Link: http://www.alternet.org/news/148201/watch%3A_as_israel_slides_toward_fascism%2C_citizens_and_supporters_swear_their_loyalty/

Swearing a loyalty oath to Israel as an ethnic state is gaining legitimacy; a video produced by the authors shows the willingness of Israeli residents to pledge allegiance.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/michigan-roadside-drugtest-drivers/

A bill working its way through Michigan's legislature could make the state the first in the nation to allow road-side drug testing of drivers without a warrant, but some critics say it may be a way to jail legal pot users under the state's new medical marijuana law.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39215770/ns/health-health_care/

Latest Census report shows 50.7 million people don't have health insurance. In a reflection of the battered economy, the number of people without health insurance rose sharply last year to 50.7 million — an all time high — according to data released Thursday by the Census Bureau. That pushed the rate of uninsured Americans to 16.7 percent last year from 15.4 percent in 2008, when there were 46.3 million uninsured. It was one of the largest single year increases since the Census starting tracking the figure in 1987.

Link: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52868

Many of those who have lost their jobs and homes in the United States due to the lingering economic recession are ending up in jail, according to a new study released by an independent think tank Thursday.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2010/09/16/the-other-housing-crisis

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor examines an aspect of the housing crisis that the media pay little attention to--the struggle of renters to find affordable housing. MOST OF the news coverage of the housing crisis has focused on the plight of homeowners: declining home sales, the continuing and unabated rise of foreclosures on single-family homes, and the growing number of mortgages that are "under water"--that is, the loans are for more than the actual value of the homes, with the decline in home values.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/roma-s16.shtml

In a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, EU commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship Viviane Reding accused the French government of “discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin or race” and of calling into question “the common values and laws of our European Union”. She described the French policy as a “disgrace”.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/16/the_nation__docs_reveals_blackwater

"Blackwater’s Black Ops"—that’s the title of an explosive new article in The Nation magazine that reveals how entities closely linked with the private security firm Blackwater have provided security and intelligence services to a range of powerful corporations over the past several years. The companies include Monsanto, Chevron, Deutsche Bank and others. Blackwater has also provided intelligence and training services to foreign governments, including Jordan, the Canadian military and the Dutch police. We speak with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill. [includes rush transcript]

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/16-11

The mass media remains one of the most powerful forces blocking social and economic progress in the 21st century. It is because of the mass media that tens of millions of Americans are convinced that budget deficits are more important than the lives ruined by unemployment, or that Social Security won't be there for them when they retire. Or that their government's occupation of Afghanistan and its hundreds of military bases around the world, are protecting the "national security" of U.S. citizens.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/16-4

The withering recession pushed the number of Americans who are living in poverty to a 51-year high in 2009 and left a record 50.7 million people without health insurance last year, the Census Bureau announced Thursday. The 43.6 million Americans who were poor in 2009 - up from 39.8 million the year before - was the most since poverty estimates were first published in 1959. The national poverty rate of 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008, was the highest since 1994.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/sep/16/united-states-china-currency-manipulation

It's autumn, so it's time for Washington to ask, as it does every six months, whether any of its major trading partners are currency manipulators seeking to gain an unfair competitive advantage. China, as ever, is the prime suspect. In the world outside Washington, most people might say the question has an easy answer. Of course, China manipulates its currency: the yuan is allowed to trade in only a very tight range against the dollar and China's export success is built partly on that foundation.

Link: http://www.truth-out.org/jim-hightower-exporting-jobs-importing-workers63319

Maybe you're one of the thousands of young lawyers in America working in some low-skill, part-time job because law firms have cut so many of the starting positions you were educated to take. If so, I have good news: Jobs for young lawyers are now mushrooming in companies that provide legal services to U.S. corporations. Unfortunately, you'll have to move to India to get one. And the pay will be -- how shall I put this? -- "disappointing."

