Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27510.htm

Faced with a near-certain Republican victory that would end a half-century of collective bargaining for public workers, Wisconsin Democrats retaliated with the only weapon they had left: They fled.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27507.htm

The fever sweeping the Middle East is now coursing through Libya, Yemen, Iran and Bahrain, where the U.S. Fifth Fleet is based. In all four nations, state violence is being used to crush the rebels, and regime survival hangs on whether security forces and the army stand behind the government or stand aside. A new Middle East is dawning. What will it look like? Perhaps the nation to study is Turkey, which has already gone through a democratic and dramatic transformation.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/18/bahrain-libya-yemen-protests-violence

Reports of dozens killed by Gaddaffi's security forces, while Bahrain troops leave scores wounded. Protesters in Tobruk seen knocking over statue of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's Green Book in footage posted on YouTube Link to this video. Violence in Libya and Bahrain has claimed scores of lives and left many more injured as the two Arab countries were united by popular protests that continue to shake the status quo and sound alarm bells across the region and the world.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/18

In March, 2002, American citizen Jose Padilla was arrested in Chicago and publicly accused by then-Attorney-General John Ashcroft of being "The Dirty Bomber." Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a military brig in South Carolina, where he was held for almost two years completely incommunicado (charges with no crime and denied all access to the outside world, including even a lawyer) and was brutally tortured, both physically and psychologically. All of this -- including the torture -- was carried out pursuant to orders from President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/18-9

Forced at gunpoint this weekend to clean out a lot of old paper files in anticipation of some home improvements, I ran across some articles and obituaries I had saved following the death, a little more than five and a half years ago, of the late, great Ann Richards, former governor of Texas.

Link: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2011/02/18/houston-cops-stomp-15-yr-old-charged-wit

The recent public release of a video capturing police brutality that resulted in seven Houston police officers being fired while only being charged with misdemeanors has prompted fresh outrage.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin/

What's happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit."

Link: http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20033717-281.html?tag=topTechContentWrap;editorPicks

A Senate proposal that has become known as the Internet "kill switch" bill was reintroduced this week, with a tweak its backers say eliminates the possibility of an Egypt-style disconnection happening in the United States. The 221-page bill hands Homeland Security the power to issue decrees to certain privately owned computer systems after the president declares a "national cyberemergency." A section in the new bill notes that does not include "the authority to shut down the Internet," and the name of the bill has been changed to include the phrase "Internet freedom."

Link: http://www.alternet.org/news/149965/wisconsin_is_a_battleground_against_the_billionaire_kochs%27_plan_to_break_labor%27s_back/

The war on Wisconsin employees isn't just about the budget or Wisconsin: Koch toady Gov. Walker is just one soldier in the billionaire's offensive to kill labor. As some 30,000 protesters overwhelmed the state capitol building in Wisconsin today, Democratic state senators hit the road, reportedly with State Police officers in pursuit. The Dems left the state in order to deprive Republicans the necessary quorum for taking a vote on Gov. Scott Walker's bill to strip benefits and collective bargaining rights from state workers.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/returning-national-guard-troops-set-to-smash-wisconsin-protest/

Coincidence or not, the fact that hundreds of National Guard troops are returning to Wisconsin today fresh from battling insurgents in Iraq is sure to alarm union protesters who labeled Governor Scott Walker’s move to put the Guard on alert last week a “threat” designed to intimidate demonstrators who are currently massed around the Capitol in Madison.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/deception-at-the-fed-2/

For the past three decades, the Federal Reserve has been given a dual mandate: keeping prices stable and maximizing employment. This policy relies not only on the fatal conceit of believing in the wisdom of supposed experts, but also on numerical chicanery.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011218104510878522.html

Reports of deaths as thousands turn out to demand better service delivery and jobs from government. Violent protests have taken place at various locations in Iraq, with anti-government protesters rallying against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/20112184122210251.html

Troops open live fire around Pearl roundabout in Manama after nightfall, at least 66 wounded. Shots were fired by soldiers around Pearl roundabout in Manama, the Bahraini capital, a day after police forcibly cleared a protest encampment from the traffic circle. The circumstances of the shooting after nightfall on Friday were not clear. Officials at the main Salmaniya hospital said at least 66 people were injured, some with gunshot wounds to the head and chest.

Link: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/18/gordon-duff-raymond-davis-hillarys-diplomatic-thug/

Diplomats don’t carry guns. They aren’t supposed to drive around in cars, shooting and running people over. We have seen this behavior a lot recently, part of a pattern of organized banditry, terrorism and mayhem America used to call the Global War on Terror. That war is over, written off as a joke. The behaviors are there, the killings, the drones, the torture.