by Stephen Lendman

Since taking office, Obama achieved the impossible - compiling a worse record than his fiercest critics feared, worse than George Bush across the board on domestic and foreign policies. He:

-- looted the nation's wealth for Wall Street;

-- wrecked the economy;

-- consigned millions to poverty, unemployment, and bleak futures;

-- expanded unbridled militarism and imperial wars;

-- spied more aggressively than ever on Americans;

-- destroyed decades of hard won labor rights;

-- targeted Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for erosion and elimination;

-- further institutionalized public wealth transfers to super-rich elites who already have too much;

-- commodified public education;

-- subverted Net Neutrality;

-- targeted whistleblowers, dissenters, Muslims, and environmental and animal rights activists as terrorists;

-- militarized Haiti, engineered fraudulent elections, and provided no desperately needed aid;

-- gave drug, insurance and hospital chain giants greater control over healthcare, rationing it and making a dysfunctional system worse;

-- made America more than ever a police state, including by targeting immigrants, holding thousands in hundreds of unlisted, unmarked detention facilities in nearly every state before secret courts deport them, at times stranding them far from home countries.

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By Katherine Smith, PhD

Premise

The following informed-opinion essay puts forth the premise that WW I, WW II and the Holocaust can be understood if you realize that 70 million people died in order for the Jews to settle in Palestine in 1948.

Events That Changed the World in the 20^th Century, edited by Frank W. Thackeray and John E. Findling is a unique resource that offers detailed descriptions and expert analysis of the 20th Century's most important events; however, the creation of the State of Israel is not among the Events That Changed the World in the 20^th Century. [1]

Without a modern State of Israel perspective, historians, scholars and researchers have spent half of the 20^th Century writing hundreds of thousands of manuscripts, books, theses, dissertations, essays and journal submissions attempting to resolve the anomalies and inconsistencies of the events from 1897-1948.

The year 2009 was the first time anyone in history realized the significance of Theodore Herzl’s remarks at the first Zionist conference in 1897. Herzl predicted UN Resolution GA 181, would be adopted in 1947, creating the State of Israel. [2]

The Modern State of Israel: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened, by Robert Singer was given to Canada Free Press (CFP) as an Exclusive in March of 2009. CFP is the conservative Canadian website (Alexa Traffic Rank: 20,536), owned and operated by Judi McLeod.

The website disappeared each time the webmaster attempted to post the article. McLeod writes: “Naturally, I am fearful of posting anything that would make CFP disappear. Can you shed any light on this possibility? Thanks, Judi, 3-17-09” [More at Websites Under Attack]

The Modern State of Israel: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened was reviewed by Mark Weber, the director of The Institute for Historical Review (www.ihr.org) in May of 2010.

The Institute for Historical Review (IHR) continues the tradition of historical revisionism pioneered by distinguished historians such as Harry Elmer Barnes, A.J.P. Taylor, Charles Tansill, Paul Rassinier and William H. Chamberlin. It strives, in the words of Barnes, to “bring history into accord with the facts.”

After the review, Mark wanted to know what Robert Singer had read (The Bible, The Incredible Scofield and his Book, The Cassandra Prophesy) that allowed him to be the first one in history to connect The Scofield Bible, World Wars I, II and the Holocaust, to the Jews arriving in Palestine not in 1946 or 1950, but in 1948, Aka The Key to the Secret of the Universe. [More at, Speaking Engagement at The Institute for Historical Review**Cancelled**]

If the creation of the modern State of Israel is considered one of the most important events in the 20^th century, then the following insights “bring history into accord with the facts” and resolve every anomalies and inconsistencies of the events from 1897-1948:

• World War I is no longer “a pointless tragedy,” if the goal was to obtain the Balfour Declaration.
• Adolph Hitler, a gay prostitute and a street cleaner, who made every mistake possible in his failed attempt to take over the world, can finally be understood.
• The influence of the con artist Cyrus Scofield and the Scofield Reference Bible, as the most important instrument for spreading the message of Christian Zionism: that the modern State of Israel is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
• The Beer Hall Putsch, The Munich Agreement and Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis are anomalies that can finally be reconciled. Part 3: Adolph Hitler: Providence, Miracle, or What Really Happened?

[End of Premise, see Endnote 2]

The Nazi & Jewish Affair to Remember (November 2010)

Why did the CIA create a ‘safe haven’ for Nazis in the US after the War? [3]

The Long-hidden report: CIA created ‘safe haven’ for Nazis in the US, released November 13, 2010, may be the most concrete account yet of the role that prominent members of Germany's Nazi Party played in the early, formative years of the CIA, following World War II. The report alleges the CIA created a “safe haven” for Nazis believed to be of use to the US' Cold War efforts. [4]

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By Numerian

...the stealth program to destroy the estate tax is funded by the children of entrepreneurs.

Merry Christmas to All! If it be more blessed to give than to receive, what better time than Christmas Day to discuss the Estate Tax.