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/disney-monsanto-discovered-blackwaters-hidden-clients/

Almost three years ago exactly -- Sept. 17, 2007 -- a cadre of guards from the security firm then known as Blackwater shot and killed 17 Iraqis at a public plaza in Baghdad.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/palin-tells-odonnell-speak-fox/

When Sarah Palin spoke with Fox's Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday about Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell's campaign in Delaware, the two of them sounded less like a host and a news analyst than like a pair of political strategists hashing over plans for how Fox could best serve the Republican Party. Palin even went so far as to advise that if O'Donnell is going to overcome negative perceptions of her, "She's going to have to ... get out there, speak to the American people, speak through Fox News."

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/carter-kennedy-killed-health-reform/

Ted Kennedy, the iconic senator from Massachusetts who passed away last year, was responsible for the failure of then-President Jimmy Carter's health reform plan in the 1970s, the result of a personal rivalry between the two politicians, Carter says.

Link: http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2010/09/16/photo-essay-the-destruction-of-palestine-village-by-village-over-and-over-again/

This morning shortly before sunrise in the wasteland of Israeli democracy, Israeli armed forces destroyed a Bedouin village in the Negav desert…for the fifth time.

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39207626/ns/business-real_estate/

High unemployment, other problems point to lingering housing pain Video. A record number of homeowners lost houses to their banks in August as lenders worked through the backlog of distressed mortgages, real estate data company RealtyTrac said Thursday. New default notices decreased at the same time, suggesting that lenders managed the flow of troubled loans and foreclosed properties hitting the market to limit price declines, the company said.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=13434

Among the clash of voices near Ground Zero this 9/11, we had the shouts for and against an Islamic Cultural Center, creating another layer of chaos and diversion amidst the people, thanks to the Islamic Cultural Center’s Council on Foreign Relations funded Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. The bullhorns could be heard from the intended site of the old Burlington Coat Factory several blocks away from where I stood with members of WeAreChange at Trinity Church in near silence.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newsvideo/us-politics-video/8006176/Mahmoud-Ahmadinejad-condemns-Americas-ugly-zionists.html

Speaking exclusively to NBC, the Iranian President claims a small minority of Americans are fuelling anti-Muslim feelings over the ground zero Mosque controversy. Pictures from AP.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/8005597/Hurricanes-Julia-and-Igor-churn-the-Atlantic-as-simultaneous-storms-rage-for-first-time-in-a-decade.html

Hurricanes Julia and Igor were moving across the Atlantic in the first time in a decade that there have been two category four storms in the seas at the same time. Forecasters have predicted that this year could be one of the worst on record for hurricanes.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=52851

Extra permits to pollute the atmosphere would be given to corporations that invest in areas surrounding tropical rainforests under plans drawn up by one of Europe's most influential pressure groups. With deforestation accounting for 20 percent of global releases of heat- trapping gases, the future of schemes ostensibly aimed at preserving tropical ecosystems will be one of the key topics for the United Nations' climate change negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, during November and December. Chief among these schemes is the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), under which rich countries can buy "credits" that allow them to avoid reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) at home by financing environmental projects in poorer parts of the world.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney09152010.html

Fear gripped Wall Street on the morning of September 15, 2008, as investment giant Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following weeks of stock market losses and the steady downgrading of its assets. Traders hoped that the century-old warhorse would be saved in an 11th hour reprieve. But when last minute negotiations with Barclays broke down, Lehman had no choice but to call it quits. The news sparked a frenzied selloff as millions of shares were dumped at firesale prices. As fear turned to panic, turbulence spread across the markets and the grim predictions of a systemwide meltdown began to materialize.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/carlsen09162010.html

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated Wednesday that Mexico and Central America were facing an “insurgency” that requires the equivalent of a Plan Colombia in the region. Her comments immediately raised the ire of the Mexican government and sparked fears of expanded U.S. military intervention.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20220

