Just 6 More Months to Victory!

Just 6 More Months to Victory! by Philip Giraldi

"So what might happen in President Obama’s next six months? A number of highly plausible scenarios come to mind"

See this article for Philip's very plausible scenario.




Bill

White House: $9 trillion in deficits

White House: $9 trillion in deficits By Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer

My questions are: just how smart does a person have to be to figure out

1. how this happened?

2. what it means?


Bill

Survivors of Israel's attack on USS Liberty tell their stories

Survivors of Israel's attack on USS Liberty tell their stories By Jason Ryan

"Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats attacked the U.S. ship for an hour, killing 34 and injuring 171 others."

From the reader comments:

"Israel is NOT now and has NEVER been an 'ally' of the US. Zionist Jews and Zionist Christians in the US are TRAITORS to the US - they LIED and led the US into a war with Iraq in order to destroy an enemy of Israel - they seek to LIE US into a war with Iran to benefit Israel. As it was said many years ago: "Before Israel became our friend in the Middle East, we had no enemies in the Middle East." Israel can NOT exist without the money sent to it by US courtesy of the American taxpayers - and what do we get in return? Most of the members of Congress are TRAITORS - 'owned' by AIPAC and Israel. The deliberate attack on the USS Liberty was an act of MURDER and TERRORISM by Israel! It was meant to draw US into war with Egypt - also meant to cover up the massacre of Egyptian soldiers by Israel. Shame on Israel. Shame on US for considering Israel a 'friend' and 'ally' - they are our only 'enemy' in the Middle East."

And ...

"I am by no means anti-Semitic- my nephews and neice are Jewish- and yet I am feverentlt anti-Zionist. The big lie of Israel is to claim that being opposed to Zionism (the belief that God gave the holy land to the Jewish people, thus giving them the right to evict or eliminate all other occupants) is being anti-Semitic."

"One can have family members and good friends who are Jewish, or even be Jewish or Israeli, and still be (as some of my Israeli frinds are) utterly opposed to Zionism."


This Isn’t Reform, It’s Robbery By Chris Hedges

" ... any debate about health care must acknowledge that the for-profit health care industry is the problem and must be destroyed"



Media Meltdown in a Time of Crisis Amy Goodman, Chris Hedges and Robert Scheer

These are seriously good people well worth your time to listen to.


Bill

In a Reasoned Debate, Single Payer Will Come Out on Top

In a Reasoned Debate, Single Payer Will Come Out on Top By Laura S. Boylan, M.D., and Joanne Landy, M.P.H.

"Multi-payer, for-profit health insurance adds cost but not value to American health care. Savings of $400 billion a year can be obtained through the conversion to a single-payer system. With the money we are now spending (twice as much per capita as other developed nations), we can provide full service “what you need, when you need it” health care for everyone and control costs going forward."

"Single-payer advocates have been excluded from debate not because our premises or facts are wrong but because special interests, including the private health insurance industry and the big drug companies, have been allowed to define the limits of “politically feasible.” "

"With this deteriorating public dialogue, we should affirm that we can get better health care by sticking together to support single payer. We support meaningful dialogue. We affirm the dignity of all persons and insist that health care is a universal human right."

"Health care is instrumental to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” We continue, as ever, to insist that “everybody in, nobody out” is best for all of us and embodies the best of American values."

The most galling part of this is the fact that our ruling warmongers have already spent and committed our wealth and resources to the sinkhole of their military invasion and crusade for authority in the Middle East. There simply isn't enough left for things like health care.

Michael Moore on His Latest: 'I Made This Movie As If It Was Going to Be the Last I Was Allowed to Make' By Diane Sweet, Raw Story.

See the trailer video

Campus Hypocrisy: Marijuana Is Safer, But Students Are Pushed to More Dangerous BoozeBy Paul Armentano and Steve Fox and Mason Tvert, Chelsea Green Publishing.

My Lai Massacre Leader Speaks — By Osha Gray Davidson




Bill

Common Sense 2009

Common Sense 2009 by Larry Flynt

"The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves."

He's right.


Bill

Out Now!

Out Now! At least, that's what the Iraqis are saying… by Justin Raimondo

" ... the really malevolent genie let out of its bottle by the Iraq war was and is a Kurdish one: nearly every one of Iraq’s neighbors harbors a considerable – and restive – Kurdish minority, and these groups are ready and (with assistance from their brothers over the border) able to rise up and declare their intention of creating "Greater Kurdistan" – a region that, if you look at their maps, extends from southern and central Turkey through Syria and the hinterlands of the Caucasus, to Iran in the east and all the way to Kuwait in the south. If and when the Kurds make their move for independence, this entire area could become a war zone in very short order."


