Link: http://dont-tread-on.me/children-begging-at-the-feet-of-power-occupy-wall-st/

“Let them march all they want, so long as they pay their taxes.” -Alexander Haig. While I do not support the collectivist effort (protests) or solution (redistribution of wealth) some of these protestors have I don’t want to ignore the issue completely. I wrote awhile ago that when the Tea Party marched on Washington that it was an exercise in futility and that nothing would come from it. You cannot solve debt with more debt… You cannot solve collectivism with more collectivism… You cannot change the world… You can only change yourself.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/pers-s28.shtml

With the major powers lurching back into recession, governments on both sides of the Atlantic are planning another huge bailout of the banks. There are significant differences over how such a bailout should be organised, but there is general agreement that hundreds of billions more in public funds must be allocated to cover the banks’ losses from a sovereign debt default by Greece.

Link: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/28/america-more-than-a-failed-dictatorship/

It is one thing if you can’t ask a kindergarten teacher about world affairs or politics. In America, you can’t ask members of congress, military leaders or even our president.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/09/28-5

About 200 people in Boston express their outrage at America's economic woes – and promise to take up the protest baton. There were socialists, anti-poverty campaigners, students, anarchists, computer hackers, the unemployed, and workers ranging from a vet to an accountant. And, numbering around 200 and meeting to plot until late in the night, a group of Bostonians have decided to recreate the anti-Wall Street protests that are gripping New York.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/ban-censorship-not-books-or-websites

On July 25, 2011, the Republic School District Board in southwest Missouri voted unanimously to ban Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five and Sarah Ockler's Twenty Boy Summer from its curriculum and library. Banning books from libraries is nothing new, but across the nation a brave new era has dawned in the suppression of knowledge.

Link: http://independentnewshub.com/?p=45412

Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has called for a nationwide boycott of the NFL in response to its announcement that attendees to all football games will be groped TSA-style, while Ventura also launched a campaign for a national no fly day set to take place on July 4th 2012.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/vision/152557/the_revolution_begins_at_home%3A_a_clarion_call_to_join_the_wall_street_protests/

We all need to go down and join the occupation -- and not just by "liking" it on Facebook, signing a petition or retweeting protest photos. What is occurring on Wall Street right now is truly remarkable. For over 10 days, in the sanctum of the great cathedral of global capitalism, the dispossessed have liberated territory from the financial overlords and their police army.

Link: http://lunaticoutpost.com/Topic-Feds-Tell-Legal-Medical-Marijuana-Patients-They-Have-No-Right-to-Own-Guns

The feds newest ‘clarifying’ memo regarding medical cannabis (proceeding the 2009 Ogden and 2011 Cole memos) is notable because members of NORML’s Legal Committee recently have been successfully challenging local and state law enforcement officials who’ve chosen to discriminate against lawful medical cannabis patients by denying them permits for a concealed weapon.

Link: http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/mearsheimer-responds-to-goldbergs-latest-smear.html

Gilad Atzmon: Dear friends, this may well be one of the greatest days of my life. Just a few minutes ago, I saw this piece expressing unequivocal support from Professor John J. Mearsheimer clearly one of the most distinguished scholars in our discourse and beyond.

Link: http://alfatah69.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/nato-mercenaries-panic-and-hundreds-quit/

New reports exposing the panic and disarroay even more, hundreds of NATO Mercenaries abandoned the front lines of Bani Walid because their Western supply routes are being disrupted by the Tarhuna Tribe. Many Mercenaries testified that they are running out of ammunition and said that after they received multiple defeats, they were not willing to continue the fight, and wanted to just go home. Different Mercenaries and armed gangs blame each other for the failures, the blaming game sometimes have turned in to inner fighting.

Link: http://nsnbc.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/international-military-support-for-libya-results-in-tnc-withdrawals/

Even Al Jazeera could not deny it any longer. The NATO/TNC forces are on the retreat after the Libyan Military, Tribal and Volunteer Forces implemented strategic and tactical changes, and long awaited support from tribal militia and forces inside and outside Libya is beginning to manifest. The total NATO air superiority however and NATO´s terror bombing of Libya´s civilian population continues and will until a long overdue international intervention manifests. by Dr. Christof Lehmann

Link: http://www.redress.cc/global/ldavidson20110925

Lawrence Davidson argues that the erosion of international law – “the only thing that stands between all of us and the next holocaust” – due to the efforts of Britain and the US to protect Israeli war criminals will rebound on the West.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/abbas-makes-his-case-at-the-un-4480/

After yet another decade of a peace process that is obviously stalled if not terminally ineffective, PA President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to take Palestinian aspirations of statehood to the United Nations.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21215

Our country is bankrupt. It’s not bankrupt in 30 years or five years. It’s bankrupt today. Want proof? Look at President Barack Obama’s 2010 budget. It showed a massive fiscal gap over the next 75 years, the closure of which requires immediate tax increases, spending cuts, or some combination totaling 8 percent of gross domestic product. To put 8 percent of GDP in perspective, this year’s employee and employer payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare will amount to just 5 percent of GDP.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/23-6

The debt deal will hurt the poorest Americans, convinced by Fox and the Tea Party to act against their own welfare. There are two ways of cutting a deficit: raising taxes or reducing spending. Raising taxes means taking money from the rich. Cutting spending means taking money from the poor. Not in all cases of course: some taxation is regressive; some state spending takes money from ordinary citizens and gives it to banks, arms companies, oil barons and farmers. But in most cases the state transfers wealth from rich to poor, while tax cuts shift it from poor to rich.

