Retired general: GOP is undermining national security to score partisan points
Link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0505/eaton-gop-attacking-national-security/
In the wake of the arrest of alleged terrorist Faisal Shahzad, a number of Republican politicians have expressed outrage that the naturalized American citizen is being afforded the constitutional rights of citizenship. Major General (ret.) Paul Eaton told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Tuesday, "I am a little surprised that we're here to defend our Constitution against a Republican senator and a Republican representative's attack on it."
PermalinkU.S. exempted BP rig from environmental study
Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36956650/ns/us_news-washington_post/
Government oversight was ‘little more than rubber-stamping,’ expert says. The Interior Department exempted BP's calamitous Gulf of Mexico drilling operation from a detailed environmental impact analysis last year, according to government documents, after three reviews of the area concluded that a massive oil spill was unlikely.
IOF confiscate gifts from Gaza's patients on their way back
Doctors Without Borders Association, the human rights advocate, disclosed for the first time that the Israeli army confiscated gifts, games and personal property purchased by Palestinians patients and their companions during treatment in Israel, through the return of “Erez” crossing in northern Gaza.
Joe Lieberman bill would strip suspects' citizenship
Link: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/36741.html
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) thinks he’s found a work-around on the whole Miranda rights debate for U.S. citizens accused of terrorism: Strip their citizenship and ship them to Guantanamo. Lieberman plans to introduce a bill that would amend a decades-old law aimed at yanking citizenship from U.S. citizens who fight for a foreign military.
Vietnamese Derision Once the Merciless US Military-Economic Empire Collapses?
April 30, 2010 Vietnamese celebrated, many in sorrow for lost loved ones, the 35th anniversary of its costly victory over the mass murdering Army, Navy and Air force of the United States of America. April 30, 1975 brought independence thirty years after President Truman cruelly went back on Roosevelt’s promise that colonies freed from Japanese occupation would not be given back to European powers, and treacherously turned against Ho Chi Minh, America’s decorated ally during the Second World War.
Zionist proposes 187,000 housing units mostly in annexed parts of Jerusalem
Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m65698&hd=&size=1&l=e
Aryeh King, head of the Israel Land Fund released his plan for 187,000 units mostly in annexed parts of Jerusalem, and some outside it. He showed on maps where there was the space owned by individual Jews and the Jewish national fund. He explains that the growing city needs to expand, and unless it does, it would get hemmed in like the Gaza Strip.
Dispersant 'May Make Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill More Toxic'
Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/05/05-11
Scientists fear chemicals used in oil clean-up can cause genetic mutations and cancer, and threaten sea turtles and tuna. By BP's own account, it has mobilised a third of the world's supply of dispersant, so far pouring about 140,000 gallons (637,000 litres) of the cocktail into the Gulf as of today. Some of the dispersant has been injected directly into the source of the spill on the ocean floor, a technique never deployed before, deepening concerns about further damage to the environment.
Two Little Girls: Murder in the Jordan Valley
Link: http://palsolidarity.org/2010/05/12264
We stopped by the roadside at the spot where the two little girls had been killed. Their blood still stained the cushion on which they had been sitting, fragments of the military jeep which had rammed their father’s tractor still littered the ground.
New York Times minimizes Gulf oil spill
Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/may2010/spil-m05.shtml
The April 20 blowout on a BP oil rig 50 miles off Louisiana’s coast, which claimed the lives of 11 workers, continues to gush millions of gallons of heavy crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico with no clear end in sight. The disaster has already led to major economic and environmental devastation, with the Gulf Coast’s multi-billion-dollar fishing industry suspended in high season.
BP Oil Spill Highlights Poor Safety Record, the Worst of Any Oil Company in America
Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/5/5/group_bp_has_one_of_the
“BP is a London-based oil company with one of the worst safety records of any oil company operating in America,” says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen. “In just the last few years, BP has paid $485 million in fines and settlements to the US government for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets.” We speak with Slocum and with an attorney representing several workers who survived the blast that sank BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig. He’s also representing the wife of one of the 11 workers now presumed dead who is filing a lawsuit accusing BP of negligence.
Shell reports record oil spillages in Nigeria
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/05/shell-oil-spill-niger-delta
Oil giant blames thieves and militants for the spilling of nearly 14,000 tonnes of crude oil into the Niger Delta last year. The amount of oil spilled by Shell's Nigerian subsidiary was more than double the amount poured into the delta in 2008, and quadruple what was spilled in 2007 – highlighting the worsening situation the oil company faces in Nigeria.
