zambia with consular support in an attempt to prevent his return to the UK, with the result that he too was "rendered" to Guantánamo.

The papers have been disclosed as a result of civil proceedings brought by six former Guantánamo inmates against MI5 and MI6, the Home Office, the Foreign Office, and the Attorney General's Office, which they allege were complicit in their illegal detention and torture.

The government has been responding to disclosure requests by maintaining that it has identified up to 500,000 documents that may be relevant, and says it has deployed 60 lawyers to scrutinise them, a process that it suggests could take until the end of the decade. It has failed to hand over many of the documents that the men's lawyers have asked for, and on Friday failed to meet a deadline imposed by the high court for the disclosure of the secret interrogation policy that governed MI5 and MI6 officers between 2004 and earlier this year.

So far just 900 papers have been disclosed, and these have included batches of press cuttings and copies of government reports that were published several years ago. However, a number of highly revealing documents are among the released papers, as well as fragments of heavily censored emails, memos and policy documents.
Continue reading here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/14/torture-classified-documents-disclosed?om_rid=NFw2$z&om_mid=_BMPwEyB8OsH77L&

...and Cheney gets a new lease on life.

I think tis grand regarding The AETA 4 ...

... then there's the new horrors regarding the changes in The Gulf...

Burqua thoughts:

:: The ethnic costume/coverings of the desert peoples were created for practical reasons -- they provide portable shade and privacy and prevent dehydration.

:: That garments (or lack of them) are given symbolic meaning apart from their practical uses is something that is not permanent but subject to change. To criminalize a garment is to lock it into one symbolic meaning.

:: Pure equality of peoples includes their freedom of expression via their choice of garments -- with or without symbolism.

:: The desert peoples have excelled in artistic creation of textiles and the use of them in garments. To criminalize a garment like the burqua for religious and political reasons is an authoritarian (even imperialistic?) repression of ethnic and artistic expression.

:: Is the future the place where the Ruling Class wears suits and the wage slaves wear t-shirts? The world that lets the Corporate sector alone decide what we can wear is a drab and uncreative world.

:: Terrorism is NOT going to be stopped by banning the burqua. Terrorism has been with us a long time; it is a law enforcement issue, NOT an issue about dress and ethnicity. To criminalize dress is as goofy and draconian as any of the other removals of freedoms of speech and privacy in the name of SECURITY!

:: It would be a much more interesting world if we could be cosmopolitan and allow everyone to dress as they please ethnically and practically. That's diversity. But this rush to SAMENESS is anti-diversity and therefore anti-creativity and anti-expressiveness. We see it in the use of plastic surgery -- used to cut people up and make people look as much like something standardized as possible. Strange and unnecessary practice that says alot about this unhealthy desire to REDUCE differences amongst humans and REDUCE human variety.

:: I think nothing was more BIZARRE and obscene than making the Polynesians wear western costume.

:: Let women wear what they want to wear. Let all people express themselves via their clothing choices.

Evil's hold in the world...
Submitted by CeeCee on Thu, 07/15/2010 - 10:00am.
Ian Cobain and Owen Bowcott guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 July 2010 20.43 BST
Classified documents reveal UK's role in abuse of its own citizensPreviously secret papers show true extent of involvement in abduction and torture following al-Qaida attacks of 2001
• Read the torture documents in full
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/interactive/2010/jul/14/toture-files-key-p...
...

===================

Cheney must've told them to STONEWALL.

Stonewalling by bureaucrats should be a crime in all legal discovery and freedom of information/public information situations.

John Pilger
The charge of the media brigade
8 July 2010
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes how an all-pervasive corporate media culture in the United States prepares the way for a permanent state of war. And yet for all the column inches and broadcast hours filled, the brainwashing is not succeeding. And this, he suggests, is 'America's greatest virtue'

...The Pentagon, says the Associated Press, spends $4.7 billion on public relations: that is, winning the hearts and minds not of recalcitrant Afghan tribesmen but of Americans. This is known as “information dominance” and PR people are “information warriors”....

....But there is a problem. Most Americans are opposed to these wars and to the billions of dollars spent on them. That their brainwashing so often fails is America’s greatest virtue. This is frequnetly due to courageous mavericks, especially those who emerge from the centrifuge of power. In 1971, military analyst Daniel Ellsberg leaked documents known as the Pentagon Papers which put the lie to almost everything two presidents had claimed about Vietnam. Many of these insiders are not even renegades. I have a section in my address book filled with the names of former officers of the CIA, who have spoken out.....
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=580

US and British governments treat indigenous peoples' right to travel, even their right to existence, with high-handed contempt

On Tuesday, the Shinnecock Indian Nation was notified that they will become the 565th federally recognised tribal government. Recognition brings major bonuses, most importantly the right for the nation to set up its own casino similar to the enterprises that have brought prosperity to other Native groups....

This week, the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team found their right to travel on Haudenosaunee passports challenged. Britain denied them visas to attend the world championships in Manchester, after the US state department refused to confirm that they would be permitted to re-enter the USA...

What unites the two cases is an attitude by national governments that indigenous peoples must earn their sovereignty. In both cases it is assumed that the right to travel, the right to run businesses free of states interference, the very right to existence, is in the hands of national governments to be doled out to grateful Native peoples.

Reversing this attitude – making it the responsibility of challengers to disprove Native title, making it the assumed right of each indigenous nation to negotiate passport requirements – would be a major step on the road to justice after 500 years of colonial encroachment.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jul/15/native-am...

Jesus Christ, we got 1070, massive unemployment, and endless war. This phony red herring issue.
Thom wasted half his show today on this non-topic. Who really believes that the losers of the Algerian War, are really trying to defend of the rights of women. And why are we talking about this.
OMG, I saw a buqua wearer at the Detroit airport. Run for your lives!

A Couple of Truths

By PAUL KRASSNER

Tuli Kupferberg is better off dead.

My friend and countercultural icon had been suffering from a couple of strokes, hospitals, breathing tubes, feeding tubes, anemia, infections, blindness, catheter, hearing aids, wheelchairs, psychosis, memory loss, diapers, constipation, anti-depressants, sleeping pills, fatigue and a chronically bed-ridden life that seemed to be no life worth living.

Tuli was a dedicated truthseeker, and I’d like to honor that quality with a couple of truths.

There was a rumor that Philip Roth had lifted the onanistically obsessed idea for Portnoy’s Complaint from a song by the Fugs--a band on the cusp of rock and punk, named after Norman Mailer’s euphemism for fuck in The Naked and the Dead--but this notion was disavowed by Fugs leader Ed Sanders, who assured me, “Philip Roth did not plagiarize a Fugs song. He came to a Fugs show in 1966, and I think he was inspired by Tuli, in top hat and cane, singing ‘Jack-Off Blues.’ Many times in reunion concerts, introducing Tuli singing that song, I have suggested that Roth got some of the impetus for Portnoy’s Complaint from that time he was inspired by the Tuli tune.”

And then there was Allen Ginsberg’s famous poem, “Howl,” in which Tuli had been the inspiration for this passage: “…jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alley ways & firetrucks, not even one free beer…"

Friends reacted: Rex Weiner claims, “It never actually happened that way, but Tuli happened, and that's all that matters.” And Michael Simmons says, “It actually was partly true. Tuli did jump and survive, but it wasn't the Brooklyn Bridge (Williamsburg, I think), but he was worried about wrongly influencing young people, so he'd refuse to talk about it later in life. I know because he told me.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/krassner07152010.html

This topic upsets me because it reminds me of Lynne Cheney's nonprofit going to Iraq and Afghanistan to help women get to go to school and vote.

Killing the burqua in this way doesn't really have anything to do with helping women. Although it sounds like that is the spin put on it.

And the religious argument (banning the burqua for everyone but Muslim women) is an extraneous argument about the burqua, imo. The freedom of personal expression is the real issue, imo.

Afterall, the government is saying that the government does not approve of what the burqua REPRESENTS. It doesn't matter that it represents different things to different people. The government is claiming that it is a dangerous choice to cover oneself in that way for WHATEVER purpose/reason/choice, not just that religious choice.

Banning the burqua is about banning the garment for whatever choice the wearer wears it. The burqua is not being banned just as governmental religious discrimination, although that is part of the mix, religion is not the only reason. Security is in there too.

Look -- back in the 1960s the U.S. criminalized the use of the U.S. flag's stars and stripes from being used in making clothing or being used symbolicly (burning, etc.). That was done to remove the symbolic power from the acts done by demonstrators/protestors. The government saw protestors' symbolic power using the flag as a security threat and wanted to criminalize those actions accordingly. (Our flags are to propogandistic patriotism what religious symbols are to authoritarian religions.)

Freedom of speech won out.

Freedom of speech/expression (religious or otherwise) should win again.

If freedom of speech were put FOREMOST, the government could then take the position that a woman's freedom of speech was guaranteed, and if she did NOT want to wear a burqua and if she was being forced to wear it, then the government could back her up and FREE her by law from the coercion to wear such a garment when she didn't want to. But no. It is not about freeing women at all. This is about the government taking away a freedom (to dress as one chooses) in the name of security.

Free the burqua!

Freedom of speech and expression!

(Sorry to get carried away. I've designed dance costumes, and the thought that any garment can be criminalized is unacceptable to me.)

Resistance is the Health of the People

The Snitches of Utah

By GREG MOSES

Unlike the snitches of Utah who suppose that citizenship is something to oppress with, and who on the basis of their sense of self-appointed citizen superiority mailed out a roundup list of neighbors and coworkers who they think should be reported to arresting authorities for the offense of living free in an occupied state--unlike those fascist-minded snitches I don't want to name names.

I just want to say that based upon my observation of a few dozen glowing faces this past weekend at the convention of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) many of whom qualify as name droppable because you have heard of them and from them during this despicable first decade of the 21st Century--I just want to report that resistance is the health of the people.

Resistance is something altogether different from snitching. Snitching only makes you old and cranky. It troubles your sleep. You know it's wrong.

That's why people do it on the sly, undercover, anonymously, no return address requested. The fascists of Utah even snitched on children. They went that far. No doubt the noses of all those snitches will grow narrower and crookeder the better to enable them to sniff around corners without showing their faces.

Resistance on the other hand is something you organize to get done in the street while the sun is up. It gives you a feeling of satisfactory tired, keeps your skin flushed with good chemistry, helps you know you done good even if nothing ever comes of it. Yes, even if you want to put it down, resistance, you can walk away unashamed. You make friends you'll never stop loving.
http://www.counterpunch.org/moses07142010.html

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/gulf-region-new-%E2%80%9Csac...

[excerpt]
The Gulf Region as a New “Sacrifice Zone”
Wed, 07/14/2010 - 01:21 — Dr. Marsha Cole

...

There are already examples of official sacrifice zones in the United States today. The Yucca salt flats in Nevada, for example—the staging area for hundreds of nuclear tests—were declared a sacrifice zone in 1997 by the US Geological Survey. Before discussing the catastrophe unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, however, there is a perfect example of widespread sacrifice zones occurring in cities all across America, so obvious it needs pointing out—gentrification. City neighborhoods were abandoned by white America after World War II with the great northern migration of African Americans filling those abandoned cities. It wouldn’t be until increasing awareness of sustainable environments, increase commuting costs and the need to break oil addiction began to argue for a return by whites to the cities that banking institutions started pouring serious resources back into American inner cities. For decades these same areas had been sacrifice zones where poverty and its poor cousins despair, and hopelessness flourished. In many instances, even the sacrifice zones were sacrificed when toxic waste, brown fields, and landfills were commonly the neighbors of poor and largely communities of color.

“Where once it was the inner cities, it is now outlying areas becoming sacrifice zones.”

The human costs of this are enormous. Families and entire communities are displaced as the cycle of racism goes full circle, with the disenfranchised squeezed out of the cities and having to locate further and further out. Where once it was the inner cities, it is now outlying areas becoming sacrifice zones.
...

Perhaps the remoteness from most Americans made that disaster easier for the oil industry to whitewash, raising a triumphant environmental green flag over the skull-white, steam-cleaned coastal rocks that still obscure black tarry sludge beneath the surface today. It would have been much more difficult to deceive the public had the Exxon Valdez run aground outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, or Boston, where millions of people would have easy access to the scene. With adequate public exposure, it is likely that coastal Alaska too would have been formally declared a sacrifice zone. Perhaps this explains the cessation of the 1st Amendment with National Incident Commander Admiral Thad Allen’s announcement of prohibitions against journalists reporting from the scene that will be backed by felony charges and $40 thousand fines per incident. It appears that BP and the Obama administration find it easier to stanch the flow of information than they do the deepwater gusher.

“I was more than a little surprised when the nation's first African American president, Barack Obama—who is a civil rights attorney himself—selected Ms. Browner for such a high profile position in his administration.”

Prior to the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, it is doubtful many people had even heard of Carol Browner. As one who is more than familiar with her record, I would describe the dark, impossible-to-remove stain on her professional career as symbolic of President Obama's other BP problem—Black People. That is, people of color and others who suffered under the thrall of discrimination, retaliation, and the excesses of a hostile work environment that flourished under Carol Browner during her tenure as EPA Administrator in the Clinton administration. This allegation was confirmed by the verdict in the 2000 Title VII case Coleman-Adebayo v. Carol Browner that I brought against the EPA. A federal jury found EPA guilty of race, sex, and color discrimination, and that Browner’s agency tolerated a sexually hostile work environment. As with any such complaint the administrator of the agency was named as the defendant, but in this case, I had worked closely with Ms. Browner on a high profile assignment for the agency. Once I had filed my complaint, I also worked strenuously (if fruitlessly) to have the administrator address the problems my case raised in attempts to resolve the issues before the case went to trial. My experience was of an administrator in Ms. Browner who was aloof, arrogant, and aligned herself more with business interests than with the people and environment those businesses affected.

...
[more at link]

Gushing, Gulf!

Gulf oil spill: No oil gushing from well for the first time since April
July 15, 2010 | 1:20 pm
For the first time in months, no oil is flowing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's troubled well.

