Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/02/29/the-tsa-is-coming-to-a-highway-near-you/

One of the great honors of my service to Tennessee is having the opportunity to represent Ft. Campbell which is home to the storied 101st Airborne, the 5th Special Forces Group and the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment which piloted Navy SEAL Team Six during the raid on Osama Bin Laden.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/02/virginia-declares-emperor-has-no.html

Virginia's Senate voted today (39-1) to nullify NDAA 2012 provisions to seize American citizens at the dictate of the federal executive branch. They joined the House's 96-4 vote.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21761

When asked what newspapers she read, Sarah Palin answered, "Oh, I read them all." While it’s safe to assume that this was a disingenuous answer, it’s probably equally safe to assume that Palin can, in fact, read. This is a skill set that Sarah MUST teach congress because we learned yesterday that congress CANNOT READ AT ALL.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/rights/154353/10_ways_aipac_undermines_democracy_at_home_and_in_the_middle_east/

AIPAC has tremendous clout but its influence has been disastrous for U.S. foreign policy and U.S. democracy. Here are ten reasons why AIPAC is so dangerous.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/activism/154352/arrested_for_meditating_why_it%27s_radical_to_stay_nonviolent_in_the_face_of_police_brutality/

An interview with the activist who made headlines when he was arrested while meditating at Occupy Oakland. Occupy Oakland has been at the forefront of some of Occupy’s most visible actions—a massive general strike on November 2, a shutdown of the Port of Oakland, and attempts to occupy vacant buildings. And it’s become known for the brutality of police actions, especially the case of Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen, who was hit by a tear-gas canister fired by police and suffered a severe head injury.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/belief/154330/5_great_moments_in_history_that_could_teach_christian_zealots_important_lessons/

These important moments helped establish and maintain the separation of church and state in America. Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum says John F. Kennedy’s strong defense of church-state separation makes him want to “throw up.”

Link: http://thedailybell.com/3649/Ron-Paul-Economy-Squeezed-As-Debt-Accelerates

Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, has pointed out that our per capita government debt is already larger than Greece's. Per person, our government owes over $49,000 compared to $38,937 per Greek citizen. Our debt has just reached 101% of our Gross Domestic Product. Our creditors see this and have quietly slowed down or stopped their lending to us. As a result, the Federal Reserve has been outright monetizing debt as a way to patch things together and keep the economy on life support a little longer.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/154328/bribery_allegations_increase_likelihood_that_murdoch%27s_media_outlets_will_face_charges_in_us/

US authorities are considering action against News Corp under the FCPA, a law that allows officials to go after US firms alleged to have bribed foreign officials.

Link: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/19-signs-that-america-has-become-a-crazy-control-freak-nation-where-almost-everything-is-illegal

Do you think that you are free? Most Americans would still probably answer "yes" to that question, but is that really the case? In the film Edge of Darkness, Mel Gibson stated that "everything is illegal in Massachusetts". Well, the same could pretty much be said for the United States as a whole. Our lives are governed by millions of laws, rules and regulations and more are being piled on all the time. In fact, 40,000 new laws...

Link: http://powerpointparadise.com/blog/2012/02/the-money-boys-are-twisting-europes-euro-arm-to-abolish-national-sovereignty/

INTRO: It has come to the point now that the Banksters’ European Czars are forcing the European member states to give up their national sovereignty and financial independence even more. This article by Anthony Migchels of real currencies explains the dire situation of the moment very well, as do many of his articles.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/pers-f27.shtml

Mass protests at US and NATO facilities throughout Afghanistan over the past week, after US troops burned Korans at Bagram Air Base, testify to the Afghan population’s deep hatred for the US-led occupation, now in its eleventh year.

Link: http://www.silviacattori.net/article2888.html

The Arab Digest had previously reported on Syrian Opposition member, Mamoun Al-Homsi, and his call for ethnic cleansing of minorities in Syria. Well, new questions emerge on his politics and suspicious ties with Israel.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21753

The real world revolves around cash flow. Families across the land understand this basic concept. Cash flows in from wages, investments and these days from the government. Cash flows out for food, gasoline, utilities, cable, cell phones, real estate taxes, income taxes, payroll taxes, clothing, mortgage payments, car payments, insurance payments, medical bills, auto repairs, home repairs, appliances, electronic gadgets, education, alcohol (necessary in this economy) and a countless other everyday expenses. If the outflow exceeds the inflow a family may be able to fund the deficit with credit cards for awhile, but ultimately running a cash flow deficit will result in debt default and loss of your home and assets. Ask the millions of Americans that have experienced this exact outcome since 2008...

Link: http://usawatchdog.com/gas-prices-signal-tsunami-of-inflation/

A good friend of mine, who has family living abroad, called me this weekend. One of the first things out of his mouth was about his sister in London and how she was dealing with ?terrible inflation.?

