International Movement to Open Rafah Border

Egyptian authorities have refused to allow 'Viva Palestina' activists trying to carry humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip to cross into the Sinai Peninsula.

The largest-ever US aid convoy to help the people of Gaza was stopped at the Suez Canal on Saturday on its way to Al Arish, where the rest of the group and supplies will join them before heading for the border crossing into Gaza.

The activists are part of a convoy of at least 200 people -- all Americans, including Charles Barron, a New York City Councilman -- that plan to be in Gaza by July 13.

Full story »

by William Hughes

“I bewail the consequences of those furious passions which seem to belong to man.” - Chief Justice John Marshall

A surreal event took place on July 7, 2009, at the National Press Club, (NPC), in Washington, D.C. Some of the representatives of the “de facto” regime in Honduras, repeatedly denied, in differing fashions, that President Manuel Zelaya was overthrown in a military coup d’etat on June 28, 2009. Not long after the press conference began, however, three gutsy protesters, holding the banner, “Fuera Golpistas,” staged a brief demonstration. They insisted on injecting some reality into the proceedings. They shouted that the coup is “illegal, there is blood on your hands!” They were quickly escorted out of the room, which, incidentally, is named in honor of the late, “Free Press” icon--Edward R. Murrow.

Full story »

Allen L Roland

Greenpeace hangs banner with picture of Obama on Mount Rushmore

Greenpeace's obvious message to Obama is we honor Rushmore's four giants of American Presidential history for their solid principles and leadership ~ not necessarily their political skills. President Obama should take heed that America now needs, more than ever, a man of firm principles and leadership versus another accomplished unprincipled politician :

Where have you gone, Barack ?
You swayed millions of Americans with your impassioned promise of government truth and transparency, single pay health insurance, clean energy and withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and you have reneged on all of these promises for political reasons.

Full story »

David Holthouse

Before the U.S. military made Matt Buschbacher a Navy SEAL, he made himself a soldier of the Fourth Reich.

Before Forrest Fogarty attended Military Police counter-insurgency training school, he attended Nazi skinhead festivals as lead singer for the hate rock band Attack.

And before Army engineer Jon Fain joined the invasion of Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the neo-Nazi National Alliance member fantasized about fighting a war on Jews.

"Ever since my youth -- when I watched WWII footage and saw how well-disciplined and sharply dressed the German forces were -- I have wanted to be a soldier," Fain said in a Winter 2004 interview with the National Alliance magazine Resistance. "Joining the American military was as close as I could get."

Full story »

By Emily Spence

Many people are raised with an orientation, indeed an imperative sense, that puts compassion and ethics -- ones values and principles -- as central to their dealings with others. This foundation becomes part of their identities and shapes the directions that their lives take.

One does not have to look only at charitable institutions to find this to be the case. One can see it in the teacher who works day after day against daunting odds to uplift materially disadvantaged children living in extreme slums. Further, the Girl Scouts, who devise a special project at a senior center, exemplify this mind set when they earnestly strive to bring joy to the elderly of whom many are on their last legs. Likewise, the social workers tirelessly toiling to help families whose homes have been foreclosed and the countless volunteers who gather supplies for victims of disasters typify this focus.

Full story »

Stuart Littlewood

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29205195@N02/sets/72157620573384201/

Britain’s foreign secretary David Miliband - or rather, a henchman on his behalf – has written to me about the government’s response to Israel’s hijacking of the mercy ship Spirit of Humanity on the high seas and the outrageous treatment of six peace-loving British citizens (including the skipper), en route to Gaza not Israel, who had their gear stolen or damaged and were thrown into Israeli jails. The letter contains the usual wet and meaningless expressions like deplore and press and raise the issue, which are the familiar hallmark of Foreign Office mentality.

And I’m told it is "reckless" to travel in international waters. It should, of course, be safe – and would be if the high and mighty Western allies, always talking big against terror, were to enforce maritime law and rid the Eastern Mediterranean of marauding Israeli pirates.

Full story »

By GILAD ATZMON

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
-- Karl Marx 1843

Before I launch into a disclosure of liberal and leftist delusional treatment of religions, Islam and Palestine in particular, I would like to share with you a bad racist joke. Beware; you may not want to share this short tale with your feminist friends.

An American female activist who visited Afghanistan in the late 1990s was devastated to find out that women were marching 15 ft behind their men. She soon learned from her local translator that this was due to some religious guidelines that ruled [this is the way we show] respect for the ‘head of the family’.

Full story »

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Beware of leaders who come to power in troubled times, and then use foreign threats and economic crises to bolster their own power.

It was common on the left to intimate that George W. Bush was like Hitler, a remark that would drive the National Review crowd through the roof but which I didn't find entirely outrageous. Bush's main method of governance was to stir up fear of foreign enemies and instigate a kind of nationalist hysteria about the need for waging war and giving up liberty through security.

Hitler is the most famous parallel here, but he is hardly the only one. Many statesmen in world history have used the same tactics, dating back to ancient times. Machiavelli wrote in his Art of War advice to the ruler: "To know how to recognize an opportunity in war, and take it, benefits you more than anything else." But what's the point of studying Hitler's rise to power unless it is to learn from that history and apply the lessons?

Full story »

From LPAC

Even as the U.S. Senate and the Group of 8 nations meeting in Italy continue their endless jabbering about greenhouse gases, nature is not cooperating.

The global climate has entered a phase of cooling and reduced solar activity, which some experts believe could bring on serious crop failures and food shortages. The serious fear now is that the continued low activity of the Sun forebodes an extended period of cooling, perhaps enough to bring on another Little Ice Age. Anyone who is not addressing that reality is blowing bubbles in the wind.

The global average temperature for the Earth has been decreasing over the past 8 to 10 years. The cooling that was shown by the satellite temperature data for May 2008 negated the entire globally averaged temperature increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius for the past 150 years, which Al Gore says was dangerous global warming. The latest release of the global average satellite temperature data for June 2009 revealed another large drop in the Earth's temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means, despite all of his scary stories of drowning polar bears and massive sea-level rise, the Earth's temperature has cooled 0.74 degrees Fahrenheit (0.39 degrees Celsius) since former Vice President Al Gore released his sci-fi horror comedy documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" in January 2006.

Full story »

Allen L Roland

It's now an Obama Depression...

By refusing to take the necessary steps to bail out Main Street versus Wall Street ~ the Bush Recession has become the Obama Depression and the worst is yet to come as real unemployment accelerates:

I went shopping yesterday with Keiko. We were looking for a fun dress for my granddaughter Sofia ~ who will be celebrating her ninth birthday this weekend. We visited the Corte Madera Shopping Center which features an abundance of high end shops including Macy's, Nordstroms, Gap, Banana Republic Pottery Barn and many other well known names.

Full story »