BP Senior Vice President Kent Wells said Thursday afternoon that the last of a series of valves on a cap atop the well was fully closed around 12:25 p.m. PDT, shutting off the flow.

The total seal is a temporary measure while BP tests the integrity of the well to determine if the pipes below the sea floor are in good enough shape to allow the seal to stay in place.

The test could also show that the well is too compromised to withstand the seal. In that case, the valves would be opened, releasing oil into the ocean again. BP would use a series of pipes and ships to suck up some -- and perhaps all -- of the leaking oil, estimated to be 60,000 barrels per day.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2010/07/gulf-oil-spill-no-oil...

Problems with it--

http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/07/BP-compensation-oil-spill-vi...

(Not puzzling but rather predictable if one listened to those who warned that the application of H.A.A.R.P. was dangerous to the integrity of the atmosphere.)

Sounds like someone overheated the upper atmosphere perhaps?

http://www.physorg.com/news198429352.html

NASA-funded researchers are monitoring a big event in our planet's atmosphere. High above Earth's surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called "the thermosphere" recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.

"This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years," says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). "It's a Space Age record."

The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.

"Something is going on that we do not understand," says Emmert.

The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet. The thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K—hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.
...

[more at link]

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2010/07/15/goldman_to_pay_550m_t...

Cheney's new heart pump not a miracle cure
Washington Post - David Brown - ‎2 hours ago‎
If former vice president Richard B. Cheney's experience is similar to that of other patients who have heart pumps implanted, he has a better than 50-50 chance of surviving two years.
--------------

One potential oddity is that most patients who have the device have neither a pulse nor a conventional blood pressure, and must carry medical documentation saying that the lack of a pulse does not mean they are dead.

"The patient is going to look like a walking zombie," Mazur said.

(Reuters) - A New York lawyer who helped a terrorism suspect smuggle messages to his followers from prison was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday.
snip
After the October 2006 sentencing, Stewart said she could serve the time "standing on my head." In court on Thursday, she said she regretted those remarks.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66E73B20100715

(LYNN STEWART IS A FRIEND OF RON KUBY)

ISSUES OF MIND CONTROL in 7 parts

- Dr. Rauni-Leena Luukanen Kilde - Nyhetsspeilet.no
by beastofeast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDjYWK0k9A
----
I think this is one of the best yet and more recent because she mentions Prez Obama.

I also noticed a renewed urgency in her answers altho she is still v. patient and still has her sense of humor. You'll see what I mean when you watch it. The immediate future looks v. bleak.

This is really an amazing interview. The info is amazing.
---
Dr. Kilde has mentioned before that the science in Hollywood films is true, altho old. She mentions always that once science techn. appears on the ground it is at least 30 or 50 yrs old.

She mentioned the film "Control Room" (2003) to be v. accurate altho the chips implanted are old technology now. They can now be implanted w. a simple handshake.
I just ordered the film from Netflix. She also said that "Enemy of the State" is v. good.

She also discussed Avatar. That was fascinating. If you watched it you will appreciate her analysis.

She also mentioned "Independence Day" and I am watching it again right now. Looks like it wasn't all just fantasy.

btw. Netflix is still streaming "Toxic Skies" - about Chemtrails. We not only get very sick but also can get implanted thru Chemtrails.

xo

Dr. Rauni-Leena Luukanen Kilde about the AVATAR movie
Creatrix13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-jsKAmoEYk

-----

Dr. Rauni-Leena Luukanen Kilde about The Control Factor (1:3) - a reality check
Creatrix13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQ_sgvttP_s&feature=related

----
Creatrix13 has several Kilde interviews in 13 parts - dealing w. swineflu to electromagnetic warfare

I am still not done watching them all.

Dr. Kilde is amazing. So much courage. I recently watched a clip about Nasa techn. but the author was so vague I had to give it up because I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Dr. Kilde tells what she knows and has seen and heard without dancing around the subject.

===== This really shouldn't come as no surprise anymore

but acc. to Dr. RK all Western countries have underground living quarters for the elite. Some quite elaborate. Wenn the doctor was working for the government she had her own room underground ready for her in case ...

Jesse Venture went into this subject re 2012 on his Conspiracy show on TrueTV and visits an old missile silo that was being turned into a three-story condo for rich people. He also visited the Denver airport. Lots of building going on there. Don't miss.

taozen, do you know
Submitted by bridge on Wed, 07/14/2010 - 8:34pm.

the Finnish Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen -Kilde?

----

a repost just in case you missed it

When some congressman calls for banning "civilians" from wearing military fatigues, camo, and shutting down Army Surplus Stores, than I'll start listening to arguments that the burqua is a "security threat."
Some jackasses argue that the burqua literally is a security threat-- here. I always laugh: You're an Islamic terrorist. You know Americans just love Muslims-- especially Muslims in airports. How can I blend in. I know. I'll put on clown suit.
Banning the burqua is a curtailment of speech. It is an attempt by the state to stamp out a statement of resistance. There's nothing new here. Long hair, 'fros, dreadlocks, these were also all "threats."

"No pulse?"
"Zap him again!"
"Pulse?"
"No."
"Hmm. Head for morgue."

Deaths in Iran mosque attack
Two explosions at a mosque in southeastern Iran have killed at least 20 people and injured more than 100 others in suicide attacks, Iranian officials say.

The blasts late on Thursday targeted Shia Muslim worshippers and Revolutionary Guards members in the predominantly Sunni city of Zahedan, Sistan-Baluchestan province, the Fars news agency quoted Iran's deputy interior minister as saying.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/07/201071518824599686....

I have been reading up on her again since you brought her up. She seems to get a lot of people all upset and that means she is making people think. I am working a lot these days and I dont have much time for videos.

I am trying to not get so excited about the underworld government manipulation and control. I am not a doubter I am just hoping for a certain heart pump to have a malfunction due to HAARP activity!
Let me study up on her. keep digging remember 'they let her speak" and I am not sure why just yet.

Tell me what are her most important statements as you are studying up on the Good Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen ?

Venezuela 'hosting Farc rebels'

Colombia's government says it has proof that Marxist fighters are hiding out in neighbouring Venezuela, in a move that is likely to stoke new tensions between the two countries.

Colombian officials have long suspected that members of guerrilla armies like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) are based in the jungles on Venezuela's side of the border.

The annoucement on Thursday marked the first public assertion of proof for Colombia's long held belief and is sure to heighten political tensions that have chocked off more than $7bn in cross-border trade in recent months....
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/07/2010715211259844691.h...

Thursday, July 15, 2010
Documents reveal multimillion-dollar funding to journalists and media in Venezuela

Documents reveal multimillion-dollar funding to journalists and media in Venezuela

US State Department documents declassified under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) evidence more than $4 million USD in funding to journalists and private media in Venezuela during the last three years. This funding is part of the more than $40 million USD international agencies are investing annually in anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela in an attempt to provoke regime change

The funding has been channeled directly by the State Department through three US agencies: Panamerican Development Foundation (PADF), Freedom House, and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

In a blatant attempt to hide their activities, the State Department has censored the names of organizations and journalists receiving these multimillion-dollar funds. However, one document dated July 2008 mistakenly left unveiled the names of the principal Venezuelan groups receiving the funds: Espacio Publico (Public Space) and Instituto de Prensa y Sociedad (Institute for Press and Society “IPYS”).
http://www.chavezcode.com/2010/07/documents-reveal-multimillion-dollar.h...

(The massive efforts our capitalists go to undermine Chavez, I think is a hopeful sign. Obviously, they are terrified by the model of a socialist regime actually succeeding.)

I left early but heard WFI... WFI ... WFI
... Tiger was favoured to win! hahateahee TeaHeeCheersHaHaLOL {1 was done at 5:56pm but my mouse and computer said NO! :}

Results for: Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen/haarp

Must See TV | SamSederShow.com
Jul 14, 2010 ... the Finnish Doctor Rauni-Leena Luukenen -Kilde? ... She discussed mind control, electromagnetic warfare, HAARP, doctors, swineflu (fraud), ...
samsedershow.com/node/5912 - Cached

By Noam Chomsky
July 2010

The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration. General Petraeus informed the Senate Committee on Armed Services in March 2010 that "the Iranian regime is the primary state-level threat to stability" in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, the Middle East and Central Asia, the primary region of U.S. global concerns. The term "stability" here has its usual technical meaning: firmly under U.S. control. In June 2010 Congress strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies. The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding U.S. offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the U.S. could build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command area. The Navy reports sending a submarine tender to the island to service nuclear-powered guided-missile submarines with Tomahawk missiles, which can carry nuclear warheads. Each submarine is reported to have the striking power of a typical carrier battle group. According to a U.S. Navy cargo manifest obtained by the Sunday Herald (Glasgow), the substantial military equipment Obama has dispatched includes 387 "bunker busters" used for blasting hardened underground structures. Planning for these "massive ordnance penetrators," the most powerful bombs in the arsenal short of nuclear weapons, was initiated in the Bush administration, but languished. On taking office, Obama immediately accelerated the plans and they are to be deployed several years ahead of schedule, aiming specifically at Iran.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-iranian-threat-by-noam-chomsky-1

By Erik olin Wright
July 12, 2010 Text Size a- | A+

Erik Olin Wright is Vilas Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin. This discussion, with Edward Lewis from New Left Project (www.newleftproject.org), focuses on his recently published book, Envisioning Real Utopias. In this part, the focus is on the foundations of emancipatory alternatives to capitalism, and the existing practices that inform those foundations. The second part, following shortly, will focus on questions on the transition to a ‘real utopian’ future.

Part 1: Envisioning Real Utopias

Why do you think there is a need for visions of social arrangement very different from those that we have now? Why is there a specific need for ‘real utopian’ visions?

There are really two somewhat questions here: why do we need to look for fundamental alternatives to existing social institutions, and why should these alternatives be framed as “real utopian” visions.

First, the issue of the search for alternatives: We live in a world characterized by deeply troubling, if familiar, contrasts: poverty in the midst of plenty; enhanced opportunities for some people to live creative, flourishing lives alongside social exclusion and thwarted human potential; new technologies to cure disease, enhance health and prolong life along with untreated, devastating illness. There are, of course, many possible explanations for these facts. Some people believe that poverty in the midst of plenty constitutes simply a sad fact of life: “the poor will always be with us.” Defenders of capitalism argue that this is a temporary state of affairs which further economic development will eradicate: capitalism, if given enough time, especially if it is unfettered from the harmful effects of state regulations, will eradicate poverty. Many social conservatives insist that suffering and unfulfilling lives are simply the fault of the individuals whose lives go badly: contemporary capitalism generates an abundance of opportunities, but some people squander their lives because they are too lazy or irresponsible or impulsive to take advantage of them. If you accept any of these diagnoses, then there would not be much point in elaborating visions of social arrangements very different from those we have now. But if you believe, as I do, that there is very strong social scientific evidence that these morally salient forms of inequality and deprivation are mainly consequences of fundamental properties of the socioeconomic system, then it is imperative to understand alternatives to the existing world which would mitigate these harms.
http://www.zcommunications.org/envisioning-real-utopias-by-erik-olin-wri...

;) {tea hee}

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/News/2010/natural_heal...

June 22, 2010

How vitamin pills could save you from a heart attack
Cholesterol famously comes in two versions - the good and the bad. Heart health, we're told, depends on lowering the bad (LDL) cholesterol, and pushing up the good (HDI). But it's no longer that simple. Bad cholesterol turns out to be part of a double act. What's more, this discovery suggests that a new treatment for heart disease could be a simple vitamin tablet. Researchers recently found that bad cholesterol has a twin called lipoprotein(a), which can also raise your risk of heart disease.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: Cholesterol-lowering drugs are the single largest business segment of the global pharmaceutical drug business. The fact is, however, that the entire cholesterol business is built on fear – the fear that cholesterol actually causes heart attacks. In this respect, whilst we obviously welcome the publication of research confirming that vitamins can prevent heart attacks, not only can this latest example hardly be described as a “discovery”, it omits to mention crucial scientific facts about lipoprotein(a) that have been known for almost twenty years. As long ago as 1991, a scientific paper published by Dr. Rath and two-time Nobel laureate Linus Pauling described how the primary cause of cardiovascular disease is a deficiency in vitamin C, which leads to the deposition of lipoprotein(a) in the vascular wall. Since then, the pharmaceutical industry’s efforts to cover-up this information have cost literally millions of lives. To read further early scientific papers by Dr. Rath – published between 1989 and 1993 and describing the relationship between vitamin C deficiency, lipoprotein(a) and cardiovascular disease – click here.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=134939&sectionid=351020101

Eyewitness report...

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/59929

Despite previous incidents, policy allows pilots to fly when medicated on SSRIs--

http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/07/ssris-render-unfriendly-skies/

[excerpt]

...

The report said the pilot failed to maintain control of the plane during instrument flying conditions and “deliberately descended below the minimum descent altitude.” The plane stalled and crashed while circling after an aborted landing.

“Review of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) audio revealed that the pilot had displayed some non-professional behavior before initiating the approach,” the NTSB reported.

The CVR recorded the pilot singing: “Save my life I’m going down for the last time,” before beginning a commentary in which he told passengers: “If anybody back there believes in the good Lord, I believe now would be a good time to hit your knees.”

A review of medical records documented that “from December 4, 2006 through December 31, 2007, the pilot had filled 6 prescriptions for 30 tablets of 50 mg sertraline (Zoloft),” the report said.

The records indicated that he had been treated previously with two other antidepressant medications for “anxiety and depression” and a history of “impatience” and “compulsiveness,” the NTSB noted.

An investigation of another plane crash, resulting in two fatalities in Kingsport, Tennessee, in August 2003, found Zoloft in the blood and liver of a private flight instructor, according to an accident report by the NTSB.