You might say to yourself: How dry, how dull – leave me to my eggnog and on some other day I will look into this subject. But there is no better day than Christmas Day to think about what any citizen of a democracy owes to his or her country, and this is especially true about the wealthier, and especially the wealthiest, among us. Image: Mark Fiore

My first Christmas gift to you is my most favorite of all quotes, from that most astute observer of democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville. He was a man who was intimately familiar with the social sclerosis that resulted from aristocracy, and he had a chance to compare it in the 1830s to the newly-invented American democracy. He said the following in Book I of his Democracy in America.

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By Kevin Zeese

ntrated corporate capital was on display in Washington last week, as it has been all year. The incoming Chair of the Congressional committee responsible for banking regulation, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) says "my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks." And, President Obama sat down with the CEOs of 20 large corporations to talk about how he could help Big Business increase their already record profits. And, in the Supreme Court, 13 of 16 business cases were ruled in favor of business interests. These actions echo a year where Sen. Durbin complained the banks "own" the Congress and where President Obama worked with the health insurance industry to keep them in control of health care while claiming it was "reform," and where the Supreme Court in Citizens United vastly increased corporate power in elections by allowing unlimited spending.

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by Keith Johnson

The next time the CIA comes up with another Osama bin Laden videotape, you mightwant to compare their images of the alleged al-Qaeda leader to the photograph I’ve provided here. If he looks any healthier than that, then you’re probably looking at an imposter.

Yeah, Osama has definitely seen better days. But give the guy a break, huh? You wouldn’t look much better if you’d been dead for nine years.

Oh, by the way, in case you’ve just joined us? Osama bin Laden is dead.

He died in the Tora Bora Mountains of Afghanistan on December 13, 2001. He was buried in an unmarked grave within 24 hours of his death. Case closed.

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by Stephen Lendman

The Working Poor Families Project (WPFP) "is a national initiative focused on state workforce development policies involving: (1) education and skills training for adults; (2) economic development; and (3) income and work supports."

Its newest publication is titled, "Great Recession Hit Hard at America's Working Poor: Nearly 1 in 3 Working Families in United States are Low-Income." It explains distressing data on the state of America's poor and low income families, their condition getting worse, not better.

Citing new US Census data, it said nearly one-third of US families struggle to meet basic needs. Between 2007 and 2009, the percent of low-income families (earning less than 200% of the official threshold) rose from 28 - 30%. Their plight "challenges a fundamental assumption that in America, work pays." Clearly, not enough.

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Interview by Kourosh Ziabari

Alain de Botton is a Swiss public intellectual, author, philosopher, television presenter and entrepreneur living in the United Kingdom. He has written several books on literature, philosophy, art, travel and architecture. In August 2008, he established a new educational enterprise in London called "The School of Life". Among his prominent books are "How Proust Can Change Your Life", "The Consolations of Philosophy" and "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work".

De Botton is an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects. The title was awarded to him in recognition of his services to art and architecture. His books are translated into several languages and are among the best-selling works of literature in so many countries, including Iran. What follows is the complete text of an in-depth interview with Alain de Botton where we discussed a variety of topics and issues concerning philosophy, art, literature, travel and architecture.

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by Stephen Lendman

A full account of her case from March 2003 through December 2008 can be accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/12/abduction-secret-detention-torture-and.html

Numerous follow-up articles discussed subsequent events to the present. All are posted chronologically on sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Wrongfully persecuted, she was sentenced to 86 years in prison on September 23, 2010, a gross miscarriage of justice since her March 30, 2003 abduction, imprisonment, torture and witch-hunt prosecution, providing no evidence whatever to convict.

Supporters want her freed. The web site freeaafia.org posts updates on her case and status. It has petitions to sign on her behalf as well as actions to take, including writing her as follows:

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by Stephen Lendman

In America's Declaration of Independence, Jefferson declared:

"all men (are) created equal....with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (code for property). That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends. it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government," serving them "to effect their safety and happiness."

Long established governments shouldn't "be changed for light and transient causes....But when a long train of abuses and usurpations (establishes) absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government," replacing it with one serving everyone equitably.

In addition, Jefferson said "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God." Women's rights advocate Susan B. Anthony also said "I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim that 'Resistance to tyranny it obedience to God.' "

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Alan Hart

Question: Why is it that in this Christian season of “Peace on Earth and good will to all men (and women)” the name of Israel’s Soviet-born foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, described by some as Israel’s “Hitler in-the-making”, should enter my mind?

Answer: Because I’ve been thinking about a most extraordinary statement (extraordinary even by his own standards) he made on a recent visit to Australia.

His Australian counterpart, Kevin Rudd, had apparently asked him if Israel would sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to assist the cause of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

Liberman said “No” because “Israel does not pose a threat to peace in the world.” (My emphasis added).

The problem, Liberman asserted, “is not focused on the issue of the deployment of nuclear weapons itself” but on “the responsibility of the states which possess weapons of this kind.”

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