Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/06/03/israel/index.html

Both Likud Party members in Israel as well as their Americans supporters – including members of both parties in the U.S. Congress – are beginning to complain that the Obama administration is unduly "interfering" in Israeli politics by insisting on a full cessation of settlement growth. -Identically, if Israel wants to be free of what it and some of its U.S. supporters call "interference" from the Obama administration, that’s very easy to achieve: Israel can stop asking for tens of billions of dollars of American taxpayer money, huge amounts of military and weapons supplies for its various wars, and unyielding American diplomatic protection at the U.N. But as long as Israel remains dependent on the U.S. in countless ways, then Obama not only has the right -- but he has the obligation -- to demand that Israel cease activities which harm U.S. interests.

Link: http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/05/corporations-behind-efforts-to-label-sotomayor-racist/

Corporate interests posing as a grassroots conservative group are behind attacks on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, a RAW STORY investigation has found.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2009/jun2009/paki-j05.shtml

The arrival of Obama administration special envoy Richard Holbrooke in Pakistan on Wednesday serves to underscore that the massive military operation taking place in the country’s north-west is a proxy war on behalf on US imperialism. As part of completing the transformation of Afghanistan into a client-state in Central Asia, Obama is demanding that the Pakistani government suppress the local Islamist movements that lend support to the Afghan resistance over the border.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/05/barack-obama-cairo

Obama's long-awaited speech demonstrated little to suggest America will pursue any course beyond its own interests. This is hard. It's hard because we so need to believe that Obama is about change, that he's wise, that he's good, that he has the interests of the world – rather than just the interests of the United States – at heart.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/workplace/140455/economic_fallout_has_spurred_an_epidemic_of_murder_and_suicide_that_has_gone_largely_unnoticed_/

After David B. Kellermann, the chief financial officer of beleaguered mortgage giant Freddie Mac, tied a noose and hanged himself in the basement of his Vienna, Virginia, home, the New York Times made it a front-page story. The stresses of the job in economic tough times, its reporters implied, had driven him to this extreme act.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/06/05/nightmare-that-doesnt-end

THE SUICIDE of Guantánamo Bay detainee Mohammad Ahmed Abdullah Saleh al Hanashi on June 1 offered a stark reminder that the Obama administration has yet to uphold its pledge to treat prisoners of the "war on terror" more humanely than its predecessors.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/06/05/how-the-superrich-live

The 10 richest people in the U.S.-- a rogue's gallery of serial polluters, budget-slashers, CIA contractors, union-busters and right-wing nuts. "Americans might get angry sometimes," "but we don't hate the rich. We prefer to laugh at them." Newsweek couldn't be more wrong. The 10 percent of Americans who rely on food stamps, the 25 percent of Ohioans who are waiting in lines at food banks, the 500,000 people who lost their jobs last month and the millions more who can't find work--these people aren't laughing.

Link: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1090527.html

Residents of the Misgav bloc of communities in the Galilee consider themselves to be liberal, peace-loving people who support coexistence with their Arab neighbors and even root for Bnei Sakhnin, the soccer club based in a nearby Arab town considered a prominent symbol of that community. Which is why they were shocked this week when proposals raised at local council meetings to accept only applicants who shared their

Link: http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22777.htm

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/06/us/politics/06gitmo.html?_r=1

The Obama administration is considering a change in the law for the military commissions at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that would clear the way for detainees facing the death penalty to plead guilty without a full trial.

Link: http://jnoubiyeh.blogspot.com/2009/06/obama-to-muslims-put-up-and-shut-up.html

What are we to make of Obama’s speech at Cairo University in Egypt? "I’ve come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Cairo is the capital of Egypt, an American puppet state whose ruler suppresses the aspirations of Egyptian Muslims and cooperates with Israel in the blockade of Gaza.