In the policy statement published in the Federal Register, the FAA seems to justify the use of these drugs via the fully debunked “chemical imbalance in the brain” theory when writing: “All these medications are SSRIs, antidepressants that help restore the balance of serotonin, a naturally occurring chemical substance found in the brain.”

[more at link]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6119.shtml

[excerpt]

Beyond violence and nonviolence: Resistance as a culture
By Ramzy Baroud

...

By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said’s elucidation of “culture [as] a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration.” When cultures resist, they don’t scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ nonviolent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests it’s manipulative or plain ignorant.

If resistance is “the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with,” then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element -- often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture’s past experiences, but it is very much an internal process.

It’s almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn’t always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza:

“It’s not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed.” (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story)

Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths -- and thus defuse the culture’s ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world’ nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures -- through globalization, for example -- they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.

In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word ‘martyr,’ and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word ‘victory’ is persistently used.

[more at link]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_6046.shtml

[excerpt]

University of Miami scandal raises questions about government research

By Martha Rosenberg
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jun 28, 2010, 00:26

Some say the incident in which the director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) assured the University of Miami’s medical school dean if he hired Charles Nemeroff, MD, the disgraced researcher, Nemeroff could still pull in government grants is an example of the Old Boy’s Network.

NIMH director Thomas Insel, MD, assured Pascal Goldschmidt, MD, UM’s medical school dean that Nemeroff’s congressional investigation for unreported drug industry income and NIH’s termination of his $9 million grant shouldn’t stop the government funding spigot -- even as Insel personally revised NIMH’s “conflict of interest” rules.

(And even as Nemeroff serves on two NIH peer-review advisory panels that decide what? Who receives grant money.)

Insel presumably “owed” Nemeroff because the former head of psychiatry at Emory got Insel a gig there when he lost his NIH position in 1994 and helped Insel’s comeback in 2002 as NIMH director, says the Chronicle of Higher Learning. Nice revolving doors if you can catch them.

But others say it’s an example of the Old Girl’s Network since it was UM President Donna Shalala, former Health and Human Services secretary, who allowed the hiring of the poster boy for conflicts of interest without a job posting, national search, search committee or vote from UM’s psychiatry faculty.

...

Of course Nemeroff’s hire as head of UM psychiatry looks like an unvarnished ploy to divert taxpayer dollars from the $1.4 billion NIMH budget to a private institution, courtesy of I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine cronyism. But it also raises questions about how government officials trusted with public funds even got there.

“There has always been some confusion . . . about whether Yerkes [Yerkes National Primate Research Center] is part of Emory or part of the federal government,” Insel told Emory magazine as he hop-scotched between the two employers with the help of his buddy Nemeroff (doing Lord knows what to 3,400 primates.) “This is not in any way, shape, or form a federal laboratory. . . . It is, from top to bottom, part of Emory. Every brick, every animal in this place, is part of Emory University.”

No kidding. It is just this “confusion” between public and private monies -- the Yerkes Center is NIH funded, hello? -- that earned Nemeroff his ethical cloud and now Insel’s support of him as UM financial savior.

[end excerpt]

and his work with Dr Rath was always discredited. As soon as Pauling Died the Mainstream forces of medicine began to open up a little bit to some of his ideas.

It is a sad state of affairs how nutritional approaches are still covered up for the most part. . Now they are marketing Lipitor type drugs to obese children.

Submitted by nora on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 1:04am.
http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/THE_FOUNDATION/News/2010/natural_heal...

Lysine and proline, two common amino acids were added to the vit C in the studies. . Dr Atkins was very aware of Paulings work and used much of it. Pauling took 18 grams a day of powdered vit C. But good results can happen at 3,000 mg.. eat your organic strawberries and all berries when ever possible. [1,000 mg. is one gram]

most Vitamin C powder is made in China BTW

just thinking that the Goldman sux deal was announced at the same time as the new finance reform Bill the Senate approved today. Just a "coincidence"?

Wall Street launders drug money
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/07/14/megabanks-are-laundering-...

================

http://www.alternet.org/news/147569/how_%22grassroots%22_is_obama%27s_or...

How "Grassroots" Is Obama's Organizing for America?
Obama's organizing arm has been accused of creating a feeling of false intimacy among members, while creating little new in the form of participatory online politics.
July 15, 2010

Why did President Obama see fit to mention in an email to supporters last week that it was his daughter Malia's birthday? Perhaps because it fits in nicely with the (apparent) White House mobilizing strategy: make the 13-million or so recipients feel like they have a bit of personal intimacy, proximity to power and a voice in decision-making even if the reality says otherwise.

================

http://www.alternet.org/environment/147538/coast_guard_blocks_out_media_...

Coast Guard Blocks Out Media in Gulf; Activists Demand Answers
Coast Guard officials have pointed out that the 20-meter security zone is minimal and does not hamper documentation of the cleanup. Environmentalists disagree.
July 14, 2010

Journalists and independent observers of the oil cleanup in the Gulf of Mexico could be fined up to $40,000 and be charged with a felony if they get too close to booms and oil cleanup areas, and activist group Seize BP wants to know how authorities can justify such a muzzle on independent information gatherers.

The Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on behalf of Seize BP, demanding specific information on the US Coast Guard's justification for establishing 20-meter security zones around cleanup areas.

level of science to really understand this "stuff"

http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v35/n9/abs/npp201058a.html

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/15-2

Published on Thursday, July 15, 2010 by CommonDreams.org
Revenge of the Weeds
by Robert C. Koehler

...
This all reads so much like a war story, it's as though a template had been laid over the data, making it come out as another version of the Great American Myth: Once again, the valiant American little guy, in this case the noble farmer (and his ally Monsanto), takes on inscrutable evil, an herbicide-resistant form of pigweed that can grow three inches a day, reach heights of seven feet, choke out crops and wreck farm equipment. If we throw a little Agent Orange at it, we're back in another era, fighting commie pigweed.

As I read the Times story, which seemed like a dispatch from the front ("In an attempt to kill the pest before it becomes that big . . ."), I couldn't help but think about some words of Rupert Ross, who delves deeply into the Aboriginal worldview in his book Returning to the Teachings. The Lakota, he wrote, "had no language for insulting other orders of existence: ‘pest' . . . ‘waste' . . . ‘weed.'"

This starts to explain why we are the way we are, and how we've reached the zenith of our arrogance: Whether geopolitically, agriculturally or in the privacy of our relationship with ourselves, we come out fearful and fighting. (I will sometimes, for my own amazement, count the number of "wars" we're waging: on drugs, terror, crime, cancer, illiteracy, ignorance . . . weeds, etc., ad infinitum).

Is there another way? Can we retire the myth that we've created, and that has created us, which depends for its sustenance upon a perpetual enemy and dozens, maybe hundreds, of fronts?

Our transition to peace will be as slow, complex and backlash-prone as our transition from monoculture to sustainable farming practices, such as the permaculture movement, which seeks to partner with nature, not use it up and throw it away.

"Permaculture's sensible answer," writes Mary DeDanan, "is for humans to ally themselves with nature instead of trying to control nature. . . . Permaculture insists on the whole picture, from soil microbes to global weather patterns. It takes advantage of every relationship and synergy. It uses local resources, or grows its own. It wastes nothing."
...

Did you ever see the full page ads Dr. Rath ran in the NYTimes?

He's a gutsy guy.

Sweet dreams.

http://www.examiner.com/x-44251-Tampa-Animal-Welfare-Examiner~y2010m7d14...

...

The New York Times reports, “Studies show that dispersants, which break down oil into tiny droplets and can also break down cell membranes, make oil more toxic for some animals. And the solvents they contain can break down red blood cells, causing hemorrhaging. A fresh dolphin carcass found in the Gulf was bleeding from the mouth and blowhole, according to Lori Deangelis, a dolphin tour operator in Perdido Bay. “

...

“Oil inhaled or ingested, can cause brain lesions, pneumonia, kidney damage, stress and death. Scientists working on the BP spill have seen oil-mired animals that are suffering from extreme exhaustion and hyperthermia.”

Reports of dolphins dying painful, bloody deaths as a result of the Gulf oil spill can be particularly disturbing to residents of Tampa Bay. The playful, charming mammals are as much a part of Central Florida’s marine landscape as the gulls and pelicans seen from beach blankets. Their loss from Tampa waters would be an insufferable tragedy.

If the Pentagon didn't get its money, would there be a coup or something? Is it ever possible for legislators to reduce the military budget? And the White House threatens to veto an education bill as punishment if Congress doesn't give the Pentagon what it wants? EGAD.

NOTE: DOD Secty. Gates met behind closed doors with the Republicans. Say what? Is this about 'paying the troops' or about having the money for starting something with Iran? Just too weird....

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE66D5DD20100714?type=politicsNews

...

(Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Wednesday it may be forced to take extreme measures -- like not paying salaries -- if the Democratic-led Congress fails to pass a $37 billion defense spending bill before lawmakers begin an August recess.

A senior Democratic aide said lawmakers would find a way to get it done. "We will pass it this work period. We have to," the aide said.

Tensions are growing in the Pentagon about the fate of the bill, which has languished in Congress despite repeated pleas for action by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who needs to fund a 30,000-troop surge for the Afghan war.

The White House has added to the drama, threatening to veto the bill over $800 million in education spending cuts that were added by the House of Representatives.

"While we hope and expect the Congress will get this done, we also are obligated now to begin seriously planning for the possibility that they don't," Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

He noted that "absent more drastic action" certain Army and Marine Corps spending accounts would run dry in August.

[more at link]

Author of torture memos, Judge Jay Bybee meets with legislators.

http://www.truth-out.org/author-torture-memos-admits-some-techniques-wer...

[excerpt]

In a closed-door interview with members of the House Judiciary Committee on May 26, Bybee said his Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) did not allow the CIA to use diapering, water dousing, blackout goggles, extended solitary confinement, daily beatings, forcing a detainee to defecate on himself, hanging a detainee from ceiling hooks or subjecting prisoners to loud music or noise.
Bybee, who is now a federal appeals court judge in San Francisco, did sign off on a variety of other torture techniques, including the near-drowning experience of waterboarding. Prolonged diapering was included in a list of torture techniques that the OLC initially approved in 2002, but it was removed possibly because it might have resulted in a lengthy legal review.
Some of the techniques, including diapering, were permitted by CIA Director George Tenet and other senior agency officials despite the lack of clear OLC sign-off in 2002. Diapering and other abuses, such as water dousing, were cleared by the OLC later after Bybee left to become a federal judge.
In an investigative report published by Truthout on April 17, intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured after 9/11, was subjected to repeated sessions of "water dousing" prior to the issuance of the August 2002 torture memos. At the time interrogators used it on Zubaydah, water dousing was described by intelligence officials knowledgeable about Zubaydah's torture as spraying him with extremely cold water from a hose while he was naked and shackled by chains attached to a ceiling in the cell he was kept in at a black-site prison.
Water dousing was believed to have played a part in the November 2002 death of Gul Rahman, a detainee who was held at an Afghanistan prison known as The Salt Pit. He died of hypothermia hours after being doused with water and left in a cold prison cell.
Bybee’s statements to the committee appeared to be an attempt to shift the blame for some illegal torturing onto the CIA.
[more at link]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/13/AR201007...

[excerpt]

Former NSA executive Thomas A. Drake may pay high price for media leak

TAKING A STAND: "I will never plea-bargain with the truth," friends say Thomas A. Drake told them after the FBI contacted him. ((Photo Obtained By The Washington Post)) Network NewsX Profile

By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

For seven years, Thomas A. Drake was a senior executive at the nation's largest intelligence organization with an ambition to change its insular culture. He had access to classified programs that purported to help the National Security Agency tackle its toughest challenges: exploiting the digital data revolution and countering terrorism.

Today, he wears a blue T-shirt and answers questions about iPhones at an Apple store in the Washington area. He is awaiting trial in a criminal media leak case that could send him to prison for 35 years. In his years at the NSA, Drake grew disillusioned, then indignant, about what he saw as waste, mismanagement and a willingness to compromise Americans' privacy without enhancing security.

He first tried the sanctioned methods -- going to his superiors, inspectors general, Congress. Finally, in frustration, he turned to the "nuclear option": leaking to the media.

Drake, 53, may pay a high price for going nuclear. In April he was indicted, accused of mishandling classified information and obstructing justice. His supporters consider him a patriotic whistleblower targeted by an Obama administration bent on sealing leaks and on having something to show for an investigation that spans two presidencies. Many in the intelligence community, by contrast, view Drake as the overzealous one, an official who disregarded his oath to protect classified information so he could punish the agency for scrapping a program he favored.

It's classic Washington: disgruntled officials sharing inside information with a reporter and an administration seeking to rein that practice in. Drake's attorney maintains he broke no laws.

The case, whistleblower-rights advocates say, underscores how revealing abuses in the intelligence community is difficult because of the classified nature of programs and the lack of meaningful protections against retaliation.

...
[more at link]

"...keep on, keeping on..."
;)

Nora I had forgotten about those ads he bought for the NYT. .

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/open_letters/open_letter_overview.htm

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/open_letters/open_letter_reaction.htm

On the Diane Rehm Show: Discussion the the critical components of effective apologies and why public apologies seem to be on the rise.

Guests
Lauren Bloom an attorney and the author of “The Art of the Apology.”

Dr. Aaron Lazare a professor of psychiatry and Chancellor/Dean Emeritus of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and author of “On Apology.”

Randy Cohen author of the Ethicist column in the New York Times Magazine and a new play titled, "The Punishing Blow."
Hear it at:
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-07-15/apology

he has challenged the permanent holding of stop and frisk information!
he is speaking of it now. "

People of color have just been given some of the rights that others have monopolized!

100 Men in law inforcement were there at the signing . Eric Adams !

The republicans are nowhere to be seen at this momentous occaision'

Guilliani and Bloomberg brought us to the brink of a police state out of control. WTP have just made a step back from the cliff.

http://www4.dr-rath-foundation.org/open_letters/newyorkstatevglaxo.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100716/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iran_explosions

PSA:

FUCK YOU MEG WHITMAN

Meg would like to get rid of my retirement account PERS....Feel free to tell her to kiss your ass on election day. I know I will.

contribute....