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/26/super-sherpa-says-climate-change-may-make-mount-everest-unclimbable/

Climate change is altering the face of the Himalayas, devastating farming communities and making Mount Everest increasingly treacherous to climb, some of the world’s top mountaineers have warned. Apa Sherpa, the Nepali climber who has conquered Mount Everest a record 21 times, said he was disturbed by the lack of snow on the world’s highest peak, caused by rising temperatures.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30652.htm

Clip showing admittance of the CIA that they use the mainstream media to manipulate the thoughts and ideas of American citizens in the USA.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21729

Tokyo Radiation Level 25 Times the Fukushima Mandatory Evacuation Zone (San Francisco) Widely known Physicist Dr Paolo Scampa, the publisher of the EU AIPRI Blog and an eminent chemical physicist, announced today his latest calculations of deadly radioactivity in Tokyo itself. The Tokyo suburbs are about 100 miles or 160 km South of the six destroyed, deteriorating and badly leaking nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Station for Nuclear Reactors.

Link: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-economic-statistics-to-use-to-wake-sheeple-up-from-their-entertainment-induced-comas

The Dow has closed above 13,000 for the first time since 2008, and the mainstream media is declaring that a strong economic recovery is underway. Barack Obama is telling anyone who will listen that his economic policies are a huge success, and U.S. consumers are piling up astounding amounts of new debt. Unfortunately, this euphoria about the economy will be short-lived.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/154299/meet_the_governors_behind_%22state-rape%22_transvaginal_ultrasound_laws_%28it%27s_not_just_virginia%29/

And why, why, why did Bob McDonnell, the governor of the great state of Virginia, a man on every Republican presidential hopeful's short list for vice-president ever feel he needed to? "But wait!" you say, "Bob McDonnell backed off his support for this bill. He clearly realized that this was one of the most profoundly invasive hideous pieces of legislation anyone could imagine." Yeah, not quite.

Link: http://www.batr.org/totalitariancollectivism/022612.html

"The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral, even dominant partner with the state." -- Sheldon S. Wolin. Stricken with a terminal disease, the decline of traditional society is unavoidable. For decades, the political institutions that fostered a Republic based upon individual liberty and responsibility fade into fond memory. Defenders of all that made America a shining example of human freedom are attacked and ridiculed for holding onto a moral and ethical system that is based upon the dignity of every individual.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/environment/154279/7_dangerous_lies_about_plastic/

To date, we use over 248,000 chemicals in commerce and we don't know which ones are harmful or safe. Why? Because the vast amount of research on plastics we use in our lives comes from the plastic industry. Much of the plastic we see on a daily basis we know by its designated recycling numbers 1 through 7. These plastics are not pure; rather, they're a proprietary formulation of additives, some of which have been shown to be endocrine disrupters, carcinogenic and pose countless other health concerns...

Link: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/02/popular-media-personality-the-u-s-has-the-moral-authority-to-annihilate-iran-because-theyre-evil.html

Tucker Carlson says that the U.S. has the moral authority to annihilate Iran because they’re evil.

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2012/02/25/jesus-christ-america-get-control-of-your

It’s because they’re such pussies. Stupid conservatives applauded when that pansy Bush merely invaded Iraq. I say we should’ve instead just gone ahead and incinerated all one billion Muslims on the planet (and then grabbed our oil from underneath their ashes, while we’re there). Why weenie-out and just wreck a single country when you can clobber them all? What’s the point of sitting on five or six thousand nukes if you’re never gonna use them? They’re all terrorists, anyhow.

Link: http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9010176064

Japanese Ambassador to Tehran Kinichi Komano praised the Iranian nation's astonishing and rapid progress in different scientific and technological fields in the last two decades. "The Islamic Republic has made rapid and giant progress in science, industry and technology in the last 20 years," Komano told FNA on Saturday. Meantime, he referred to certain countries' attempts to impede Iran's scientific progress, specially in the field of nuclear technology, and said, "Certainly, as a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy resources."

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30647.htm

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague has announced today at the fluffily named “Friends of Syria” conference, that Britain will only recognise the anti-Assad side of the conflict, as “legitimate representatives” of the country’s people [1]; meaning hundreds of thousands of citizens loyal to the Assad Government will now be ignored and effectively treated as enemy combatants – typical of the biased reporting so far. Hague fails to address evidence that members of the opposition include Al Qaeda terrorists, that armed rebels are covertly directed by Western forces, and suspicions of CIA death squads deliberately used for destabilization.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/25-5

The entire world seems to be one huge advertisement for The Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein showed in her revelatory book how the corporate-political-military-media complex exploits crises to further impose their harsh right-wing agenda – even when they themselves created the crisis. In a sane world, the economic meltdown and deep recession of the past four years would have led at minimum to stringent regulation of financiers and speculators plus programs to assist their victims. But in this world, you have to be nuts to believe in a sane world.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/02/25-0

Increasingly frequent and tragic railway accidents in Argentina, like this week’s crash, show that the rail system, run by private companies that receive hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies from the state, constantly ignores warnings from inspectors and fines, observers say.