Link: http://www.nyclu.org/news/nyclu-response-nypd-order-halt-improper-marijuana-arrests

In response to the disclosure of NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly’s directive ordering officers not to arrest people for misdemeanor marijuana possession when the marijuana becomes ‘public’ because an officer has searched a person or directed the person to empty his or her pockets, NYCLU executive director Donna Lieberman issued the following statement:

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/i-am-troy-davis

The state of Georgia has blood on its hands. Last night, Georgia strapped down an innocent human being and forced lethal poison into his veins until he died. In your name; in my name, unashamed and unhesitating.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/2011/09/2011914105518615434.html

The first of a four-part investigation into a world of greed and recklessness that led to financial collapse. In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne. The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/2011/09/201191713542357406.html

Meltdown examines how an epidemic of fear caused banks to stop lending, triggered protests and led to industrial action. In the second episode of Meltdown, we look at how the financial tsunami swept the world. We hear about a renegade executive who nearly destroyed the global financial system and the US treasury secretary who bailed out his friends. Henry 'Hank' Paulson, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs and later an economic advisor to the US government; refused to bail out global financial services firm - the Lehman Brothers. Paulson said it was not the role of government to save private businesses.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152480/what_awful_reality_tv_and_suburban_living_have_to_do_with_the_tea_party%27s_lack_of_empathy/

more than their supposed love of Jesus or the Founding Fathers, more than any coherent principled conservativism, more even than the strong streak of bigotry running through the Tea Party is this gleeful “screw you” attitude. Therefore, the Republican primary has become a contest to see who can heap the most abuse on Americans Tea Partiers don’t identify with.

Link: http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2011/09/19/black-life-is-cheap-in-libya

They are killing black people in Libya. They are killing them in the street, they are killing them in hospitals, they are killing them in transit camps, and they are killing them in their houses. They are not killing any old African. They are killing black Africans, the dark, sub-Saharan Africans. Skin tone, the darkness of one's skin, has become for many blacks in Libya the difference between prison and freedom, death and life.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=105144

KHARTOUM - The Sudanese government says that a majority of the tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting in the country’s Blue Nile state have started returning to the area. This is despite reports by local and international aid agencies that say people are still fleeing the region.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21193

(San Francisco) - Japan is readying six huge, long acting nuclear weapons for immediate use against the country’s economic and military foes. Chief among those is the United States. The weapon is radioactive poison gas from the six destroyed American reactors and old reactor cores at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Fukushima Daiichi is now fully weaponized in concept and, in just days, in real life.

Link: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/25-signs-that-a-horrific-global-water-crisis-is-coming

Every single day, we are getting closer to a horrific global water crisis. This world was blessed with an awesome amount of fresh water, but because of our foolishness it is rapidly disappearing. Rivers, lakes and major underground aquifers all over the globe are drying up, and many of the fresh water sources that we still have available are so incredibly polluted that we simply cannot use them anymore. Without fresh water, we simply cannot function. Just imagine what would happen if the water got cut off in your house and you were not able to go out and buy any. Just think about it. How long would you be able to last? Well, as sources of fresh water all over the globe dry up, we are seeing drought conditions spread. We are starting to see massive "dust storms" in areas where we have never seem them before. Every single year, most of the major deserts around the world are getting bigger and the amount of usable agricultural land in most areas is becoming smaller. Whether you are aware of this or not, the truth is that we are rapidly approaching a breaking point.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/16/pat-downs-tightened-at-nfl-stadiums/

NFL fans are undergoing more extensive pat-downs from security guards before being allowed into stadiums, although the new measure did not prevent a man from using a stun gun at a game last Sunday. The league has asked all 32 clubs to have security guards search fans from their knees to their ankles. Pat-downs for such items as alcohol and weapons were previously done only from the waist and above. An NFL spokesman said the measure began with last week's season openers and was not done in response to a specific threat.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/hightower-perry-executed-a-man-who-was-almost-certainly-innocent/

On his radio show yesterday, progressive radio host Thom Hartmann spoke with populist Texas writer Jim Hightower about Gov. Rick Perry and the troubling tale of Cameron Willingham, a man who was “almost certainly” innocent, yet still was put to death. “This guy really puts the goober in gubernatorial,” Hightower quipped. Perry has presided over 234 executions, more than any other governor of any state in modern times — a fact that Republicans cheered at a recent debate.