"The Obama administration has been rapidly expanding U.S. offensive capacity in the African island of Diego Garcia, claimed by Britain, which had expelled the population so that the U.S. could build the massive base it uses for attacks in the Central Command area."

Satan is real, and we are his agents. Our role is to destroy any remaining remote paradise on earth.

http://www.minorityrights.org/1032/reports/diego-garcia-a-contrast-to-th...

Tesla Motors Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. plan to develop an electric version of the RAV4 SUV that would go on sale in the U.S. two years from now.

The venture is the first project announced by the companies since Toyota purchased about 3% of Tesla for $50 million earlier this year.

The automakers are already testing a prototype of the vehicle. Toyota is providing the body and other major components, and Tesla is contributing its battery system and electric power train.
more

http://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-0717-autos-tesla-20100717,0,...

The Rethugs have had a challenging week. their leader has no pulse yet in NYC the GovPaterson is responding to the pulse of the whole community of normal people.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870491330457537077241418517...

---------------
more clearly
\!/

http://dnainfo.com/20100716/manhattan/gov-david-paterson-signs-law-endin...

I dont have high enough
Submitted by taozen on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 2:21am.
level of science to really understand this "stuff"

http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v35/n9/abs/npp201058a.html
======================

***********
Ha-ha-ha-ha.....!
***********

(Research-speak! Worth a few extra ten$ of thousand$ in grant$ no doubt!)(Not that establishing weed WORKS isn't a good thing, mind you. But still....)

At least this is the way it is being talked about on the radio news at the top of the hour:

NEW WORLD Trade Center.

Of course, I nearly fell out of my chair onto the cat! NEW WORLD? They just need one more word to make Bush Senior happy and that's "order" at the end.

http://dnainfo.com/20100715/manhattan/michael-bloomberg-spent-1092-milli...

An article in the current issue of the AARP Bulletin is likely to get a “What’s this?” reaction from many of its millions of readers. It is titled “Iranian Cure for the Delta’s Blues,” with the eye-opening subtitles: “Mississippi Looks to Iran’s health care system”” “That model has improved health dramatically”; “Will it travel well to Baptist Town?”

The media has painted Iran as a backward third world country of 72 million people, who have little to teach us. Presidents Bush and Obama further a narrow view of Iran by looking at it through a military lens. Iranians do suffer from a lack of freedom of expression and widespread human rights abuses.

But, beware of stereotypes of an entire people as being unable to have functional aspects of their life and, in this case, deeply relevant experiences for Baptist Town, Mississippi—an impoverished community neglected by the rapacious pay-or-die business of health care.

There is much unattended and preventable illness in that town as there is throughout the Mississippi Delta – birthplace of the Blues – and other large poverty pockets in the “land of the free, home of the brave.”

As Bulletin author Joel K. Bourne Jr. writes: The area “now suffers a host of health woes, with some of the highest rates of diabetes, obesity, hypertension and infant mortality in the nation.” Many millions of dollars, reflecting the mis-located, impersonal, after the illness, wasteful medical model we’ve come to know over the last decade, have done too little for the Delta’s population.

It just so happened that a 77 year old pediatrician, Aaron Shirley, who 40 years ago helped start public health care in the Delta, and was despairing of any changes occurring, bumped into a native of Iran, Dr. Mohammad Shahbazi, chair of the Department of Behavioral and Environmental Health at Jackson State University.

Iran has an innovative primary health care system, praised by the World Health Organization (WHO), that Dr. Shahbazi believed was worth visiting. Its simplicity is its genius. Its focus on prevention, diagnosis and proper referral for various illnesses goes through three tiers.

At the ground level, first stop “health houses” were established and staffed by trained villagers called “bhevarzes” who provide basic health services for up to 1500 people. So far there are 17,000 health houses with twice the number of behvarzes—half male and half female—who reach 90 percent of the rural population. These health outposts are now setting up in urban neighborhoods.

Regional health center staff supervise the bhevarzes, and health houses. A regional health center also receives the patients that cannot be helped by the “health houses.” Between them, about 80 percent of the cases are treated.

For the more serious illnesses or traumas, there are the larger hospitals. Iranians can go to any level they choose. The Iranian government got this “health house” system underway as part of a policy, according to the Bulletin, that provides inexpensive health insurance for everyone.

Over the past thirty years, this top-down-bottom-up program has reduced infant mortality in rural areas by 90 percent and sharply reduced other illnesses and infections by the preventive attention of these “health houses,” operated by people in their communities.

There has been an exchange of medical personnel back and forth between Iran and Mississippi to learn about how to adapt this framework to the different culture of the Deep South, where most people can’t afford any health insurance at all.

A poor country, with a GDP the size of Connecticut, can do what the richest country in the world cannot do to organize itself to take on corporate greed and get it done. Presently, over 46 million Americans have no health insurance and 45,000 of them die every year as a result (see pnhp.org/excessdeaths/health-insurance-and-mortality-in-US-adults.pdf).

True, the Delta doesn’t have the Mullahs to face down the Aetnas. But its beleaguered public health physicians surely know that similar primary care models work anywhere they have been tried in the world—Costa Rica, Chile, Cuba, Brazil and, until it mutated into crypto-capitalism, China.

Swinging into action, Dr. Shirley and his colleagues, who already have a large community clinic in Jackson, are applying for a $20 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to fund 10 health house pilot programs in Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. Without waiting, he is renovating a Baptist Town shack into a primary care clinic for free screenings and immunizations by trained people living in their town.

James Miller, a health consultant working with Dr. Shirley, told Joel Bourne that “preventive care keeps people from getting sick in the first place and postoperative care will save billions in readmissions. This really could be an answer for what ails the U.S. health care system. But forget about the dollars, what about the human suffering? The value of taking a healthy, productive human being out of society? We’ve got to change the way we think. If you look at the health disparities for minorities in the U.S. we look like some undeveloped countries in how we treat our citizens.”

Except, apparently for Iran.

Certainly, the concept behind “health houses” and a three-tier system has been known by many health care practitioners and policymakers in the U.S. for many years.

The problem is that such a system is seen as a threat to intransigent corporatized medicine lusting for ever greater profits, no matter the cost to penniless innocents from an economic class recruited to fight the criminal wars of Bush and Obama. Those who serve in the armed forces get full health coverage.

The ironies should shame us into action!

Argentina Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage

Argentina has become the first Latin American country to legalize same-sex marriage. The Argentine Senate approved a measure Thursday granting same-sex couples full marriage rights and benefits. Argentina President Cristina Fernández has vowed to sign it into law. Maria Rachid of the Argentine LGBT Federation said more Latin American countries will follow suit.

Maria Rachid: Argentina is the first country in Latin America, but surely it will not be the last. A lot of countries will come after Argentina approving and recognizing the legal equality of all families."

Iran has an innovative primary health care system, praised by the World Health Organization (WHO), that Dr. Shahbazi believed was worth visiting. Its simplicity is its genius. Its focus on prevention, diagnosis and proper referral for various illnesses goes through three tiers.

Submitted by Alice on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 1:58pm.

reread that post of hers to any one who is more afraid of Iran than they are afraid of growing old with no medicine and healthy food and water.

----------
It is usually the Stock market Shows and publications that are always pushing to squelch out other views and practices.

This week’s Ring of Fire Radio, hosted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,
Mike Papantonio and David Bender: Saturdays at 3 o’clock Eastern,
rebroadcasts Sunday nights at 8 pm Eastern

This week on Ring of Fire Radio, Mike and David are travelling this
week, so Sam Seder
will be filling in.

We’ve also got author Jeff Goodell

with us to tell us how how the coal industry has managed to convince
the EPA that the billions of tons of toxic waste they are producing
every year doesn’t pose a threat to human health.

Eric Alterman from The Nation

magazine will join us to talk about why, even with progressives
controlling both the Executive and Legislative branches of government,
it is impossible for progressives to pass the laws they promised would
pass during their campaigns.

Harper’s Magazine
Contributing editor and author Frederick Kaufman will be here to tell
us how Goldman Sachs helped to create a bubble in the international
food market that sent prices of food for developing nations
skyrocketing out of control.

And as part of Ring of Fire's on-going, exclusive coverage of the
worst oil disaster in our nation’s history, Devastation in the Gulf,
award-winning investigative journalist Dahr Jamail

will talk to us about what Louisiana fishermen are calling the Hell
that has arrived in their state.

Thanks for the links because I didn't notice those were at this site!

Like this quote from May 21, 2010 which I never saw in the paper:

Greece Is Not the Exception – But the Rule
The crisis in Greece – and other European countries – is not the result of corruption or a lack of productivity. It is the inevitable result of the systematic drainage of public and private funds from these countries, totaling trillions of dollars, to finance the import of petrochemicals, patented drugs and other Cartel products.

The economic dependency and ultimately bankruptcy of non-Cartel countries serves the ultimate goal of complete global control by the Cartel. Thus, the current crisis must have been foreseen by the Cartel, although at a later stage when a ‘Brussels EU’-controlled riot police and armed forces would have been set up and sent to Athens and other capitals to crack down on any resistance against the rule of the Cartel and the ‘Brussels EU’.

[unquote]

-------------

Wow.

This much time on this misogynist-bigot has resulted in the conclusions that he was in an alcohol-soaked state, he is making a movie on the Illuminati [are they zapping him with those disabling waves?], he is displaying what macho-men do when they are no longer getting accolades (or in normal peoples' lives -- no longer have a job), Randi wants to do an intervention.

?

From article in NYTimes on Business Day page. Hey, I would have put this on the FRONT page!

But I can't find a link!

Title--Cut Back, Banks See a Chance to Grow
Subtitle--Its Fight Ended, Wall St. Is Already Working Around New Regulations
By--Eric Dash and Nelson D. Schwartz

[Paragraph 3, quote]

So after spending many millions of dollars to lobby against the legislation, bankers are now turning to Plan B: Adapting to the rules and turning them to their advantage.
[unquote]

============

So get ready for NEW (rip-off) CONSUMER FEES to make up for tighter rules, and pumped up derivatives that look like they'll set us up to be asked for another bailout.

If you can find the article, give it a scan.

http://www.floridaoilspilllaw.com/just-in-rep-markey-says-congress-unabl...

*Just IN* Rep. Markey says Congress unable to “PUBLICLY disclose” integrity of wellbore — More (VIDEO)

[more at link]

If the well is closed, the pressure from the oil deposit may work its way up around the outside of the well bore casing. This speaker says that would take a week for any such leak to manifest on the sea floor around the well head [or through fissures leading away from the well?].

Geologist Chris Landau--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnJ8Z4oeecw

Gizmodo editor Jason Chen, who acquired an Apple iPhone 4 prototype and published details of the phone prior to its release, will be getting his computer equipment back.
Chen's computers, hard drives, and other electronics were seized on behalf of the San Mateo, Calif., District Attorney's Office in April as part of an investigation into circumstances of the iPhone 4 prototype's disappearance and subsequent acquisition by Gizmodo.

snip
On Friday, the San Mateo District Attorney's Office asked the judge overseeing investigation to withdraw the warrant it had previously requested.

As a consequence, Chen's possessions will be returned.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposed the warrant as violation of the California Penal Code, hailed the warrant's withdrawal.

"As EFF repeatedly noted at the time, the warrant-backed search of Chen's home was illegal as it violated California Penal Code section 1524(g)'s prohibition against the issuance of warrants for 'unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public,'" the cyber-rights group said.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/web_services/showArticle.jh...

Here is another expert's read based on the limited information allowed to be made public.

Oil expert Matt Simmons (on Ratigan's show) says the amount of oil pollution happening cound not come from the pipe seen in the web broadcast video stream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scl2dgK_-Nw&feature=player_embedded

I think she means an exorcism for addled Mal Gibson

or
http://www.ourcatholicfaith.org/confession.html

with the sound track
http://www.ourcatholicfaith.org/downloads/chant-alma.au

Feds: Test results from well not as good as hoped

Pressure readings have been less than ideal from the new cap shutting oil into BP's busted well, but the crude will remain locked in while engineers look for evidence of whether there is an undiscovered leak, the federal point man for the disaster said Friday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9177091

"Less than ideal."
Love corporatespeak. 'The destruction of a small ocean is an undesirable outcome.'

Iran accuses US and UK of supporting group behind mosque attacks

CIA denies claims it has been backing Jundullah, the Sunni separatist group which has claimed responsibility for the bombs

Jundullah – Arabic for "the soldiers of God" – said it carried out the twin attacks yesterday at Zahedan's grand mosque in retaliation for the execution of the group's captured leader. Provincial officials said a further 167 people were injured, some of them critically. Three days of mourning were declared. General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, claimed in Tehran today that the victims "were martyred by the hands of mercenaries of the US and UK". Ali Mohammad Azad, governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province, blamed "the intelligence services of arrogant powers."

The US and Britain – which are at odds with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme – issued statements condemning the attacks..............
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/iran-us-uk-mosque-attacks

(It goes on, but you the know the rest):

Straight to Hell boy

Can you really cough it up loud and strong?
The immigrants, they wanna sing all night long
It could be anywhere
Most likely could be any frontier, any hemisphere
In no man's land
There ain't no asylum here
King Solomon he never lived 'round here

Austerity drive will hand billions to private sector

Outsourcing firms are preparing for bonanza of contracts to provide everything from binmen to back office bureaucrats

...Richard Marchant, head of local government strategic partnerships at Capita, an FTSE-100 company which already works for councils in Harrow, Swindon, Southampton and Sheffield, said: "A major problem for the public sector is, we feel, a significant opportunity for us. Opportunities are at their highest level in two to three years. This year we have probably seen a 100% increase in opportunities [compared with 2009] and I suspect we will see another 50% increase in the following year."