For almost 40 years, the United States has waged a war on its own citizens who have used marijuana as a part of a drug culture originally encouraged by the government. The war was commenced despite the government’s own findings that marijuana posed less of a risk to American society than alcohol, and that the greatest harm that would result from criminalization would be the injury caused to those arrested for possession and use. The harm caused by the war extends beyond its 15 million prisoners; its cost has exceeded a trillion dollars, and it has benefitted only those who profit from the illegal cultivation and sale of marijuana.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/oreilly-says-911-truth-activists-are-dangerous-radicals/

Anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan recently said she believes the 9/11 attacks were an inside job. Maybe O’Reilly would have the government keep her away from Ground Zero? Bill O’Reilly is at it again. Remember when he called for squashing the First Amendment of Americans opposed to the illegal invasion of Iraq? “And it is our duty as loyal Americans to shut up once the fighting begins, unless — unless facts prove the operation wrong, as was the case in Vietnam,” said Bill on March 3, 2003. Facts soon revealed that the neocons had bamboozled the nation into invading Iraq under false pretense, but we didn’t get a retraction from Bill. Now O’Reilly is characterizing 9/11 Truth activists as dangerous radicals.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2010/09/2010916104022372281.html

As consensus grows regarding the futility of US national security policy, concerns arise over Barack Obama's strategy. Possibly the most dramatic mea culpa in Presidential history, Bill Clinton, newly appointed as UN Special Envoy for Haiti, admitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US policy of compelling poor developing countries to buy US agricultural products at subsidised prices, which destroyed local agricultural sectors, was a disaster. “I did that. I have to live every day with the consequences of the lost capacity to produce a rice crop in Haiti to feed those people, because of what I did. Nobody else."

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/sep/16/tea-party-victories-republican-midterms

Karl Rove and the neocons were the inspiration for the Tea Party. But they've lost control and now it threatens to overwhelm them. Carl Paladino stood at the victory podium and bellowed: "Tonight the ruling class knows. They have seen it now. There is a people's revolution." Paladino, the Tea Party-backed candidate whom New York Republicans nominated for governor on Tuesday, crushed his establishment opponent – a former congressman with a somewhat moderate reputation – by two to one. This was after a campaign in which he went round the state with a pit bull at his side, tried to bury his opponent in demagogic rhetoric about the proposed Manhattan Islamic centre, and likened the Democratic and Orthodox Jewish speaker of the state's lower legislative chamber to Hitler.

Link: http://bloghumanbeingsfirst.wordpress.com:80/2010/09/16/911-and-imperial-mobilization-redux-by-zahir-ebrahim/

“911 is is a point of departure for me … I see the deliberate hands of the American-Israeli intelligence agencies and/or “Second Foundationers” from deep within the American ruling elite in orchestrating this New Pearl Harbor. For a country that can sense what is deep within the bowels of the Earth and in the farthest reaches of the heavens, that seeks “full spectrum dominance” of air, land, sea, space, cyberspace, et. al. in its own military doctrines, and that publicly warns in its strategy documents that the only way for it to embark on this “imperial mobilization” is an increased military budget that can only come about in a “new pearl harbor”, 9-11 has only one reality – self-inflicted.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/pers-s16.shtml

The upset victory of far-right Tea Party candidates in Tuesday's Republican primary elections must be seen within the context of an immense social crisis and growing economic distress in the United States. The victory, in particular, of two candidates opposed by the Republican Party establishment—Christine O'Donnell in the Delaware senatorial primary and Carl Paladino in the New York gubernatorial primary—is a distorted reflection of the general growth of popular anger and disillusionment with the political system.

Link: http://america-hijacked.com:80/2010/09/16/sniegoski-richard-cohen-israel-liability-for-us/

Critics of the US “special relationship” with Israel hold that it is detrimental to American interests in the Middle East. Its supporters, however, normally claim the opposite—that Israel is actually an American strategic asset. (The Chomskyites are the odd men out since even though they are critical of American and Israeli policies, they maintain that US support for Israel is beneficial for the imperialistic interests of the (predominantly gentile) US ruling class, though harmful to the American masses.)