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03/19/10

Permalink America's "Houdini Recovery" under IMF-Type Austerity

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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News

03/19/10

Permalink Castro supporters heckle 'Ladies in White' protesters

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.

Permalink Leprechaun raider dies in St Patrick’s Day shootout

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

Permalink Bernard Madoff 'beaten up in jail'

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.

03/18/10

Permalink Why We Reform

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.

Permalink Obama argues for health care effort on Fox News

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.

Permalink Obama signs multibillion-dollar jobs bill

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.

Permalink Obama backs senators' immigration overhaul outline

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.

Permalink Chinese Asking U.S. to Look the Other Way

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.

Permalink Pilots Union Protests United Airlines’ Outsourcing Plan

“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.

Permalink Prius Computer Raises Doubts in an Account of a Crash

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.

Permalink U.S. Woman Charged in Terror Plot Pleads Not Guilty

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.

Permalink Illinois budget crisis sharpens

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.

Permalink Obama hopes for healthcare success

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.

Permalink US and Russia close to nuclear deal

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

Permalink Abuse of pain pills by troops concerns Pentagon

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.

Permalink Recent cases show challenge of US terrorists

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.

Permalink Cornell forced to fight suicide school image after spate of student deaths

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.

03/17/10

Permalink Republicans in denial over healthcare

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.

Permalink US army told to shape up – by duelling with pugil sticks

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.

Permalink Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage

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.

Permalink US Muslims plead not guilty to Pakistan terror plot

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.

Permalink Georgia: “Invasion” hoax used to whip up anti-Russian fears

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.

Permalink France: teachers, students march against education cuts

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.

Permalink Detroit to close 45 more schools

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.

Permalink Everything stops for Tea!

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.

Permalink Metals detected in Palestinian children’s hair

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.

Permalink President Obama tries to win over Democrats with healthcare Bill

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.

Permalink Riots erupt and peace envoy cancels visit as anger grows at Jerusalem plan

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.

Permalink Grill ripped from Tenn. man's teeth in jail

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.

03/16/10

Permalink Crisis in US-Israeli relations: Barack Obama must not back down

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.

Permalink Federal Reserve pledges to keep interest rates low

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.

Permalink Dick Cheney lies here

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.

Permalink Violent clashes erupt in East Jerusalem as synagogue reopens

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.

Permalink British Airways strike threat: US union weighs into cabin crew dispute

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.

Permalink Pittsburgh: WSWS speaks to family of steelworker left to die

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.

Permalink Copenhagen climate summit undone by 'arrogance'

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.

Permalink How the Economy was Lost, Doomed by the Myths of Free Trade

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

Permalink Many Nations Surpassing U.S. in Education

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.

Permalink Diego Garcia bunker-busters meant to threaten Iran

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.

Permalink 'Runaway Prius' claim dismissed by Toyota

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.


Past News

03/19/10

Permalink Domestic violence as pre-existing condition? 8 states still allow it

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.

03/15/10

Permalink Police escort student out of class after refusal to recite Pledge of Allegiance

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.

03/13/10

Permalink Liz Cheney accused of McCarthyism over campaign against lawyers

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.

03/12/10

Permalink Normalizing the police state (and how it ends with taser-firing drones)

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.

03/08/10

Permalink Permanent war economy

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]

03/06/10

Permalink A Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully

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.

03/04/10

Permalink The Nine Stages of American Autogenocide

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.

03/03/10

Permalink Obama Plot To Throw Millions Of Americans From Homes Uncovered

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:


Videos

03/18/10

Permalink Is Verizon Redlining Baltimore City, re: Next-Generation FIOS?

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


  • How many more Americans must die so that medical insurance companies can profit?

    The medical insurance companies, HMO’s profit more by denying people medical care then by providing it. In highly industrialized America, richest country on earth, some fifty thousand people die each year from treatable illnesses simply because they cannot afford to see a doctor. More than forty six million Americans are too poor to afford medical insurance, many of them working. the National Academy of Sciences, has estimated that lack of health insurance in the United States costs between $65 and $130 billion per year, due to health impairments and lost productivity. Isn't it time for the American people to stop being the victims of medical insurance companies, and HMO's?

  • Peace of the Action's "Camp OUT NOW" Comes to Washington, DC. Civil Resistance to War and Empire Planned in Nation's Capitol

    Enough is enough! It's time we up the ante and demand that our voices be heard and heeded. It's time that the logical and rational voices of reason get a Peace of the Action. While the wars in Central Asia and the Middle East rage hotter and hotter, and while the suppression of our civil liberties here in the U.S. continue, Peace of the Action is demanding an immediate cessation to U.S. hostilities. Peace of the Action will be establishing Camp OUT NOW on the lawn of the Washington Monument (with or without governmental permission)

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  • Three Kings - The Rise of an American Empire in the Middle East After World War II by Lloyd C. Gardner

    When I first started my readings on current events as related to 9/11, the attack on Afghanistan and then on Iraq, it soon became clear that Palestine was symbolically at the heart of the problems in the Middle East. Beyond that, it is also at the heart of other problems involving human rights, international law, the U.S. government, and corporate power among others. The Second World War ended with the violent remainders of various empires imploding on themselves, most significantly the British Empire collapsed in India and the Middle East. Right from the outset, the Palestinian situation was identified as a “major stumbling block” to U.S. imperial ambitions as “Of all the political problems which call for solution in this area the Palestine question is probably the most important and urgent at the present time.”

  • In and Out of Crisis The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives by Greg Albo, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch

    The book traces the historical process through which, over a century punctuated by previous crises, the American state and finance developed in tandem, and came to play a new kind of imperial role at the center of global capitalism. And in light of the contradictions that were produced in this process, it also traces the development of the crisis that began in 2007 and explains the active role of the American state, both under Bush and Obama, in containing the crisis in ways that reproduced the structures of class inequality and power domestically and internationally... Even as they tried to stimulate the economy, states were impelled to lay off public sector workers or cut back their pay, and to demand that bailed-out companies do the same. And while blaming volatile derivatives market for causing the crisis, states promoted derivatives trading

  • Shadow Masters by Daniel Estulin

    "The United States has become a fascist state, which is not run by the president or the people, but by transnational corporations and secret societies that understand we are entering end game. Bout, unfortunately, is just an unwitting pawn in the game. Had there been no Victor Bout, there would have been another ‘Victor Bout.’ And now Bout would have to be a magician to actually receive a fair trial, a fair shake.”

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