Such an increase could deliver a £60m boost to Capita's revenues while councils are anticipating a 30% budget cut over the next four years. Other firms vying for town hall contracts include Serco and Mouchel.

The private sector boom comes amid the toughest financial climate for public services in a generation, and despite continued assurances from ministers that reforms to public services are aimed at achieving greater value for money and improving efficiency. Councils are braced for the biggest cuts to their budgets since 1945 and the growth in the market for privatised services has provoked anger that private shareholders, rather than taxpayers, are likely to benefit from efficiency savings that come from cuts....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/16/austerity-drive-billions-...

the cia works for the mic

-------------- GovPaterson got one for the regular man!
The big story in NYC is the Gov Pat bill that is about government patdown;

Bloomberg is bemoaning the loss of a permanent record of stop and searches that lead to no crime or violation.
there is an 8 block area in Brooklyn that has had 250 thousand stop and searches with all the names held in a data base. 90 are innocent of ANY crime. it is a lock down like Gaza IMO>
\-----
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/paterson-signs-bill-limitin...

------------------
but the Corporate NYT thought this was more important . they are after to him!
Paterson’s Legal Bills Are Adding Up
By DANNY HAKIM 3:23 PM ET
On three cases, the New York governor has spent nearly $900,000 from his campaign fund to defend himself

NY man: 911 call about gun-toting minorities a lie

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A New York man has admitted making a hoax 911 call that led New Jersey State Police to stop a van carrying minority teenagers on the New Jersey Turnpike.

Twenty-year-old Rodney Tanzymore of Queens pleaded guilty Friday to causing a false public alarm.

He faces a sentence of three to five years' probation. The state Division of Criminal Justice will recommend a 90-day jail term as a condition of the probation. Sentencing is set for Sept. 30.

On Nov. 21, 2009, Tanzymore was in a van with 10 other students returning home from a college visit. Tanzymore admitted making a 911 call saying members of the group got out of the van at a turnpike service area carrying handguns.

State police, advised to treat the situation as "high risk," stopped the van with guns drawn.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9177114

Associated Press Writers –
MIAMI – Elderly Russian immigrants lined up to take kickbacks from the backroom of a Brooklyn clinic. Claims flooded in from Miami for HIV treatments that never occurred. One professional patient was named in nearly 4,000 false Medicare claims.
Authorities said busts carried out this week in Miami, New York City, Detroit, Houston and Baton Rouge, La., were the largest Medicare fraud takedown in history — part of a massive overhaul in the way federal officials are preventing and prosecuting the crimes.
In all, 94 people — including several doctors and nurses — were charged Friday in scams totaling $251 million. Federal authorities, while touting the operation, cautioned the cases represent only a fraction of the estimated $60 billion to $90 billion in Medicare fraud absorbed by taxpayers each year.
For the first time federal officials have the power to overhaul the system under Obama's Affordable Care Act, which gives them authority to stop paying a provider they suspect is fraudulent. Critics have complained the current process did nothing more than rubber-stamp payments to fraudulent providers.
"That world is coming to an end," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told The Associated Press after speaking at a health care fraud prevention summit in Miami. "We've got new ways to go after folks that we've never had before."
Officials said they chose Miami because it is ground zero for Medicare fraud, generating roughly $3 billion a year. Authorities indicted 33 suspects in the Miami area, accused of charging Medicare for about $140 million in various scams.
Suspects across the country were accused of billing Medicare for unnecessary equipment, physical therapy and other treatments that patients never received. In one $72 million scam at Bay Medical in Brooklyn, clinic owners submitted bogus physical therapy claims for elderly Russian immigrants.
Patients, including undercover agents, were paid $50 to $100 a visit in exchange for using their Medicare numbers and got bonuses for recruiting new patients. Wiretaps captured hundreds of kickback payments doled out in a backroom by a man who did nothing but pay patients all day, authorities said.
The so-called "kickback" room had a Soviet-era propaganda poster on the wall, showing a woman with a finger to her lips and two warnings in Russian: "Don't Gossip" and "Be on the lookout: In these days, the walls talk."
With the surveillance, the walls "had ears and they had eyes," U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch sa8id.

more fraud
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100716/ap_on_he_me/us_medicare_fraud_arrest...

A mother of five was killed by Israeli artillery fire when she went to fetch her two-year-old son from outside her village home close to the "buffer zone" created by Israel along its border with Gaza.

Three of her relatives were wounded in the shelling earlier this week, but Red Crescent ambulances were not permitted to reach the family for several hours.

According to the woman's husband, Nasser Abu Said, 37, the attack began without warning at about 8.30pm on Tuesday with two shells being fired as the family of 17 sat outside their house in the village of Johar a-Deek. Apart from Nasser and his 65-year-old father, the entire group was women and children....

"It was completely quiet, there were no rockets being fired or we wouldn't have been sitting outside," he said, referring to Qassam missiles launched by militants into Israel.

His sister and his brother's wife were injured by shrapnel. The family moved indoors and called an ambulance. "About 10 minutes later the ambulance called back to say the Israelis had refused them permission to come to the house," said Nasser...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/idf-kills-mother-gaza-israel

NY governor signs law limiting stop-frisk database

Gov. David Paterson signed legislation Friday that would stop New York City police from storing the names of hundreds of thousands of people who were stopped and frisked without facing charges, calling the practice "not a policy for a democracy."

Paterson signed the law over vehement objections of New York City's mayor and police commissioner, who said the city was losing a key crime-fighting tool.

"This law does not in any way tamper with our stop-and-frisk policies," Paterson said. "What it does is it disallows the use of personal data of innocent people who have not done anything wrong. ... That is not a policy for a democracy."

Last year alone, the New York Police Department stopped 575,304 people, mostly black and Hispanic men, and recorded their names, addresses and descriptions into an electronic database. The stops are based on a standard of reasonable suspicion, lower than the standard of probable cause needed to justify an arrest. Only about 6 percent of those stopped are arrested....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9177208

Screw the interfvention. I want a cruxificiton.
Mel needs to tag team with Beck every night. Especially, after Beck this week established that the Jews killed Christ.
One enchanted evening, Beck can have Mel crucify him and forgive the Jews for their sins.
Spikes, thorns, blood and salvation at 5:00 est.

Turkey on Friday unveiled its first drone airplane, a surveillance craft able to fly for 24-hour stretches over the rugged mountains where Kurdish rebels are waging a deadly insurgency.

Turkey's eagerness to produce its own military technology mirrors its increasingly robust and independent diplomacy in the region. And producing its own drone fleet would allow Turkey to sever an important link with Israel, which has provided Turkey with drones even amid rising tensions over Israeli policy toward the Gaza Strip....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9177216

Randi is completing hour 2 on Mel Gibson
new
Submitted by nora on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 4:59pm.
---

Why waste all the time reading, listening, and yakking about celebs? This has been going on for years now. I mean who cares? I can think of people in public life who have committed terrible crimes yet nobody cares about them .... I can think of people who committed horrid crimes thirty years ago and same people are admired and respected. Their statements repeated, their opinions given plenty of attention.

I remember when I still listened to pundits like Olbermann. I could handle only the first 25 minutes because in the second half he went totally nuts carrying on daily about Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, then her husband, a young 17-year-old kid from American Idol, and other young Celebs w. trouble. It was a total disgrace.

Besides Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that after thirty years Silence the Americans are after Roman Polanski again? It is that important to the LA Prosecutors? Hardly.

I remember one particular blog carrying on about RP for weeks, months, after he was arrested. But not one SINGLE THREAD ever about the illegal wars and the death and suffering of the occupied people. Not a single thread about the urgency to get rid of the Patriot Act. The urgency to get our RIGHTS back. The wish for peace. I did mention that once in a v. polite comment but the Polanski crazed posters ganged up on me with such anger ...

Time has passed and on that particular blog I still have never seen a thread about the urgency to bring back Peace, the illegal wars, death and destruction, the loss of our rights. But endless blogging about Polanski and now again Mel Gibson.

The Lemmings.
Pathetic.

In the land of the brave
in the home of the free
How can we live with such
hypocrisy?

Israel's got the bomb. And
sometimes threatens to use.
But all that we poor folks get
is the Iranian Blues.

It was great to hear someone smart like KAREL use the interest in the Mel Gibson thang and turn it into a commentary on our societal problems. Karel showed the parallel between how the Bush Administration treated the nation and how Mel Gibson treated his wife: Bush et al would say you're with us or against us and because we are the only ones who can save you from a mushroom cloud, you have to go along with us or else you are UnAmerican and a traitor. Likewise Gibson told his mistress that she was a loser (or whatever) and he was the only thing between her and oblivion. Same attitude. I though it was brilliant.

Randy tried to tie Gibson's abusive behavior (his last movie was not a blockbuster like so many of his other films) to his bruised ego, and that we will more of this kind of behavior against women or whatever as more men/people are un-, under-employed and suffer (mortal) blows to their self-confidence.

So I have to allow for the readiness of these talk show hosts to get listeners to swallow a serious message with the sugar-coated junk food sensationalistic topic.

BY JEFF MACKLER
(Jeff Mackler is the West Coast Director of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee.)

The full force of the U.S. criminal "justice" system came down on innocent political prisoner, 30-year veteran human rights attorney and radical political activist Lynne Stewart today, July 15, 2010.

In an obviously pre-prepared one hour and twenty minute technical tour de force designed to give legitimacy to a reactionary ruling Federal District Court John Koeltl, who in 2005 sentenced Stewart to 28 months in prison following her frame-up trial and jury conviction on four counts of "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism," re-sentenced Stewart to 120 months or ten years. Stewart will serve her sentence in Danbury, Connecticut's minimum security prison.

The jam-packed New York Federal District Court chamber observers where Koeltl held forth let our a gasp of pain and anguish as Lynne's family and friends were stunned - tears flowing down the stricken and somber faces of many. A magnificent Stewart, ever the political fighter and organizer was able to say to her supporters that she felt badly because she "had let them down," a reference to the massive outpouring of solidarity and defiance that was the prime characteristic of Lynne's long fight for freedom.

Judge Koeltl was ordered to revisit his relatively short sentence when it was overturned by a two-judge majority of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judges Robert D. Sack and Guido Calabresi ruled that Koeltl's sentence was flawed because he had declined to determine whether Stewart committed perjury when she testified at her trial that she believed that she was effectively operating under a "bubble" protecting her from prosecution when she issued a press release on behalf of her also framed-up client, the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman. Rachman was falsely charged with conspiracy to damage New York state buildings.

Dissenting Judge John M. Walker, who called Stewart's sentence, "breathtakingly low" in view of Stewart's "extraordinarily severe criminal conduct" deemed the Second Circuit's majority opinion "substantively unreasonable." Walker essentially sought to impose or demand a 30-year sentence.

The three-judge panel on Dec. 20, 2009 followed its initial ruling with even tougher language demanding that Koeltl revisit his treatment of the "terrorism enhancement" aspects of the law. A cowardly Koeltl, who didn't need this argument to dramatically increase Stewart's sentence, asserted that he had already taken it under consideration in his original deliberations.

Government prosecutors, who in 2005 sought a 30-year sentence, had submitted a 155-page memorandum arguing in support of a 15-30 year sentence. Their arguments demonstrated how twisted logic coupled with vindictive and lying government officials routinely turn the victim into the criminal.

Stewart's attorneys countered with a detailed brief recounting the facts of the case and demonstrating that Stewart's actions in defense of her client were well within the realm of past practice and accepted procedures. They argued that Koeltl properly exercised his discretion in determining that, while the terrorism enhancement provisions of the "law" had to be taken into consideration, the 30-year-prison term associated with it was "dramatically unreasonable, overstated the seriousness" of Stewart's conduct and had already been factored into Koeltl's decision.

Stewart's attorney's also argued convincingly in their brief that the Special Administrative Measure (SAM) that Stewart was convicted of violating by releasing a statement from her client to the media was well within the established practice of Stewart's experienced and mentoring co-counsels- former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and past American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee president Abdeen Jabarra. Both had issued similar statements to the press with no government reprisal. Clark was an observer in Koeltl's courtroom.

As worst in such matters, government officials refuse defense attorneys visiting rights with their clients until an agreement on a contested interpretation of a SAM is reached. Indeed, in Stewart's case when the matter was brought to then Attorney General Janet Reno, the government declined to prosecute or otherwise take any action against Stewart.

But Koeltl, who had essentially accepted this view in his original sentence, reversed himself entirely and proceeded in his erudite-sounding new rendition of the law to repeatedly charge Stewart with multiple acts of perjury regarding her statements on the SAM during her trial.

Koeltl took the occasion to lecture Stewart regarding the first words she uttered in front of a bevy of media when she joyfully alighted from the courthouse following the judge's original 28-month sentence. Said Stewart at that time, "I can do 28 months standing on my head." A few moments earlier Stewart, with nothing but a plastic bag containing a toothbrush, toothpaste and her various medications, had stood before Koeltl, who had been asked by the government to sentence Stewart to a 30 year term, effectively a death sentence for Lynne, aged 70, a diabetic recovering breast cancer victim and less than excellent health.

Koeltl dutifully followed the lead of the Second Circuit judges, who feigned outrage that Stewart could possibly appear joyful that her life was spared despite 28 months in prison. Koeltl insisted that Stewart's remark was essentially contemptuous of his sentence and insufficient to convince Stewart of the seriousness of her "crime." Lynne's argument that while she fully understood that 28 months behind bars, separating from her "family, friends and comrades," was a harsh penalty, she was nevertheless "relieved" that she would not die in prison. Koeltl needed a legal brick to throw at Lynne's head and ignored her humanity, honesty and deep feeling of relief when she expressed it to a crowd of two thousand friends, supporters and a good portion of the nation's media.

The same Judge Koeltl who stated in 2005, when he rendered the 28-month jail term, that Lynne was "a credit to her profession and to the nation," clearly heard the voice of institutionalized hate and cruelty and responded in according with its unstated code. "Show no mercy! Thou shall not dissent without grave punishment" in capitalist America.

