by Stephen Lendman

It's what economist David Rosenberg calls recovery given plenty of supportive evidence, including:

-- over five million homeowners behind on their mortgage payments;

-- at record levels, foreclosures are alarmingly high; moreover, "the foreclosure pipeline is enormous;"

-- "housing, the quintessential leading indicator," turning lower again in starts, sales and prices;

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Hundreds of Cuban government supporters have heckled members of the "Ladies in White" rights group marching in protest through the streets of Havana. The women - wives and mothers of jailed dissidents - are staging a week of protests on the anniversary of Fidel Castro's 2003 Black Spring crackdown.

A leprechaun bank robber and his getaway driver were killed in a shootout with police after a St Patrick’s Day raid in Tennessee.

The biggest swindler in the history of Wall Street has reportedly been beaten up in prison by a drug dealer with a black belt in judo in a dispute over money.

One way or another, the fate of health care reform is going to be decided in the next few days. If House Democratic leaders find 216 votes, reform will almost immediately become the law of the land. If they don’t, reform may well be put off for many years — possibly a decade or more.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Wednesday took to the Fox News Channel, derided by his White House as a wing of the Republican Party, to sell his embattled health care overhaul in an interview punctuated with interruptions from the host and chiding from the guest.

US President Barack Obama signs the HIRE Act, a 17.6 billion dollar jobs bill that encourages businesses to hire workers, alongside lawmakers during a ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC on Thursday. The legislation includes tax breaks for businesses that hire new workers and infrastructure investments.

WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama, facing criticism from advocates of immigration reform, pledged Thursday "to do everything in my power" to get immigration legislation moving in Congress this year.

The Chinese government is fiercely resisting U.S. and international pressure to allow its currency to appreciate to a market-based level, launching an offensive on multiple fronts to try and discredit the allegations, garner international sympathy and lobby behind the scenes to prevent any action from being taken.

“Joint venture agreements that allow American jobs to be outsourced in the midst of attempting to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression cannot be allowed. Now is not the time to make it easier to ship jobs overseas,” Rep. Tim Bishop said.

Federal safety regulators investigating the crash of a Toyota Prius in suburban New York said Thursday that the car’s computer showed no evidence of braking by the driver at the time of the crash.

The Pennsylvania woman accused of recruiting men on the Internet to wage jihad in southern Asia and Europe pleaded not guilty Thursday to all counts in federal court in Philadelphia.

As the budget crisis in Illinois deepens, the state government is more openly seeking to use its deficits to push through long-planned attacks on the working class. Many of the measures being planned will severely impact students and youth, as well as teachers and educational workers, both active and retired.

Barack Obama, the US president, has postponed his trip to Indonesia and Australia in an attempt to push his historic healthcare reform bill through Congress.

Russia and the United States have made "substantial progress" in negotiating a new nuclear arms disarmament deal, the US secretary of state has said.

WASHINGTON — The military is trying to curb the volume of narcotics given to troops as the number of prescriptions for painkillers and instances of drug abuse continue to soar, according to Pentagon data and recent congressional testimony.

WASHINGTON — The growing front in the war on terrorism may be no farther than Main Street. The terror cases that have emerged in the past week have one common characteristic: The suspects are all Americans. One is a woman who looked after the elderly in suburban Pennsylvania. Another a security guard from New Jersey.

An Ivy League university set among gorges is battling a reputation as a “suicide school” after a spate of student deaths. Six students have died in suspected suicides so far this academic year at Cornell University in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

Republicans are in denial. They're desperate to convince Democrats that passing comprehensive healthcare reform legislation will be the worst possible move they could make.

The asymmetric reality of 21st-century warfare has taught the US military much over the last decade. It has taught them that their enemies are relentless, technologically advanced and often invisible – and that hardware and superior numbers are no longer the guarantees they once were.

In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance. Shortly after his diagnosis, however, his insurance company, Fortis, revoked his policy. Mitchell was told that without further treatment his HIV would become full-blown AIDS within a year or two and he would most likely die within two years after that. So he hired an attorney -- not because he wanted to sue anyone; on the contrary, the shy African-American teenager expected his insurance was canceled by mistake and would be reinstated once he set the company straight.

Five young US Muslims were charged today with plotting terrorism in Pakistan in a case that has generated concerns that Americans are heading to the country to join militant groups.

Viewers of the 8pm Saturday news broadcast by the Imedi network in the former Soviet republic of Georgia switched on their televisions to see an invading force of Russian tanks and soldiers heading towards the capital, Tbilisi, while bombs fell across the country. Over this footage an announcer declared that the Georgian government had fallen and the country’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, was dead.

On March 12, thousands of students, teachers and parents took to the streets across France to protest education “reforms,” deteriorating working conditions, and job cuts.