Vanishing Liberties by Philip Giraldi

"The National Security Agency can monitor every phone call made in the United States and quite likely every e-mail."

..

"New legislation in Germany will require all internet users to be licensed with a backtracking feature that will enable the government to determine where any internet transmission originated. The new regulations will require all users to have a tamper proof internet ID and will be enforced by special police."


Bill

Iraq War's Winners and Losers

Iraq War's Winners and Losers by Sherwood Ross

Ending a report on the winners and losers, Sherwood summarizes:Z

"My hunch, though, is a lot of Americans haven't connected the country's looming bankruptcy with the greedy, gang from the military-industrial complex out to control the planet, its people and its precious resources."

"After the long-suffering civilian population of Iraq, whose crime was having oil - a country Steiglitz says that has been rendered virtually unlivable - the big losers are the American taxpayers who are bleeding income, jobs and quality of life, not just sacrificing family members, on behalf of a runaway war machine. "

"California's plight is being repeated everywhere. A great nation is being looted and millions of its citizens are being pauperized before our eyes."

The Sheikh Down - How the Pentagon bought stability in Iraq by funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to the country's next generation of strongmen. By Shane Bauer



Bill

Torture photos

Attorney General Holder: Look at the torture photos by Daphne Eviatar

"The cornerstone of modern international humanitarian law -- the Geneva Conventions of 1949 -- was adopted after the release of vivid images of Nazi concentration camp survivors. And it was the United States and General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself who insisted on distributing huge volumes of these photos to the media. The images of corpses, prisoner remains and emaciated survivors helped persuade nations around the world to develop and adopt new universal humanitarian norms."

"It's because images can be so powerful and can motivate action that the Obama administration now wants to suppress them."

...


".. After all, the Freedom of Information Act does include an exception to releasing information if it would reasonably be expected to "endanger the life or physical safety of any individual." The photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib were certainly alarming. And who would want to endanger the lives of U.S. troops?
"Meanwhile, the Justice department had collected sworn statements from top military generals -- including General Richard Myers, then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Nation's highest ranking military officer -- saying that releasing the photos would do just that. Who are we to question the top brass?" "

"Amrit Singh, an ACLU lawyer handling the case, answered that for me yesterday. "The argument the government has put forward is unacceptable because it would afford the greatest protection from disclosure to records that depict the worst kind of government misconduct. That is fundamentally inconsistent with FOIA. And it's fundamentally inconsistent with democracy." "



Bill

Biking Out of Iraq

Biking Out of Iraq On Troops That Don't Depart, Experts Who Never Leave the Scene, an Air Force That Suddenly Wasn't There, and a War That No Longer Needs a Justification by Tom Engelhardt

" ... That was before the invasion to "liberate" the country. Since then hundreds of thousands, possibly a million or more Iraqis have died (depending on whose figures and studies you believe). Saddam's killing fields have been dwarfed by a fierce set of destructive American military operations as well as insurgencies-cum-civil-wars-cum-terrorist-acts; major cities have been largely or partially destroyed, or ethnically cleansed; millions of Iraqis have been forced from their homes, becoming internal refugees or going into exile; untold numbers of Iraqis have been imprisoned, assassinated, tortured or abused; and the country's cultural heritage has been ransacked. Basic services -- electricity, water, food -- were terribly impaired and the economy, in the process of being privatized by the neocon overseers of the occupation, was simply wrecked. Health services were crippled. Oil production, upon which Iraq now depends for up to 90% of its government funds, has only relatively recently surpassed the worst levels of the Saddam era.

Iraq, in other words, has been devastated. ..."


Bill

The Iran debacle, coming soon

Wag The Dog, Again by Philip Giraldi

"It is curious that in spite of the fact that there is a consensus that Iran is not yet seeking a nuclear weapon and has no capability to accumulate sufficient weapons grade uranium to do so for some time to come, US politicians and media accept without question the Israeli argument that Iran is hell bent on obtaining such a device and will do so soon. Perhaps American politicians should stop listening to the Israelis and should start reading the reports being prepared at great expense by the United States intelligence community. All of which leads to another way of looking at the issue and that is, of course, that it is all about Israel. Iran is without doubt a major power in the Persian Gulf region even if it does not threaten the United States or Europe. It potentially does threaten Israel even if the track record shows the Iran has not attacked anyone since the seventeenth century while Israel itself has been engaged in something like perpetual warfare with all its neighbors. So the assumption must be that Israel and its very effective lobby are driving the push for war with Iran against the real interests of the United States. But the real question has to be, "Why is Obama, who must know that the argument against Iran is essentially bogus, buying into it?" Has he already surrendered to AIPAC? If it is true that at the end of September the US government will begin to tighten the screws on Iran we Americans will all know the answers to those questions and we will quite likely be set on the path for yet another "preventive" war."