Lynne was convicted in the post-911 generated climate of political hysteria. Bush appointee, Attorney General John Ashcroft, decided to make an example of her aimed at warning future attorneys that the mere act of defending anyone whom the government charged with "conspiracy to aid and abet terrorism," could trigger terrible consequences.

On July 15 Judge Koeltl made the decision of his career. Known for his meticulous preparation in such matters, and already having enraged the powers that be with his "light" sentence of Stewart, he bent full tilt to the reactionary political pressures exerted on him by the court hierarchy. He had the option to stand tall and reaffirm his original decision. The "law" allowed him to do so. He could have permitted Lynne to leave prison in less than two years, recover her health, and lead a productive life. His massively extended sentence, unless overturned, will likely lead to Lynne's demise behind bars - a brilliant and dedicated fighter sacrificed on the alter of an intolerant class-biased system of repression and war.

Courage is a rare quality in the capitalist judiciary. For every defiant decision made, usually driven by a change in the political climate driven forward by the rise of mass social protest movements, there are thousands and more of political appointees that affirm the status quo, including its punishment of all who struggle to challenge capitalist prerogatives and power.

Lynne Stewart stands tall among the latter. We can only hope that the winds of change that are stirring the consciousness of millions today in the context of an American capitalism in economic and moral crisis keeps the movement for her freedom alive and well. The fight is not over! What we do now remains critical. Lynne's expected appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court cannot be written off as absurd and hopeless. What we do collectively to free her and all political prisoners and to fight for freedom and justice on every front counts for everything!

Write to Lynne at:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY 2-S
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007

For further information call Lynne's husband, Ralph Poynter, leader of the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, at
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759.

Send contributions payable to:

Lynne Stewart Organization
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York, 11216

stuff and esp. the Randi nonsense (she absolutely excels in abusive remarks tow. women herself) doesn't impress me and interest me at all. Besides, it really doesn't take much to come up w. such nonsense fairy tales. No wonder I can't stand radio talk shows.

Mel Gibson is a brilliant film maker and actor. I haven't seen the last film yet and can't say if it is good or not. But he has made such stunning films, I can't think of any director who is better. Mel's film about the Mayan culture was ignored on purpose and even ridiculed by certain nitwits - but the films was so brilliant, it should have received the Oscar and I have said that many many times no matter if he was in the "bashing news" at the time or not.

I am sure Mel has made other films that were no blockbusters. Happens to the very best in the film business. I do believe Mel Gibson has a problem but it ain't a bruised ego because of a film that didn't make millions of $$$ for a change IMHO.

Iranian Blues
Submitted by Leah on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 8:56pm.

=======

President Obama's first press conference

"Do you know that any country in the
Middle East has nuclear weapons?"
asked Helen.

"With respect to nuclear weapons
I don't want to speculate,"
answered Obama.

How can we live with such hypocrisy?
Watching and Listening to the brainwashing Servant Press.

Weekend Edition
July 16 - 18, 2010

CounterPunch Diary

The Fall of Obama

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

The man who seized the White House by fomenting a mood of irrational expectation is now facing the bitter price exacted by reality. The reality is that there can be no “good” American president. It’s an impossible hand to play. Obama is close to being finished.

The nation’s first black president promised change at the precise moment when no single man, even if endowed with the communicative powers of Franklin Roosevelt, the politic mastery of Lyndon Johnson, the brazen agility of Bill Clinton, could turn the tide that has been carrying America to disaster for 30 years.

This summer many Americans are frightened. Over 100,000 of them file for bankruptcy every month. Three million homeowners face foreclosure this year. Add them to the 2.8 million who were foreclosed in 2009, Obama’s first year in office. Nearly seven million have been without jobs in the last year for six months or longer. By the time you tot up the people who have given up looking for work and the people on part-time, the total is heading toward 20 million.

Fearful people are irrational. So are racists. Obama is the target of insane charges. A hefty percentage of Americans believe that he is a socialist – a charge as ludicrous as accusing the Archbishop of Canterbury of being a closet Druid. Obama reveres the capitalist system. He admires the apex predators of Wall Street who showered his campaign treasury with millions of dollars. The frightful catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico stemmed directly from the green light he and his Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, gave to BP.

It is not Obama’s fault that for 30 years America’s policy – under Reagan, both Bushes and Bill Clinton – has been to export jobs permanently to the Third World. The jobs that Americans now desperately seek are no longer here, in the homeland, and never will be. They’re in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Indonesia.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn07162010.html

The Human Price of Sanctions

Worth It?

By ANDREW COCKBURN

Few people now remember that for many months after the First World War ended in November 1918 the blockade of Germany, where the population was already on the edge of starvation, was maintained with full rigour. By the following spring, the German authorities were projecting a 50 per cent increase in the infant mortality rate. In a later memoir, John Maynard Keynes attributed the prolongation of civilian punishment

to a cause inherent in bureaucracy. The blockade had become by that time a very perfect instrument. It had taken four years to create and was Whitehall’s finest achievement; it had evoked the qualities of the English at their subtlest. Its authors had grown to love it for its own sake; it included some recent improvements, which would be wasted if it came to an end; it was very complicated, and a vast organisation had established a vested interest. The experts reported, therefore, that it was our one instrument for imposing our peace terms on Germany, and that once suspended it could hardly be reimposed.

In the event, the ban on food imports was lifted (for fear of promoting Bolshevism) before Germany accepted the punitive terms of the Versailles treaty, but blockades have retained their popularity as a weapon deployed by strong powers against the weak. In most instances they have been ineffective in achieving their stated purpose, the notable exception being the sanctions reluctantly levied by Western governments in response to popular pressure against the South African apartheid regime. More often they constitute an exercise in vindictiveness, as with the US embargo on Vietnam and Cambodia after the Indochina war, or Israel’s blockade of Gaza with the expressed intention of ‘putting the population on a diet’.

read here

http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew07162010.html

The U.S. Middle Class Is Being Wiped Out

Here's the Stats to Prove It

By Michael Snyder

July 16, 2010 "The Business Insider" -- The 22 statistics detailed here prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence in America.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer at a staggering rate. Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most prosperous middle class in the history of the world, but now that is changing at a blinding pace.

So why are we witnessing such fundamental changes? Well, the globalism and "free trade" that our politicians and business leaders insisted would be so good for us have had some rather nasty side effects. It turns out that they didn't tell us that the "global economy" would mean that middle class American workers would eventually have to directly compete for jobs with people on the other side of the world where there is no minimum wage and very few regulations. The big global corporations have greatly benefited by exploiting third world labor pools over the last several decades, but middle class American workers have increasingly found things to be very tough.

Giant Sucking Sound

The reality is that no matter how smart, how strong, how educated or how hard working American workers are, they just cannot compete with people who are desperate to put in 10 to 12 hour days at less than a dollar an hour on the other side of the world. After all, what corporation in their right mind is going to pay an American worker 10 times more (plus benefits) to do the same job? The world is fundamentally changing. Wealth and power are rapidly becoming concentrated at the top and the big global corporations are making massive amounts of money. Meanwhile, the American middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence as U.S. workers are slowly being merged into the new "global" labor pool.

read here

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25953.htm

The Food Bubble:
How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

Democracy Now! - July 16, 2010

While Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman.

VIDEOS

TRANSCRIPT

see here
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25955.htm

is wrong. I don't want to see a Republican tsunami in the fall. "It's the economy, stupid." What can we do? Where are they building the rapid light rail cars? The new electric cars? Build them here. Also support worker takeovers of manufacturing facilities. (I attended a conference last fall that went into detail on this stuff. The way to begin turning it around politically is by challenging corporations economically. There is a connection--they don't call it political/economy for nothing.).

Leah on Fri, 07/16/2010 - 9:32pm. 10 bloody WTF Years! GRRR

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/16/oil-spill-lawsuits-bp-spe_n_649...

Oil Spill Lawsuits: BP Spending Big To Acquire An Army Of Expert Witnesses

[excerpt]

In the latest salvo of BP's War On Everything, the company is deploying its deep pockets in an attempt to buy up every single scientist it can get its hands on, in order to create an army of expert witnesses to take up its side in court. I guess the legacy of George Steinbrenner lives on!

Ben Raines of Mobile, Alabama's Press-Register captures it, in gobsmacking fashion:

BP PLC attempted to hire the entire marine sciences department at one Alabama university, according to scientists involved in discussions with the company's lawyers. The university declined because of confidentiality restrictions that the company sought on any research.
Emphasis mine, because: wow! Fortunately, for a wide variety of reasons, some of the scientists BP is approaching are balking at the overtures. For example, the contracts that BP is offering place substantial restrictions on what research scientists under their employ can publish, share, or even discuss. Also: some of the scientists approached apparently have that thing you often hear people talk about... what is that called again? Oh, yeah! A moral compass.

"We told them there was no way we would agree to any kind of restrictions on the data we collect. It was pretty clear we wouldn't be hearing from them again after that," said Bob Shipp, head of marine sciences at the University of South Alabama. "We didn't like the perception of the university representing BP in any fashion."
Still, Raines reports that "[s]cientists from Louisiana State University, Mississippi State University and Texas A&M have reportedly accepted," wooed by the prospect of earning up to $2,000 a week for consulting typically allowed by academic institutions.

[more at link]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/louisiana-oil-spill-pelican-nes...

[excerpt]

NEW ORLEANS — Biologists say oil has smeared at least 300-400 pelicans and hundreds of terns in the largest seabird nesting area along the Louisiana coast – marking a sharp and sudden escalation in wildlife harmed by BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The finding underscores that official tallies of birds impacted by the spill could be significantly underestimating the scope of damage.

The government counts only oiled birds collected for rehabilitation or found dead, for use as evidence in the spill investigation. Oiled birds in the many nesting areas that dot the Gulf coast typically are left in place and not counted in official tallies.

Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said Wednesday that they had spotted the oiled pelicans on Raccoon Island over the past several days. The spit of land lines the Gulf outside the state's coastal marshes. An estimated 10,000 birds nest on the island in Terrebonne Parish.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Lisa Williams said state and federal observers had documented only 68 oiled pelicans on Raccoon Island.

Biologist Marc Dantzker with Cornell – considered one of the nation's premier institutions for bird research – said about 30 to 40 of the pelicans spotted by his group were oiled "head-to-tail." Many more had visible blotches of oil.

Dead birds also were seen, although no count was available for those.

"This is a major oiling event of an incredibly important seabird colony," Dantzker said. "Many of these birds will be dead soon – weeks and months. These blotches are deadly."

Even a small amount of oil can kill birds because it hampers their ability to regulate their body temperature.
[more at link]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/16-6#comment-1557665

Katrina recovery fund diverted to BP's pollution mess...

http://motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/07/katrina-recovery-new-orleans...

http://www.activistpost.com/2010/07/america-plunging-to-bankruptcy-while...

America plunging into bankruptcy while DC plays politics as usual

by Eric Blair
...

...Today, JP Morgan reported a 76% increase in profits for their second record-breaking quarter in a row while the real economy sputters to destruction. In other words, the banksters are looting and raping while the poorest and neediest Americans continue to suffer....

[more at link]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

July 16 - 18, 2010

Give Rove What He Wants

By DAVID SWANSON

"Seven years ago today, in a speech on the Iraq war, Sen. Ted Kennedy fired the first shot in an all-out assault on President George W. Bush's integrity."

First shot? What do you call this? Rove is pretending that claims Bush lied about Iraq came only after the invasion, which is of course a lie of mammoth proportions.

Rove's supposed greatest mistake was failing to push back against the supposedly absurd claims that Bush had lied us into a war. Marcy Wheeler points out that part of the pushback was the outing of Valerie Plame the very next day after Kennedy's "first shot." (Wasn't one of Kennedy's earlier shots his vote against the war?)

Karl Rove owns million dollar houses in Washington, D.C., and Florida, and works for Fox News, Newsweek, and the Wall Street Journal when not testifying to congressional committees or federal prosecutors about his numerous unindicted non-war crimes. He served as a member of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) which planned the marketing of an illegal war of aggression on the basis of lies, and took part in exposing an undercover agent as retribution for exposing one of WHIG's lies. Who can remember back to when the Democrats in the House were in the minority and pretending they gave a rat's ass about any of this? They just about launched an investigation of WHIG.

If Rove so deeply regrets having missed his chance to defend Bush's honor, let's give him a stage large enough to overpower all existing knowledge and write history afresh. Let's make it a courtroom trial of Bush and his co-conspirators for fraud. Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega already wrote up the indictment years ago. Congressman Dennis Kucinich introduced this and other charges as articles of impeachment. I've been piling up evidence for years, and summarized it in my book Daybreak. Here are some of the basics:
http://www.counterpunch.org/swanson07162010.html

check the comment section

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/16/vatican-ordaining-wo.html

study released in 2007, Dr. Steven Nissen, a world-famous cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, meta-analyzed data from 42 randomized controlled trials involving Avandia and found diabetes patients on the drug were at 40 percent higher risk of acute myocardial infarction compared to non-thiazolidinedione therapies.

Many diabetes patients may be consfused by the FDA panelists' votes. What do the votes mean in terms of the safety of Avandia? Why should a drug that has been found to carry a high cardiovascular risk be allowed to stay on the market while its competitor offers similar therapeutic effect, but much less risk is available?

Dr. Grahamd told Medpage Today he believed that the selection of the FDA advisory panelists, meaning whatever resulting from the votes is probably influenced by the composition of the advisory members.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/Non-food/Drug/avandia_linked_to_card...

A traditional feeding of elephants at an annual gathering for ‘Anayoottu” at Vadakkumnathan temple in Thrissur in Kerala

http://www.indiavideo.org/kerala/festival/aanayoottu-the-grand-elephant-...

http://www.indiavideo.org/kerala/festival/children-near-baby-elephant-at...

http://www.keralatourism.org/kerala-article/202/elephants-festival-vadak...