Robert Bobb, the emergency financial director hired by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to oversee shrinking the Detroit public school system, announced his plan to close 45 more public schools on Monday.

Hundreds of Tea Party activists rallied outside the US Congress on Tuesday in protest at President Barack Obama’s almost $900bn healthcare reform. The group of mostly rightwing grassroots protesters are opposed to the way the administration is driving healthcare through congress.

Many Palestinian children still living in precarious situations at ground level in Gaza after Israeli bombing during "Cast lead" have unusually high concentrations of metals in the hair, indicating environmental contamination, which can cause health and growth damages due to chronic exposure. This is the result of a pilot study conducted by the New Weapons Research Group (Nwrg), an independent committee of scientists and experts based in Italy, who is studying the use of unconventional weapons and their mid-term effects on the population of after-war areas.

After 14 months and more than 60 speeches President Obama’s fight to win reforms of America’s health insurance system may have only four days to go. His fight to keep them on the statute books will then begin.

Riots broke out in Jerusalem and the West Bank yesterday as Palestinians staged a “day of rage” in protest at Israeli plans to build 1,600 new homes in the disputed east of the city.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When a Tennessee jailer ripped the gold grill from a new inmate's teeth two days before Thanksgiving last year, it left the 31-year-old man in excruciating pain and left taxpayers on the hook for nearly $100,000 in damages.

He blinked once and he can not afford to blink again. The most serious crisis in US-Israeli relations in 35 years was not of President Obama's making. He had already climbed down a fair way from his original demand for a total halt on settlement construction.

The Federal Reserve tonight reaffirmed its promise to keep interest rates low for an "extended period" while it waits for clear evidence of an upturn in the US economy.

Lest we forget: on 16 March 2003 Dick Cheney appeared on Meet The Press to make the Bush administration's case for the US invasion of Iraq. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course but we now know that Cheney had no basis for claiming the things that he claimed that day, and that he himself knew there was little or no evidence for the words coming out of his mouth.

Israeli-Palestinian tensions erupted into violence today with clashes in East Jerusalem as the US postponed a visit by its Middle East envoy in protest at Binyamin Netanyahu's settlement policy.

British Airways passengers face the threat of disruption on both sides of the Atlantic after the Teamsters, the powerful US trade union, confirmed last night it is meeting Unite representatives to discuss supporting a looming cabin crew strike.

Curtis Mitchell died February 7 in his home more than 30 hours after both he and his wife, Sharon Edge, made the first of repeated calls to emergency 911 requesting an ambulance be sent to their home in the Hazelwood section of the city of Pittsburgh.

Western nations failed to understand how China works, says Lord Stern. The "disappointing" outcome of December's climate summit was largely down to "arrogance" on the part of rich countries, according to Lord Stern. The economist told BBC News that the US and EU nations had not understood well enough the concerns of poorer nations.

The American economy has gone away. It is not coming back until free trade myths are buried six feet under.

Education has always been the backbone of American productivity, for generations American students were the best and brightest the world had to offer. Unfortunately, for nearly 20 years the state of primary and secondary education in America has fallen off.

The Sunday Herald has reported that hundreds of powerful US "bunker-buster" bombs are being shipped from California to the British island of Diego Garcia. In January, the US government signed a contract to transport 10 ammunition containers to the island, the Scottish newspaper wrote on March 14. According to a cargo manifest from the US navy, this included 387 “Blu-110” and "Blu-117" bombs used for blasting hardened or underground structures. Crucially, the cargo included 195 smart, guided, Blu-110 bombs and 192 massive 2000lb Blu-117 bombs.

Toyota Motor Corp says it has found no evidence to support a driver's account of a widely-publicised "runaway" Prius incident in California last week.

Eight states and the District of Columbia don't have laws that specifically bar insurance companies from using domestic violence as a pre-existing condition to deny health coverage, according to a study from the National Women's Law Center. The states are Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The study by the nonpartisan, nonprofit center focused on individual coverage, not group coverage. Some of the states, particularly North Carolina, argue that other statutes on their books address the issue. At least one of the health care bills circulating in Congress includes a specific federal prohibition on the use of domestic violence as a pre-existing condition. Other bills include blanket bans on pre-existing conditions.

According to the ACLU of Maryland, a 13-year-old female student at Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance on Jan. 27. The teacher reportedly ordered the girl out into the hallway, where he threatened the girl with detention and then sent her to the school counselor's office. The next day, when the student again refused to stand for the pledge, the teacher called school officers to remove her from the classroom and take her to the counselor's office once again. "When the student’s mother reached out to an assistant principal for help in dealing with the teacher’s abusive and improper actions, the official said her daughter should instead apologize for her 'defiance.' The student did apologize, twice," the ACLU states. The right to sit silently during the Pledge of Allegiance has been held up by the US Supreme Court, and is enshrined in Maryland state law and Mongtomery County Public Schools' own policies, reports the Washington Post.