Link: http://www.truthout.com/between-race-and-reason-anti-intellectualism-american-life/1314634662

In late October 2008, just days before the U.S. presidential election, George Monbiot of London’s The Guardian, caught perhaps in a mood of deepening anxiety and dread over the impending outcome, leveled an indictment against the American government and at least half of the electorate in the form of a question: “How did politics in the U.S. come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance?”

Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44555210/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.TnSOwOyJ2mk

According to an organization that tracks UFO reports, this summer has been an especially busy period for UFO sightings. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) noted that sightings increased over the past six weeks, with some states more than doubling their normal numbers.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29144.htm

I’m referring, as you might guess, to what happened during Monday’s G.O.P. presidential debate. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Representative Ron Paul what we should do if a 30-year-old man who chose not to purchase health insurance suddenly found himself in need of six months of intensive care. Mr. Paul replied, “That’s what freedom is all about — taking your own risks.” Mr. Blitzer pressed him again, asking whether “society should just let him die.” And the crowd erupted with cheers and shouts of “Yeah!”

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article29147.htm

The UN Palmer Report, which largely exonerated Israel for murdering nine unarmed Turkish civilians in international waters on May 31, 2010, seemed in some ways like the last straw. Prior to its publication, the camel’s back had already mostly broken, and a collapse in Turkish-Israeli ties was looming.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/the-usnato-encirclement-of-russia-4474/

The U.S. and Romania signed an agreement on deployment of the elements of a U.S. missile defense system. Earlier it was reported that some elements of the EUROPRO system will appear in Turkey. Everything indicates that the U.S. military machine and NATO are inexorably approaching the Russian borders.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/16-8

Texas Governor Rick Perry uses his state’s reputation for killing without question to gain applause for his presidential bid from Tea Party audiences that cannot contain their bloodlust. Perry, the frontrunner for the Republican party’s 2012 nomination claims he “never struggled” with questions of justice and injustice, right and wrong, when it comes to approving the executions of Texans.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/16-9

September 11 Remembered, US at War Against the World, and the Ongoing Campaign Against Israeli Occupation. September 11 commemorations were everywhere this past weekend. My own view is that the devastating attacks of September 11 were, along with an enormous human tragedy, a huge crime, a crime against humanity. But they did not threaten our country’s existence, they did not threaten our democracy. It was the acts of September 12, when the Bush administration decided to take the world to war in response, that threatened and continue to threaten our country, our democracy, our security, and the security of much of the rest of the world.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment/standing-solidarity-troy-davis

Next week, the state of Georgia plans to execute Troy Davis despite lingering doubts about his guilt. Today is a Global Day of Solidarity when people all over the world stand together to proclaim that there is too much doubt to execute Troy Davis. Davis finds himself facing death for the fourth time on Wednesday, September 21.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/152414/10_signs_god_is_furious_with_the_right/

Whatever disaster strikes, there's always an upside in religious rightland, always somebody to point the finger at with glee. Let's turn the tables. Why is it that whenever disaster strikes, right-wing religious nuts seem to have all the fun? Some might say it's just because they're sadists, but they always seem to find the silver lining. 9/11? God's calling on America to repent!

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2011/09/15/obamas-cold-war-raytheon-missiles-on-russias-border-by-2018/

It’s not the Cuban missile crisis, but the last time the U.S. was setting up interballistic missiles on the Russian border was when John F. Kennedy was in power back in 1961. At the time, the U.S. had intermediate range ballistic missiles in Turkey. The move prompted the Soviet Union under Nikita Kruschev to build missile bases in Cuba in order to protect the island from U.S. overthrow, setting off a Cold War between the two superpowers.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2011/09/15/death-on-the-job-at-ups

A Chicago Teamster describes how UPS's disregard for the right to a safe workplace took a tragic toll on one of the hottest days of the summer.

Link: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/09/plundering-the-u-s-taxpayer-again/

A Forward analysis of the 995 grants distributed through the national program from 2007 to 2010 found that 734, or 73.7%, went to Jewish organizations. DHS announced its grants for 2011 in late August, and here, too, Jewish groups were the big winners, with 81% of those awards.

Link: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/09/15/why-are-some-americans-so-shockingly-cruel/

Every other civilized country in the world provides universal health care for its citizens. Only in America would you have a scene like the one that unfolded at the Republican debate Monday night. I am embarrassed, saddened, and yes, disgusted, by the behavior and beliefs of the majority of Americans. A new report came out Tuesday, showing that the poverty rate in America rose to a whopping 15.1% in 2010. That means that nearly one in six Americans gets by on less than $11,139 a year, or $22,314 for a family of four. At the same time, the average CEO rakes in $11.3 million EACH.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/152433/rick_perry%3A_selling_sixth-grade_girls%27_health_to_the_highest_bidder/

Perry's mandate of an HPV vaccine for young girls is part of a larger pattern of doing favors for campaign contributors--risks and conservative principles be damned.