The special feed of the elephants basically contain sugarcane, rice, ghee, coconut and jaggery. The feeding session begins with an offering by the chief priest of the temple. Aanayoottu literally means feeding the elephants with specially prepared food. This special food is prepared as per Ayurvedic principles, which is meant for enhancing the well-being of the domesticated elephants.
-------------
this last video has lovely ambient sounds that will brng you a little peace
http://www.indiavideo.org/kerala/land-and-people/flora-and-fauna/wildlif...

taozen on Sat, 07/17/2010 - 12:36pm. awwwwww
:):(
{...but AtSameTime also reminded me of the many Elephants throughout this World, I sign many petitions for.}
*** ***
Tea Cheers ;)

http://www.chicagoprogressivetalk.com/listen/

Also

KTNF-AM 950 kHz
Saint Louis Park, Minnesota
http://www.am950ktnf.com/
http://www.am950ktnf.com/listen
http://stream.airamericaminnesota.com:8000/listen.pls
http://stream.airamericaminnesota.com:8000/

_ _ _ _ _ _
|

http://www.cannabis-videos.com/tag/vaporizer/1.html?o=rel&c=28

Kabuki Democracy: Why a Progressive Presidency Is Impossible, for Now
Eric Alterman | July 7, 2010
Few progressives would take issue with the argument that, significant accomplishments notwithstanding, the Obama presidency has been a big disappointment. As Mario Cuomo famously observed, candidates campaign in poetry but govern in prose. Still, Obama supporters have been asked to swallow some painfully "prosaic" compromises. In order to pass his healthcare legislation, for instance, Obama was required to specifically repudiate his pledge to prochoice voters to "make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as president." That promise apparently was lost in the same drawer as his insistence that "Any plan I sign must include an insurance exchange...including a public option." Labor unions were among his most fervent and dedicated foot soldiers, as well as the key to any likely progressive political renaissance, and many were no doubt inspired by his pledge "to fight for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act." Yet that act appears deader than Jimmy Hoffa. Environmentalists were no doubt steeled through the frigid days of New Hampshire canvassing by Obama's promise that "As president, I will set a hard cap on all carbon emissions at a level that scientists say is necessary to curb global warming—an 80 percent reduction by 2050." That goal appears to have gone up the chimney in thick black smoke. And remember when Obama promised, right before the election, to "put in place the common-sense regulations and rules of the road I've been calling for since March—rules that will keep our market free, fair and honest; rules that will restore accountability and responsibility in our corporate boardrooms"? Neither, apparently, does he… Indeed, if one examines the gamut of legislation passed and executive orders issued that relate to the promises made by candidate Obama, one can only wince at the slightly hyperbolic joke made by late night comedian Jimmy Fallon, who quipped that the president's goal appeared to be to "finally deliver on the campaign promises made by John McCain."

None of us know what lies inside the president's heart. It's possible that he fooled gullible progressives during the election into believing he was a left-liberal partisan when in fact he is much closer to a conservative corporate shill. An awful lot of progressives, including two I happen to know who sport Nobel Prizes on their shelves, feel this way, and their perspective cannot be completely discounted. The Beltway view of Obama, meanwhile, posits just the opposite. That view—insistently repeated, for instance, by the Wall Street Journal's nonpartisan, non-ideological news columnist, Gerald Seib—is that the president's problem is that he and his allies in the Democratic Party "just overplayed their hand in the last year and a half, moving policy too far left, sparking an equal and opposite reaction in the rightward direction." And Newt Gingrich, speaking from what is actually considered by these same Beltway types as the responsible center of the Republican Party, calls him "the most radical president in American history" and "potentially, the most dangerous" as he urges his minions to resist the president's "secular, socialist machine."

Personally, I tend more toward the view expressed by the young, conservative New York Times columnist, Ross Douthat, that Obama is "a doctrinaire liberal who's always willing to cut a deal and grab for half the loaf. He has the policy preferences of a progressive blogger, but the governing style of a seasoned Beltway wheeler-dealer." Or as one of Obama's early Chicago mentors, Denny Jacobs, explained to his biographer David Remnick, Obama is a pol who learned early that "sometimes you can't get the whole hog, so you take the ham sandwich."

But the truth, dear reader, is that it does not much matter who is right about what Barack Obama dreams of in his political imagination. Nor is it all that important whether Obama's team either did or didn't make major strategic errors in its first year of governance: in choosing to do healthcare before financial reform; in not holding out for a larger, more people-focused stimulus bill, in eschewing a carbon tax; or in failing to nationalize banks and break up those that are "too big to fail." Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us. Sure, presidents can pretty easily pass tax cuts for the wealthy and powerful corporations. They can start whatever wars they wish and wiretap whomever they want without warrants. They can order the torture of terrorist suspects, lie about it and see that their intelligence services destroy the evidence. But what they cannot do, even with supermajorities in both houses of Congress behind them, is pass the kind of transformative progressive legislation that Barack Obama promised in his 2008 presidential campaign. Here's why.

***

The American political system is nothing if not complicated and so too are the reasons for its myriad points of democratic dysfunction. Some are endemic to our constitutional regime and all but impossible to address save by the extremely cumbersome (and profoundly unlikely) prospect of amending the Constitution. Others are the result of a corrupt capital culture that likes it that way and has little incentive to change. Many are the result of the peculiar commercial and ideological structure of our media, which not only frame our political debate but also determine which issues will be addressed. A few are purely functions of the politics of the moment or just serendipitous bad luck. And if we really mean to change things, instead of just complaining about them, it would behoove us to figure out which of these choke points can be opened up and which cannot. For if our politicians cannot keep the promises they make as candidates, then our commitment to political democracy becomes a kind of Kabuki exercise; it resembles a democratic process at great distance but mocks its genuine intentions in substance.

We live, as Tony Judt has written, in an "age of forgetting," and nowhere is this truer than in our political discourse. Rarely do we stop to remind ourselves that, as a New York Times editorial put it, Obama "took office under an extraordinary burden of problems created by President George W. Bush's ineptness and blind ideology." The economy was tanking: for the decade between 2000 and 2009, real growth was at its lowest point since the 1930s, and the fact that two-thirds of all economic gains went to the top 1 percent of the population meant stagnation at best for most workers, actual decline for many. Clear environmental threats had been allowed to fester. The Bush Justice Department was engaged in what appears to be widespread criminal action in a host of areas. We were fighting two wars, hamstrung by the hatred of most of the world's citizens, and operating torture chambers (and lying about it) across the globe. What's more, based on the theory of the "unitary executive" Bush and Cheney were claiming near dictatorial powers to ignore both houses of Congress and even the courts when it suited their purposes. What was his successor to do? Should he bail out the banks? Nationalize them? Break them up? Allow Detroit to die? Invite the firing of tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, firefighters and emergency workers by state and local governments strapped by falling tax revenues? Allow the deficit to explode or the economy to implode? Should he close Guantánamo and Bagram prisons? End rendition? Get out of Iraq? Reverse signing-statements? Outlaw domestic spying? Cut carbon emissions? And by the way, exactly how would he accomplish these things—and simultaneously? By legislation? By executive fiat? By magic? Believe me, I could go on.

America's most irresponsible, incompetent and ideologically obsessed presidency not only left most of these political and economic crises on its successor's plate, it often masked significant problems that received virtually no attention, so prominent were the crises it caused. Many of these are more worrisome than the ones that made the front page. Entitlements were rising unsustainably. So was US foreign debt to China. Our education system was falling farther and farther behind other Western nations' as "No Child Left Behind" failed by virtually every appreciable measure, save number of tests given. Fifty-five percent of Americans were on their way to being laid off, having their work hours reduced or being forced into part-time employment. And, almost entirely uncovered by the media, much of our physical infrastructure had corroded to the point of near collapse. According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, "More than 26%, or one in four, of the nation's bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete," a problem that would likely cost roughly $17 billion per year to repair, or almost twice what had been budgeted. One-third of America's major roads are "in poor or mediocre condition and 45 percent of major urban highways are congested." Its drinking water systems "face an annual shortfall of at least $11 billion to replace aging facilities." Inland waterways, wastewater systems, levees: all of these crucial systems rate a "D" or lower according the Civil Engineers' report card. What's more, this neglect at the federal level is matched by an equal lack of interest in these topics by the mainstream media. A valuable study by Jodi Enda in the American Journalism Review revealed an almost total lack of interest in these issues on the part of virtually every major news organization.

Continue reading here:
http://www.thenation.com/article/37165/kabuki-democracy-why-progressive-...

...the question I want answered is...what happened to the man who was a community organizer and watched his mom dying of cancer fighting the insurance company to pay her bills?

...Sam, your voice needs to be heard. Thank you.

Splendid way you always get as close as possible or to the core of a topic. Very pleasing and much appreciated.

In the Alterman interview on Ring of Fire--

Sam, I consider you so correct to make the case for Progressive rhetoric, the expression of the principles behind Progressive methods and objectives.

Because Progressive rhetoric IS a necessary task of a Progressive president, such rhetoric PAVES THE WAY for accepting Progressive goals/policies/programs down the road: Roosevelt did it for Truman and Eisenhower, and Kennedy did it for Johnson (I maintain that Kennedy 'sold' The Great Society purely in idealistic conceptualizing rhetoric if not in any other way).

Folks have got to realize that Obama's campaign rhetoric of "Change" was interpreted as "progress" by Progressives, Liberals, Independents and betrayed Conservatives. Folks have got to realize that Obama's "movement" style campaigning reminiscent of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Civil Rights righteousness (remember Obama's repeating format in "Yes We Can" programs), made people think they were going to get something Progressive comparable to the accomplishments of the civil rights movement (like the reinstatement of lost rights such as habeus corpus and an end to Bill of Rights destroyers such as torture policy and the Patriot Acts). But these changes have not happened.

What if it is true that Obama can't make deep changes himself as promised because of 'the post-BushII situation' (the excuse made for Obama by disappointed Liberals). Even so, there still is the ever-present opportunity for Obama to use his rhetoric to prepare the way for anybody else to make changes. But, as you pointed out, Obama has not. (Liberals grasp at Obama's encouraging sentences here and there with expectation, but it is getting rather pathetic. At my most skeptical, I call these encouraging sentences Obama's Basketball Method -- Feign Left, Pass Right.)

Either Obama's campaign rhetoric was devised to mislead us (my opinion at present) or Obama lacks the will/courage to continue on the course of "Yes We Can" progress on which he campaigned.

If Obama were at any place in his make-up actually a Progressive, WOULDN'T he be laying the groundwork for Progressives coming after him? How could he resist? With his rhetorical skills, he would have great power to move the nation, just as he did during the campaign and election.

I appreciate that you guys acknowledged the existence of the possibility that Americans' personal desires were projected onto Obama.

...any other time tonight or on KPOJ cuz kkgn has usualy 2 hours only :}

Yep this Sunday the Sunday Talkies will make Dems and Rethugs make their cases to a weary brain-washed public while the Beltway Brainiacs happily go along!
Brick TeeVee Cage Match Special!
http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5915
and at blogspot http://filthy-rich.blogspot.com/2010/07/brick-teevee-cage-match-special....

I wholly recommend watching this short video.
http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/O6HuzhMUHGM/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="295">

I say REVOLUTION!

http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Imb4tYOk8GE/hqdefault.jpg)" width="425" height="344">

How are ya Sederville!

Sorry about the extra crap above the videos. What share button on U-TOOB makes the imbed OK for here? thx in advance....

Agree Ms. A!!

I heard the show earlier and I liked how Sam challenged ERIC ALTERMAN on the 0! worship thing. ERIC gave a nice response: "Sam, I know."

We need more SEDER!

Thanks Sam!

How can Britain host the Olympic Games if they cannot be open to indigenous peoples? Or are the British officialdom just unable to disguise their distaste for indigenous peoples?

IROQUOIS STILL BARRED FROM LACROSSE TOURNAMENT BY BRITISH.

[excerpt]

Iroquois lacrosse team defaults on 1st UK game

http://blog.taragana.com/politics/2010/07/15/iroquois-lacrosse-team-defa...

NEW YORK — There were cheers and hollers aboard the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team bus on Thursday as the players geared up for a very different encounter than what they had planned for Day 1 of the World Lacrosse Championships in England.

Instead, with the Statue of Liberty in the background, team members got into uniform and filed out of the bus to pose for a gaggle of journalists and repeat their case for a few TV cameras: They should be allowed into England for the games using their Iroquois-issued passports. Why would the British demand they use U.S. and Canadian passports when they don’t consider themselves citizens of those nations?

Meanwhile, negotiators for the team continued to pursue diplomatic channels in the hopes of getting the squad to Manchester, England, in time for its second game, scheduled for Saturday afternoon. The team defaulted on its first game, against England, when it didn’t arrive in time on Thursday.
[end excerpt]

-------

AND--
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/sports/17lacrosse.html

[excerpt]
...

“We’d rather be playing there than sitting here,” said the team’s captain, Gewas Schindler, 34, who plays attack. “It’s hard to talk about, really.”

Discussing their saga had been all the team had been able to do the past few days while it remained marooned, forbidden from flying to the tournament because British officials would not accept its tribal documents in lieu of American or Canadian passports because of security concerns. The Iroquois passports are partly handwritten and lack the holograms and other technological features that guard against forgeries.

The dispute has superseded lacrosse, prompting diplomatic tap-dancing abroad and reigniting in the United States a centuries-old debate over the sovereignty of American Indian nations. The Iroquois refused to accept United States passports, saying they did not want to travel to an international competition on what they consider to be a foreign nation’s passport.
...

But later Wednesday, British officials informed the team it would not receive visas after all, dealing a blow to the team’s hopes and angering several lawmakers who had lobbied on the team’s behalf. Representative Dan Maffei, Democrat of New York, called the situation an “international embarrassment” and went so far as to question England’s ability to host the 2012 Olympics.

...
That broader issue of the validity of tribal passports — which experts in American Indian law say have been allowed for international travel for several decades, even if the letter of the law forbids them to be used as replacements for United States passports — remains unresolved.

