Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/06/us/06detain.html

A federal appeals court panel on Tuesday strongly backed the powers of the government to hold Guantánamo detainees and other noncitizens suspected of committing terrorist acts. In a sweeping opinion, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the presidential war power to detain those suspected of terrorism is not limited even by international law of war.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/soci-j05.shtml

The new decade finds the US working class suffering a level of social misery not seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment, poverty, hunger, utility cutoffs, homelessness, foreclosures and bankruptcies have become common experiences for millions.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/yeme-j05.shtml

Tensions mounted Monday in advance of a widely expected expansion of US military operations inside Yemen, with the US, British, French and other embassies either closing down entirely or sharply curtailing operations.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/bonu-j05.shtml

An article published in the business section of the January 1 New York Times notes in passing that the three top Wall Street banks will pay out an estimated $49.5 billion in cash bonuses and stock awards.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/01/05

A few months ago I inquired, rhetorically, "does anyone in the healthcare debate really care about health?" Obviously the answer was and is a resounding NO, as the discussion has wholly devolved upon insurance coverage to the exclusion of substantive aspects of health like nutrition and preventive care. Yet not only is the focus of the deliberations far removed from any talk of improving health -- now it has explicitly gone to the next level in which it is simply about who will pay and who will profit. It isn't health care being produced in this process, but rather, health carelessness.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/05/philippines-court-mayor-denies-charges-massacre

Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr, mayor in southern Maguindanao province, Philippines, denies charges of murder after the massacre of 57 people in November. The prime suspect in one the Philippines' worst cases of political violence today pleaded not guilty to murder charges over the massacre of 57 people last November. Datu Andal Ampatuan Jr sat quietly and looked bored as a court employee read 41 murder charges against him at a clubhouse-turned-courtroom inside Manila's main police camp.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m61831&hd=&size=1&l=e

US drone missile attacks have claimed the lives of over 700 Pakistani civilians since Barack Obama took office a year ago, according to figures released this week by officials in Islamabad. The escalation of Washington’s AfPak war, now in full swing, will mean the slaughter of thousands more men, women and children in 2010.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/shansky01052010.html

The bodies of slain activists are piling up in Honduras. While it's being kept quiet in most Honduran and international media, the rage is building among a dedicated network of friends spreading the word quickly with the tragic announcement of each compañero/a. Now that the world heard from mainstream news outlets such as the New York Times of a “clean and fair” election on Nov. 29 (orchestrated by the US-supported junta currently in power), the violence has increased even faster than feared. The specific targets of these killings have been those perceived as the biggest threats to the coup establishment. The bravest, and thus the most vulnerable: Members of the Popular Resistance against the coup. Their friends and family. People who provide the Resistance with food and shelter.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/politics/144922/how_main_street_got_shafted_while_wall_street_bounced_back

Unless you work on Wall Street, you've probably had a hard year. Don't expect 2010 to be any better.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/world/144929/why_are_we_so_blind_to_the_true_horrors_of_war

If we really saw what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be harder to embrace the myths propagated by our warmongering government.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/512067/dem_leaders_scheme_to_scrap_health_reform_conference_committee

Progressive activists have put a good deal of energy into preparing for an anticipated House-Senate conference committee, in which the distinct health-care reform bills enacted by the two chambers would be reconciled. The theory has been that, in the conference process, it might be possible to strengthen the especially weak language and policies of the Senate bill.

Link: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2010/01/05/rule_of_law/index.html

From Obama terrorism adviser John Brennan, on this weekend's Meet the Press:
MR. GREGORY: Why isn't [Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab] being treated as an enemy combatant instead of a criminal?
MR. BRENNAN: Well, because, first of all, we're a country of laws, and what we're going to do is to make sure that we treat each individual case appropriately. In the past Richard Reid, the former shoe bomber; Zacarias Moussaoui; Jose Padilla; Iyman Faris; all of them were charged in criminal court, were sentenced some in -- in some cases to life imprisonment.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2009/12/15/americas-new-homeless

MAJOR CITIES across the country--including places largely known for their wealth and abundance--are becoming centers of hunger and homelessness. Requests for emergency food assistance increased a staggering 26 percent last year in cities across the country, according to the recently released findings of the U.S. Conference of Mayors' Hunger and Homelessness Survey. This is the largest average increase in demand in the last 18 years.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2010/01/05/scapegoats-and-scaremongers

THE ATTEMPT by a 23-year-old Nigerian man to explode a bomb on a Detroit-bound airplane has THE ATTEMPT by a 23-year-old Nigerian man to explode a bomb on a Detroit-bound airplane has become the excuse for a return to some of the worst "war on terror" hysteria of the post-September 11 period.

Link: http://www.newser.com/story/77384/scientists-dolphins-are-non-human-persons.html

Dolphins are not only the world's smartest animal after humans, they're so intelligent they deserve to be classed as "non-human persons." So say scientists who argue their research on dolphins' brains shows it is unethical to keep such the animals captive in amusement parks or to kill them for food or accidentally through fishing, the London Times reports.

Link: http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/alpon/today_is_the_250th_day_since_sean_hannity_said_he/

TexDen 5: C'mon already. He's a lying Republican! You didn't actually believe he was a man of honor did you.

Link: http://news.scotsman.com/world/39Vertical-city39-is-a-towering.5955057.jp

DUBAI yesterday unveiled the world's tallest skyscraper and a new name for the towering structure in honour of the man who helped rescue the Gulf emirate from its financial crisis. Fireworks light up the 2,717-ft tall Burj Khalifa at yesterday's opening ceremony in Dubai. Rising some 2,717 feet from the desert, the tower was opened in a lavish ceremony that will see numerous records rewritten. Home to the highest occupied floors, service lift and observation deck, the 160-floor structure also boasts the world's highest mosque and swimming pool.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49887

It is just the beginning of the year, but M. Manju Laxmi already feels anxious. In four months or so, she will be back to her old routine: stuffing the wide chinks under her weathered closed doors and windows with her old saris.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19464

On the surface, it appeared to be a textbook example of a “no-brainer.” In July of 2009 both Houses of Congress passed a resolution urging Barack Obama, America’s first African-American president and symbol of racial progress, to pardon Jack Johnson, America’s first African-American heavyweight boxing champion and symbol of racial injustice.

Link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6975867.ece

Arctic air and record snow falls gripped the northern hemisphere yesterday, inflicting hardship and havoc from China, across Russia to Western Europe and over the US plains. There were few precedents for the global sweep of extreme cold and ice that killed dozens in India, paralysed life in Beijing and threatened the Florida orange crop. Chicagoans sheltered from a potentially killer freeze, Paris endured sunny Siberian cold, Italy dug itself out of snowdrifts and Poland counted at least 13 deaths in record low temperatures of about minus 25C (-13F).

Link: http://www.redress.cc:80/global/cking20100105

Christopher King argues that rather than slavishly pimp for the US and cheer “its reflex to bomb and shoot everything in sight” in Yemen, he should instead try to win the hearts and minds of Yemen’s destitute people by helping to develop their economy and thereby give them a stake in peace. Things surely must get better. It’s bad enough blowing up Afghans in their mud brick houses in one of the poorest countries of the world. We have now gone lower down the scale. Our illiterate Chiefs of Defence Staff who can’t read the Nuremberg Principles and our politicians who don’t want them to, are probably going to bomb what is probably the very poorest country in the world. The United States and Saudi Arabia are already doing it.