Not long after the Twin Towers fell, Dick Cheney declared the death of more than two centuries of American tradition. "It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws," he said. The then vice-president did his best to follow through by riding roughshod over the constitution and international laws by promoting torture, indefinite detention without trial and support for secretive military tribunals in which defendants were stripped of many of their rights.

Kathryn Winkfein, a 72-year-old great-grandmother, was tasered (twice) by an officer for getting shouty after she was pulled over for a traffic offense. Youtube commenters — ever the empathetic bunch — said Winkfein was “asking to be tasered.” Another said Winkfein clearly has to take some “responsibility” for being tasered. Worse than the police state itself are the people who can’t rush to defend the oppressors quickly enough. That student was asking for it. Grandma shoulda kept her mouth shut. Digby calls this the “normalizing of torture.” Not only are people unsurprised by tasering these days, but they watch it for entertainment on Youtube. This normalizing goes beyond tasering, however. It’s now normal for the state to monitor citizens, and for any kind of mass protest to be immediately restricted by the government.

The concept of permanent war economy originated in 1944 with an article by Ed Sard (alias Frank Demby, Walter S. Oakes and T.N. Vance, a Trotskyist) who predicted a post-war arms race. He argued at the time that the USA would retain the character of a war economy; even in peacetime, US military expenditure would remain large, reducing the percentage of unemployed compared to the 1930s. He extended this analysis in 1950 and 1951.[1] The term was also used by the CEO of General Electric and vice-chairman of the War Production Board, Charles E. Wilson ("Electric Charlie," not to be confused with "Engine Charlie," Charles Erwin Wilson of General Motors) to refer to an institutionalized war economy —ie. a semi-command economy to be directed by corporation executives, based on military industry, and funded by government. The term refers to the economic component within the military-industrial complex (MIC) (aka. "the Iron Triangle") whereby the collusion between militarism and war profiteering are manifest as a permanently subsidised industry. Wilson warned at the close of World War II that the US must not return to a civilian economy, but must keep to a "permanent war economy."[2]

Why is the national security community treating the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010," introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration's choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here, and then read the summarized points after the jump. According to the summary, the bill sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.

by Martha Rose Crow, M.S. Auto comes from the Greek reflexive pronoun while genocide comes from the Latin words gens meaning "race, tribe" and -cidere meaning "kill." (source: http://wikipedia.org) American Autogenocide is the deliberate, systematic and legal murder of American citizens by socially-engineering the die-off of populations that are “problematic” for the interests of wealth and power. Most victims prematurely die from social forces targeted at them to cause them to wear out by stress. This process is called "Weathering Away" or "Attrition By Stress." Although it has to be “legal,” autogenocide is always committed under the radar so the media won’t be compelled to report it and so the people won’t see it or understand it. More, the genocide is blamed on the victims and their deaths are hidden-attributed-to other causes rather than the primary one of autogenocide. What is different between this genocide and other genocides is that this unique genocide doesn't produce mass graves. Instead, the victims are spread over a large geographic area and buried singly, thereby hiding the body count. This keeps the deaths sanitized and homogenized. It also keeps the autogenocide surreal; thus enabling the village to deny It's existence when clues to It's existence are ambundant and abundantly transparent.

New reports coming from the United States today are revealing one of the most insidious plots to have ever been perpetrated against the American people and will leave an estimated 30 million of them homeless as their wealth is transferred to the elite bankers currently ruling over them and led by President Obama. To fully understand this plot to destroy the entire middle class of the United States one must know about the banking giant behind it named Goldman Sachs, who put Obama into the American presidency for the express purpose of committing the largest robbery in the entire history of the World, and who in the riveting article about this banking giant by the Rolling Stone Magazine titled “Inside The Great American Bubble Machine” they are blamed for “engineering every major market manipulation since the Great Depression”, and which, in part, states:

from: William Hughes

A rally was held, on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, at noon, outside the headquarters of Verizon, in downtown Baltimore, MD. Activists, representing a coalition of concerned citizens, demanded to know why Verizon doesn’t have any plan to “deploy its next-generation fiber-optic data communication technology” in Baltimore City? They underscored how the company does provide that service to other jurisdictions in Maryland, and also in the District of Columbia. The coalition, according to its press release, is launching a “bus billboard campaign” to get its message out. Matthew Weinstein, Baltimore Region Director of Progressive Maryland, moderated the event. For background, go to: http://www.whereisbmorefios.org