Under Pressure from Hawks, Obama Glares at Iran by Daniel Luban

"In the face of mounting pressure from hawks in Washington and the continued threat of military action from Israel, the Barack Obama Administration has been taking a harder line in its latest pronouncements about Iran."

...

"But the administration is facing a great deal of pressure to move quickly to sanctions from congressional hawks — backed by hardline organizations within the so-called "Israel lobby" — who have been pushing for a tougher line against Tehran since well before the Jun. 12 elections that triggered Iran’s current political crisis."


Bill

Last year, 2.3 million in prison

War Hero Tackles US Over Degrading Prison Conditions by Rupert Cornwell

"When it comes to sending people to jail, America is the undisputed world champion. In 1970, a mere 200,000 people were behind bars. Last year, 2.3 million were held in federal, state and county prisons, more than 1 per cent of all adults in the US and five times the international average. Blacks, predictably, bear the brunt of this compulsion to incarcerate, accounting for 40 per cent of the prison population. This punishment industry gives work to more than two million, more even than the 1.7 million employed in higher education."

...

"... Of the 700,000 men and women who are released each year, two-thirds are back in jail within three years. As Webb puts it: "Either we are the most evil people on earth, or we're doing something wrong."



Bill

Perpetual War for Perpetual War

Perpetual War for Perpetual War By Jeff Huber

"According to Colonel Reese, chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, the surge’s real objectives still haven’t been met and never will be. In a recent memorandum, Reese asserts that “the ineffectiveness and corruption” of Iraq’s government ministries is “the stuff of legend.” The government is “failing to take rational steps to improve its electrical infrastructure and to improve their oil exploration, production and exports.” There is “no progress towards resolving the Kirkuk situation,” transition the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi Security Forces “is not happening” and “the Kurdish situation continues to fester.” Violent political intimidation is “rampant.” Iraq’s security forces are a disaster. The officer corps is corrupt. Enlisted men are neglected and mistreated. Cronyism and nepotism are rampant. Laziness, lack of initiative, and absence of basic military discipline are endemic. Iraq’s military leadership is incapable of leading; it can’t plan ahead, it can’t stand up to the Shiite political parties, it can’t stick to its agreements."

...

"Don’t expect us to withdraw from Iraq or the Bananastans any time soon. The American warmongery, a confluence of Big War, Big Energy, Big Jesus, Big Israel, Big Brainwash, and Big Brother, is trying to entangle us in a state of constant armed conflict that will carry on into the next American century. There’s no need for anyone to challenge our hegemony; all they have to do is sit back and watch us collapse under the weight of our own stupidity. "



Bill

Censorship story

As if we need any more proof that our information supply has been hijacked and used to dupe the masses, see GE's Silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's Sleazy Use of Richard Wolffe by Glenn Greenwald.

"It makes no difference what one thinks of O'Reilly's attacks on the corporate activities of GE or Olbermann's criticisms of O'Reilly and Fox News. Whatever one's views on that are -- and I watch neither show very often -- those are perfectly legitimate subjects for news reporting and commentary, and the corporate decree to stop commenting on those topics is nothing less than corporate censorship."

"So now GE is using its control of NBC and MSNBC to ensure that there is no more reporting by Fox of its business activities in Iran or other embarrassing corporate activities, while News Corp. is ensuring that the lies spewed regularly by its top-rated commodity on Fox News are no longer reported by MSNBC. You don't have to agree with the reader's view of the value of this reporting to be highly disturbed that it is being censored."

Consider what this implies. You do recall the pump-up by the major "news" organizations for the invasion of Iraq, don't you? Did you wonder then - or now - how that could have happened, given the reality of it all?

How much truth is there to "what history says depends on who writes the history books"? Maybe history books will say the Iraq invasion was all about a grand, glorious and wonderful fight for the freedom of the people? Perhaps not, but how much, if anything, will history books have to say about the conspiracy behind the invasion, media owners being one - and, of course, the Neocon gang.


Bill