Link: http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/wyoming-house-advances-doomsday-bill/article_af6e1b2b-0ca4-553f-85e9-92c0f58c00bd.html

CHEYENNE — State representatives on Friday advanced legislation to launch a study into what Wyoming should do in the event of a complete economic or political collapse in the United States. House Bill 85 passed on first reading by a voice vote. It would create a state-run government continuity task force, which would study and prepare Wyoming for potential catastrophes, from disruptions in food and energy supplies to a complete meltdown of the federal government.

Link: http://empirestrikesblack.com/2012/02/angelina-jolie-conscripted-to-sell-genocidal-humanitarian-intervention-war-doctrine/

Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador to the UN and member of CFR, is now using her profile to promote NATO’s genocidal ‘humanitarian intervention’ war doctrine. In an interview with the Balkans branch of Al Jazeera (NATO’s ‘Ministry of Truth’), Jolie (whose father has been a staunch defender of George W. Bush and who also visited Israel to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba) promotes her new film ‘In the Land of Blood and Honey’, a pro-war propaganda set-piece centred around the ‘humanitarian intervention’.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/breaking-addiction-incarceration-weekly-highlights-14

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness.

Link: http://www.activistpost.com/2012/02/city-mayor-gives-endorsement-to-soviet.html

Mayor of Elgin, a small city located inside Kershaw County, is now endorsing the round-the-clock DUI checkpoints initiated by the Sheriff’s Department. Sheriff put all his officers on high alert when a local activist, Jeff Mattox, “Liked” an article on Facebook.Although the Sheriff’s Department received bad publicity regarding the ridiculous response by the Sheriff, it did not stop him from implementing a policy of round-the-clock checkpoints located all over the county.

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willie-nelson/occupy-food_b_1299401.html

Of the 40,000 food items in a typical U.S. grocery store, more than half are now brought to us by just 10 corporations.Corporate control of our food system has led to the loss of millions of family farmers, the destruction of soil fertility, the pollution of our water.On a global scale, the consolidation of our food system has meant devastation for farmers, forests and the climate.

Link: http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/02/debunking-the-myth-that-war-is-good-for-the-economy-once-and-for-all.html

Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan also said that war is bad for the economy.Military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment.

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/spai-f21.shtml

In Madrid an estimated 110,000 protestors took the streets according to El País, while the unions put the figure at 500,000.The labour reforms mean employers can reduce the salaries of workers by claiming this is necessary for competitiveness or productivity. New training and apprenticeship contracts, will create poor paying jobs , an end to collective wage bargaining.

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/feb2012/spai-f24.shtml

February 20 demonstration by students and schoolchildren in the Spanish city of Valencia was subject to a violent attack by police. The city was flooded with police, who made 43 arrests, including eight minors. Dozens were injured.
This was the fourth demonstration since protests first began outside Lluís Vives public school last week, after a young student was detained by the police. Police have attacked students, parents, teachers and even passersby with batons and rubber bullets.

Link: http://www.loop21.com/politics/poor-usa-14-million-americans-live-2-day

USA Today is reporting that 1.46 million Americans are living in extreme poverty, or $2 a day for at least a month.The number has doubled since 1996 when 636,000 Americans were living in "extreme poverty."

Link: http://thestir.cafemom.com/in_the_news/133341/grandfather_gets_arrested_for_holding

Dennis Fleming, 61, came home on Saturday night to discover that his home had been robbed. He saw the burglar, Joseph Hebert, 27, climbing out of his neighbor’s window. Mr. Fleming yelled, “Freeze!” and fired a shot into the ground before holding the crook at gunpoint. Yes, you read that right: A grandfather of 14 was arrested for not letting a criminal escape. What was he supposed to do -- hold him down? Then they probably would have arrested him for assault and battery. We are talking about a 61-year-old man versus a 27-year-old man. That this man would be charged is an outrage. Burglars in New Hampshire must know it's open season . This is charging the victim.

Link: http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=106844

Launched in June 2010, Nisaa FM is an almost entirely female-run Palestinian radio station based in Ramallah, West Bank and the only radio station in the Middle East devoted solely to women’s issues. Its director Maysoun Odeh Gangat says that the station aims to inform, inspire and empower local women.
"Through the positive role that the women are playing in the society that we portray, we believe that we can empower women economically and then socially and politically.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2012/02/22/living-wage-fight-at-northwestern

IN THE fall of 2009, a group of students from the Northwestern Community Development Corps circulated a petition that called for the university to pay a living wage to all its employees. University President Morton Schapiro. promised to "look into it."Finally, two years later in September 2011, union workers reached a landmark agreement with their employer Sodexho. The new contract immediately raised the minimum wage to $10 an hour and increased the wages of those who were already making that much by 80 cents--with the promise of more increases over the next few years. The agreement also won workers better health care benefits.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/09/civil-liberties-free-zone-in-chicago

CHICAGO MAYOR Rahm Emanuel wants to set up his own personal police state to accommodate the warmongers and budget-slashers who will attend a conference of the global 1 percent in Chicago in May.Emanuel is giddy about the "opportunity" to host simultaneous gatherings of the U.S.-dominated NATO military alliance and the Group of Eight (G8) club of powerful industrial nations also dominated by the U.S., set for May 19-21. The last time both entities met together was in 1977 in London.