Americans prefer ‘progressive,’ ’state’s rights’ to ‘capitalism,’ poll finds
Link: http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0505/americans-positive-response-progressive-capitalism/
Americans have a more positive response to the word "progressive" than they do "capitalism," according to a new Pew research poll. The poll, conducted Apr. 21-26 attempted to gauge Americans' honest responses to various concepts. Strikingly -- perhaps due to the recent financial crisis, repeated bank bailouts and ire at Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs -- more Americans have positive views of liberals than they do of capitalists.
"Hey Dad, Why Does This Country Protect Billionaires, and Not Teachers?"
Something is really screwed up when we award billions to Wall Street elites for doing things we don’t comprehend, even as we lay off teachers by the thousands. Last week, thousands of New Jersey public school students walked out of class to protest draconian school budget cuts. “Save my teacher,” their signs read. In a state that is home to a bevy of high finance billionaires, with the highest per capita income in the nation, teachers are being sacked left and right. In our town half the student body protested outside the high school.
Americans Are Ratting Out Their Neighbors to the IRS at a Record Pace to Reap Cash Whistleblower Rewards
Link: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2010/05/americans-are-.html
Americans seeking reward money are turning in neighbors, clients and employers they suspect of cheating on taxes to the IRS at a rate of nearly eight per day, the director of the agency’s whistleblower program said.
Deepwater Horizon oil spill sparks calls for $10bn levy on BP and drilling ban
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/04/deepwater-horizon-oil-spill-backlash-bp
The catastrophic spill in the Gulf of Mexico set off a backlash against the oil industry yesterday, with a demand for a ban on future offshore drilling. The anger came as BP executives admitted in a private briefing for members of Congress that the gusher on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico could reach 40,000 barrels a day – eight times higher than the current estimate – if they cannot cap the flow.
Whitney Says Consumer Credit to Decline, Hurting U.S. Banks
Meredith Whitney, the banking analyst who forecast Citigroup Inc.’s dividend cut in 2008, said the nation’s largest banks are susceptible to another dip in the consumer-credit market.
60,000 barrels a day worst-case scenario for gulf spill, BP tells Congress
BP, the company responsible for fighting the spill, told members of Congress in Washington in a closed-door briefing that the leaking oil well five miles beneath the surface of the gulf could, in a worst-case scenario, spill as many as 60,000 barrels of oil a day, more than 10 times the estimate of the current flow.
Toxic Transfer Bernanke's Biggest Bailout
Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05042010.html
The right-wing white paper mill, the American Enterprise Institute, is helping the Federal Reserve to develop a strategy to transfer $1.25 trillion in toxic mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and non performing loans onto the public's balance sheet. Although it's unknown whether Fed chair Ben Bernanke will act on the AEI's recommendations, it does show that the Fed's Quantitative Easing program (QE)--which moved the bulk of garbage assets from the banks to the Fed's balance sheet--poses long-term problems that will need to be addressed. Bernanke never intended to keep these assets any longer than necessary. Now he is actively exploring options for getting rid of them.
"Did Your Momma Tell You That?" The Greek Crisis
Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/baker05042010.html
Keynes quipped in the General Theory that the world is ruled by the ideas of long dead economists. I was reminded of this comment when I heard a member of Germany’s parliament scornfully dismiss the suggestion that the European Central Bank should target a somewhat higher rate of inflation. This suggestion had been put forward by Oliver Blanchard, one of the world’s leading macroeconomists. Furthermore, he had proposed a higher inflation target in his role as the chief economist for the International Monetary Fund.
Oil slick reportedly hits US isles
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/05/201054235845403649.html
Oil giant BP is investigating reports that the massive oil slick from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico has reached an island off the US state of Louisiana. Streaks of the slick and large areas of sheen could be seen around the remote Chandeleur islands, media reports said.
Alabama builds oil defences - Video
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/05/20105571452592507.html
Work is under way in the United States to protect the coastline and minimise losses amid fears that the oil slick following an explosion at an offshore rig might hit the shore. At Dauphin island, off the state of Alabama, a sand wall is being built on the beach to protect homes and roads.
Greek demonstrations turn deadly
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/05/201055121441950887.html
Three people have been killed in a petrol bomb attack on a bank in central Athens, as protests in the capital over the government's spending cuts turned violent. Athens police were put on a "general state of alert" as firemen evacuated around 20 people still trapped inside the wreckage of a Marfin Bank branch, set on fire as protesters hurled firebombs and smashed shop windows.
Medical Marijuana Legal in Foggy Bottom, on Capitol Hill and all over Washington D.C.
Personally, I hope the smell stinks up the whole rotten town. This article from the Examiner gives more details: One of the biggest expenses the medical marijuana lobby has had to face is the cost getting US Congressmen and Senators out of town for a medical marijuana dispensary tour. That expense was eliminated today with the unanimous passage of Initiative 59 by the Washington DC Council.
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