...
The National Congress of American Indians wrote to British Prime Minister David Cameron on Friday to urge him to allow the Iroquois to travel. Jefferson Keel, the lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation and the National Congress’s president, said in a telephone interview that the fight over the passports ws indicative of skepticism in some parts of the world about the sovereignty of Indian nations.

Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team members Drew Bucktooth and Aaron Printup wait in the lobby of their motel in Queens.
“I just didn’t understand why a country would go through all these hoops to deny an indigenous team the opportunity to compete in an international game,” he said.

He added that the National Congress hoped to work with federal officials to help develop a system of tribal identification documents that are deemed secure — an effort already under way in some Indian nations. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, wrote to Clinton on Friday with a similar request.

...

[more at link]

Didn't Lynne Cheney say something like that during the campaign? Why did she do that, I wonder.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7048325.stm

{...which made me think "sovereign loyalty"

Strange op-ed piece that makes my head spin, but the TOPIC of class divisions is one that needs MORE discussion.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/janetdaley/7896446/America...

...

They are talking a lot about this in the US now. Suddenly the phenomenon of class resentment is a live political issue. Some commentators describe it as the Democrats' "middle-class problem", which means that there has been a spectacular collapse of support for the administration among the core blue-collar voters who should constitute its base. (This terminology may be confusing: the "middle class" in the US means the skilled working, or lower middle, class. University-educated professionals are described as the "upper middle class" which, in this country, tends to mean a notch or two below titled aristocracy.)

...

[more at link]

Washington Post/ABC poll measure extent folks are depressed and now disapproving of response--

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2010/07/14/GR201007...

I say REVOLUTION!

http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Imb4tYOk8GE/hqdefault.jpg)" width="425" height="344">

Alyeska CEO Steps Down Following Truthout Exposé
Wednesday 07 July 2010

by: Jason Leopold, t r u t h o u t | Report

https://www.truthout.org/alyeska-ceo-resigns-following-truthout-expose61...

Kevin Hostler, the chief executive officer of Alyeska Pipeline, informed company employees Wednesday morning that he "plans to retire to Houston and to spend time with his family."

The announcement comes one day after Truthout published an extensive investigative report that was highly critical of his leadership of the company and revealed details, based on hundreds of pages of internal documents and in interviews with more than a dozen senior employees, of severe cost-cutting measures Hostler implemented that threatened the safety and integrity of the pipeline.

[more at link]

Including AFTER the election....

https://www.truthout.org/democrats-avoid-budget-vote-risk-losing-future-...

Democrats Avoid Budget Vote, Risk Losing Future Clout
Saturday 17 July 2010

by: Yana Kunichoff, t r u t h o u t | Report

As the federal deficit hits the $1 trillion mark, Democrats are attempting to avoid electoral fallout by approving an enforcement resolution instead of a full budget. By doing so, they disallow the use of budget reconciliation next year. Critics fear that the loss of this key legislative tactic may hammer the final nail into the coffin of a comprehensive jobs bill and other crucial legislative efforts.
The distinction between an enforcement resolution and a full budget is largely technical, but the crucial difference is that with the former approach, Democrats can no longer engage in reconciliation, under which debate on a budget bill is limited to twenty hours. This tactic, long seen as one of the most powerful tools that Democrats can use to pass controversial budget legislation, allows bills to pass with 51 votes in the Senate, as opposed to the usual 60 needed to overcome a filibuster.
Democrats' aversion to voting "yes" on a budget that would add to the deficit seems to have overcome their desire to preserve the reconciliation option.

[more at link]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/07/what-are-results-of-oil-well-inte...

Fortunately, Cavner says that it looks like BP is doing a thorough job of monitoring visual and sonar images for leaks.

For example, the Geco Topaz is conducting seismic surveys over a range of many miles. Indeed, the Topaz has sailed perhaps 50 miles in and around the site of the oil gusher. See this and this (the Topaz is the ship indicated in light blue).

So What Do We Know?

Even independent oil industry experts are guessing at this point because BP is keeping everything close to the vest (and that some allege that the government is not publicly disclosing what it knows).

And the stakes are high. As president Obama said this morning, there is a risk that - if the well is incorrectly capped - numerous leaks could spring from the seafloor....
...

So the question is what we do know at this point?

Putting aside Matt Simmons' (Simmons was an energy adviser to President George W. Bush and was a prominent investment banker to the oil industry) claims that there is a conspiracy to cover up a larger leak miles from the cap - for which there's been no independent confirmation to date - here's everything that we know at this point:

•Well pressure is currently a little above 6,700 psi, far short of the 8,000 psi which would prove that the well integrity is more or less intact.
•If the well pressure keeps rising, and stabilizes at 8,000 psi or higher, then the well is fairly stable, and the below-seafloor damage to the well is not significantly impacting well strength. It would not be unexpected for the pressure to start lower and then to rise, so at least another 24 hours is needed to get the final result. BP says "The pressure has been a very steady build as predicted by engineering anlysis we did. " BP also says that the seismic, sonar and visual inspections so far indicate "no negative evidence".
•If well pressures rise and then suddenly drop, then the well integrity test itself has caused a new leak.

•If well pressure stabilizes far below 8,000, then there are major leaks. Oil industry professionals posting at the Oil Drum hypothesize:

What this could indicate is that there is a possibility of crossflow at the bottom of the well. What this means that the oil and gas that are flowing out of the reservoir into the bottom of the well, are, under the pressure in the well, now flowing into a higher reservoir of rock, now that they can't get out of the well. Depending on where that re-injection flow is, this may, or may not, suggest that the casing has lost integrity. This is a topic that has been covered in the comments at The Oil Drum, where fdoleza - "a petroleum engineering consultant retired from a major multi-national oil company" - has noted:

... I believe the flow will be coming out of the bottom sand and going into the upper sand. It would not be a leak, but it would tell them why their pressure data ain't a classical surface buildup. And I sure hope they're modeling temperatures and so on, because this is a very interesting case. They don't have downhole gauges, so they'll have to take the way the oil cools down as it sits to get a better idea of the way things are moving down below.

[more -- plus videos of experts -- at link]

:):(

Other nations don't spend this much...

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20100717/OPINION/100719661?Title=EC...

...
Historically, rulers liked censuses, because they enable them to conscript and tax their people. Citizens disliked them for the same reasons. But, as governments became less malevolent, an exercise designed to extract value from the populace became one whose purpose was to improve the quality of administration.

Now this centuries-old tradition is slowly coming to an end. If statisticians in Britain get their way, for instance, the census planned for next year could be the country's last. Instead, they are considering gathering information from the vast, centralized databases held by government, such as tax records, benefit databases, electoral lists and school rolls, as well as periodic polling of a sample of the population.

It is a global trend, pioneered, inevitably, in Scandinavia. Denmark has been keeping track of its citizens without a traditional census for decades; Sweden, Norway, Finland and Slovenia, among others, have similar systems. Germany will adopt the approach for its next count, also due in 2011.

...

There is some resistance to change. America's Constitution requires it to conduct a shoe-leather census, which is why this year's effort is going to cost it over $11 billion. The Finns, by contrast, spent about $1.2 million on their last one. That's about $36 per head in America and 20 cents in Finland.

Civil libertarians with an eye on the historic misuse of census data — by everyone from the Nazis to the Americans, who rounded up and imprisoned Japanese-Americans in the Second World War — worry about the growth of government-by-database, and fret that a database census is another step on the road to an omniscient state.

Government misuse of data is an ever-growing danger, certainly, but one to be combated by strong rules on freedom of information and eternal vigilance, not anachronistic and increasingly inaccurate headcounts. The prize is the goal of every sage and seer: self-knowledge. (And, more prosaically, better and cheaper government.)

[end excerpt]

Good evening!

http://deadlinelive.info/2010/07/16/blame-central-banking-not-banks/

[excerpt]
...

Now, at last, someone has pointed the finger at another of the guests – the central banks, and in this specific instance, the Bank of England. In an essay for a new book called The Future of Finance, the former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, Sushil Wadhwani, argues, in that wonderful way economists have, that is is “surprising” that the BoE doesn’t appear to have apologised for its role. And by that he really means apologise and therefore understand what went wrong and what should be done to put it right.

Banks have been seen as the chief architects of the financial crisis, but is that fair? “In my time at the MPC at the bank, I was surprised by the lack of interest in issues relating to financial markets,” Mr Wadhwan says. “Indeed there seemed to be a deliberate policy to run down resource in the financial stability wing. It is therefore odd that the new regulatory structure [to be introduced by the Government] makes an unrepentant BoE even more powerful.”

Today, the UK’s five biggest banks are being hauled in by George Osborne and Vince Cable for a summit on lending. You must do more, they will be told, and we can expect some suitably angry policy statement following the meeting to show that the Government means business. The question, though, as Mr Wadhwani says, is whether the other guests at the meal have really understood their role and changed their behaviour accordingly. Is Mr Wadhwani right to point the finger at the BoE and Mervyn King? Is it time we gave the banks some praise for the changes they have made and see their role in a more positive light?

What is most notable about this – other than that it points out central banking’s culpability – is the statement that during his time at the bank, a former central banker says he “was surprised by the lack of interest in issues relating to financial markets.” Mr Wadhwan continues: “Indeed there seemed to be a deliberate policy to run down resources in the financial stability wing.”

Were there any real press freedom in the UK (at least so far as concerns the mainstream media) such a phrase would set off alarm bells. If we understand Wadhwan correctly, the Bank of England was purposefully destabilizing financial markets – or so it seemed to him. To us, that seems newsworthy. As does the “new regulatory structure” (within this context) that will give the Bank of England more power. We note that the same thing is occurring in America, where the Fed is set to take on more responsibility.

Of course it is in fact central banking that provides an endless destabilizing influence on economies the world over. This is why the current financial regulations being promulgated in Europe, the US and Britain are nonsensical. We write this quite a bit, as anyone who stops by the Bell already knows, but we remind ourselves we need to continue to do so because so far as the mainstream press is concerned it’s “business as usual.”

[end excerpt]

...heard since when it was "capped". The pressure has been a continual 67,000 + psi ...
...we only see what BP "allows" in "their" vision.
:):(

I am onto the numerous readings ...

...regarding "reconciliation" I called both my Senators before hearing several times & I even e-wrote them...
...but it does make the senators "mute" type of reactions understandable moreso. Grrr Something must be done :}:{:o

http://www.nola.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/index.ssf/2010/07/giant_oil_skim...

BP's use of chemical dispersants prevented A Whale, billed as the world's largest skimmer, from collecting a "significant amount" of oil during a week of testing that ended Friday.

[more at link]

http://www.rense.com/general91/OilSpill-CNR.pdf

:( :| GRRR
... XXX ... where's that bloody CEO

:( I keep going back and rereading...
tsk tsk bloody Hell this has always been seen by "certain circles" but "IT (the disaster)" IS...!

Druid -

When I returned to Democracy for America last year, I had two priorities: Helping pass meaningful healthcare reform and electing progressives up and down the ballot in all 50 states. Thanks to your hard work, we passed a healthcare bill. It was a long way from perfect, but your work made it a better bill and I'm proud of what we did together.

Now, it’s time to deliver on our second priority.

So today, we announce our first joint endorsement of two progressive champions who will shake up the U.S. Senate when we win in November -- Kentucky's Jack Conway and Iowa's Roxanne Conlin.

Join me and support two progressive champions -- contribute $10 to each right now
http://www.actblue.com/page/dean-dfa-jointendorsement
I'm not supporting Jack or Roxanne because they're Democrats. I'm supporting them because they have records of fighting for the people, not corporations.

Just look at Jack Conway in Kentucky. Jack's running against the quintessential far-right wing Republican candidate -- Rand Paul. This is a guy so far outside the mainstream that he said the Civil Rights Act that ended segregation in the South was unfair to business and then criticized President Obama for being too tough on BP.

Democrat Jack Conway is a true progressive fighting for the people of Kentucky. As Attorney General, he's worked tirelessly to protect Kentuckians from a utility rate hike that would have cost consumers more than $100 million.

With your support today, we can defeat the right-wing's favorite candidate and elect a progressive in Kentucky to the U.S. Senate.

Contribute now to elect a real progressive in Kentucky
http://www.actblue.com/page/dean-dfa-jointendorsement
Then there's Roxanne Conlin in Iowa. Roxanne is running against one of the Senate's biggest Healthcare opponents -- Chuck Grassley.

Senator Grassley fought us for more than a year, working everyday to kill the public option and take down all health reform with it. He even went so far as to claim President Obama wanted to "pull the plug on grandma." America doesn't need Republicans like Chuck Grassley in the U.S. Senate.

We need to restore a civil political dialogue in Iowa and Roxanne Conlin is exactly what Iowa needs after 30 years of Chuck Grassley. She's a fighter who will stand up for Iowans, like she did as Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney. When an Iowa teacher was fired for being pregnant, she took that woman's case all the way to the state Supreme Court – and won.

Roxanne will go the extra mile and it's that work ethic that is going to earn her the votes to win in November. Now, we need to provide her with the resources to fight back against one of the Senate's most entrenched Republicans.

Contribute now to elect a real progressive in Iowa
http://www.actblue.com/page/dean-dfa-jointendorsement
Talking heads in the media say this is a bad year to be a Democrat, but I disagree.

This is a bad year to be fighting for the interests of insurance companies, oil companies and Wall Street over the needs of the American people. Yet that's exactly what Republicans are doing -- and that's why Jack Conway and Roxanne Conlin can win with your help today.

Join me today and we'll prove all the media pundits wrong -- again.

When we work together, we're unstoppable. Thank you, Druid, for everything you do.

-Howard

Gov. Howard Dean, M.D.
Founder, Democracy for America

Democracy for America relies on you and the people-power of more than one million members to fund the grassroots organizing and training that delivers progressive change on the issues that matter. Please Contribute Today and support our mission.
http://www.actblue.com/page/dean-dfa-jointendorsement

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