14 reasons Main Street loses big while Wall Street sabotages democracy. Yes, we're dummies. You. Me. All 300 million of us. Clueless. We should be ashamed. We're obsessed about the slogans and rituals of "democracy," distracted by the campaign, polls, debates, rhetoric, half-truths and outright lies. McCain? Obama? Sorry to pop your bubble folks, but it no longer matters who's president. Why? The real "game changer" already happened. Democracy has been replaced by Wall Street's new "disaster capitalism."

Interview with Naomi Wolf author of "The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot". The Guardian: Fascist America, in 10 easy steps: From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all. AntiWar: What Happens in a Police State... Daily Press: Government lies are the new 'normal'. Barnabas Nagy: THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS HERE! (VIDEO)

A citizen of Virginia named Moya Atkinson wrote to Senator John Warner to express concern over the recent violation of the Posse Comitatus Act created by the assigning of U.S. soldiers to duty within the United States, reported by the Army Times as intended for "crowd control" among other duties. This, like other changes imposed by President Bush, of course violates the Posse Comitatus Act. It also served to strengthen the threats of martial law that Congressman Brad Sherman reported the White House making to Congress members in order to win their support for the $780 billion give-away to Wall Street. Warner [proposed] that, rather than changing the president's behavior to comply with the law, we should -- as with warrantless spying, habeas corpus, etc. -- change the law to comply with the president's behavior. Raw Story: ACLU demands info on domestic military deployments: The American Civil Liberties Union is demanding more details on the domestic deployments, which appear to violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits use of the military to direct internal affairs of the US. The ACLU warns that without fully knowing the reasoning and justifications behind the Army's plan, the domestic deployments could be used to expand a militarized surveillance apparatus that already includes the National Security Agency's warrantless wiretapping program and DHS's plans to turn military spy satellites inside US borders.

See how NBC puts togther one or two sentences from each propaganda theme in a very professional way in just a three-minutes report. It is really amazing. Note the intro, the middle, the putting words in others' mouth, the coming back to the real propaganda theme and the justification for the next war of aggression. A perfect propaganda piece. Nazis would be turning in grave to see this level of perfection on the part of modern day warlords promoting and glamourising war after wars. Editor & Publisher: Top 30 Most Popular News Outlets on the Web for Sept. WUFYS: Obama's Use Of Hidden Hypnosis In Speeches. Barnabas Nagy: THE NEW WORLD ORDER IS HERE! (Video). RedPill: The CFR controls American media (Video).

There was major political theater involving President Bush's former chief of staff Karl Rove. A protestor tried to arrest Rove for treason Tuesday morning while he was speaking at the Mortgage Bankers Association Convention, continuing in San Francisco.

Obama won the Democratic presidential nomination by presenting himself as the more consistent antiwar candidate, and the Democratic ticket in public pledges to end the war in Iraq and adopt a less militaristic stance. But behind closed doors, before select audiences of the financial and political elite, Biden has given a glimpse of the real perspective of the Democratic wing of American imperialism. AntiWar: The War Party Embraces Obama.

Deregulation brought us hugely "leveraged" investments, and they brought us panicked markets and pain. The bottom line: There was a feeding frenzy that drove housing prices far beyond what the fundamental laws of supply and demand would dictate. People certainly got in over their heads, but the ultimate responsibility for that lies with the investment bankers who cooked up exotic new ways to make risky investments look more secure than they actually were. GWB: Banks ADMIT They'll Keep on Hoarding Cash. Media Monitors: No Wind of Change in Wall Street or Washington after the bailout. Global Research: Financial Meltdown: The Greatest Transfer of Wealth in History. Online Journal: Unstoppable changes in the post crash world. + A primer on inflation. CounterPunch: The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout.

The American right wing, consulted by slick Madison avenue whiz kids, will never call the American gulag of FEMA camps by the names 'work houses' or 'prisons'. By any name, they are presumably open and ready for those who fall through the gaping cracks. A perpetually depressed economy is a good source of slave labor. Who benefits? KBR? Halliburton? Lew Rockwell: The Sick Man of North America.

Later that evening, in class, I took a good, long look at that man. I wanted to see what evil looks like. Be they Fascist Republicans or Marxist Democrats, one common thread runs through their thinking: there is no right or wrong. There's only a desire to impose their will on the rest of us. By all means, stock up on beans, rice, ammunition, fuel, and gold. If the Empire is crumbling – and I believe it is – you'll need all of those things. More important, though, is that we be mentally prepared for what is coming. When your friend, neighbor, colleague, or any passing aquaintance declares himself for evil, take him at his word.

A report issued yesterday by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) revealed the United States has the third worst level of income inequality and poverty among the group's 30 member states. Only Mexico and Turkey ranked higher in those categories. OECD states in western Europe, along with Japan, South Korea, Canada and Australia, all recorded better figures than the US, as did central and eastern European states, including Poland and Hungary. USA Today: Homeless numbers 'alarming'. LiveScience: Middle-Age Suicide Rate Rising: The U.S. suicide rate is up for the first time in a decade, and it's rising most among middle-aged white men and women, a new study finds. The researchers don't know why, but say we need to find out more so new prevention plans can be put in place. Suicide claimed 32,637 lives in 2005, a rate of 11 per 100,000 people. The study, released this week, featured an analysis of data from 1999 to 2005.

Small note: I had no idea Buchanan liked Palin. The thought struck me as so obscenely stupid that I almost decided not to post the first part of the interview with him. But then I still decided to post it. For all his wrongs, Buchanan is at least a real old style conservative, not the Neocon breed now running the GOP. And then, I don't like censorship anyway - so I left both parts.

India launched its first unmanned mission to the moon on Wednesday, becoming the third Asian country to do so after Japan and China. Chandrayaan-1 was carried into space by the Indian-built PSLV-C11 rocket, and will take 15 days to reach the moon. Chandrayaan means "Moon Craft" in ancient Sanskrit. The lunar mission signifies India's breakthrough into the club of leading space powers, and the liftoff was broadcast live on television across the country. Boston.com: India launches its first moon mission in Asian space race.

CIA agent Anthony Bruschuto hung up the phone. General Bark noticed his sly smile and asked, "Who was that?" "Ted." "What did he want?" "He said, 'Make sure that bitch is on the plane'." General Barker laughed, "Did you tell him we escorted Barbara to Flight 11 with a pair of agents almost an hour ago?" "That's exactly what I said." "Alright, let's get down to serious business then." "One and Two are wired, ready to go. This building is on standby. The planes go airborne in about an hour."

Keith Olbermann examines why McCain has suddenly stopped talking about the dangers of vote fraud. Perhaps the reason is that McCain employs a GOP operative who has been accused of committing massive vote fraud.

Joe Biden the seemingly clairvoyant senator from Delaware, and vice presidential nominee was out making predictions, again. The last time Joe was using his crystal ball was on September 10, 2001, one day prior to the 9/11 attacks.

The second TrooperGate investigation gets under way soon. Today is not a good day to be a Palin...

Q: Brandon Garcia wants to know, “What does the Vice President do?” PALIN: That’s something that Piper would ask me! … [T]hey’re in charge of the U.S. Senate so if they want to they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom. PressTV: Palin exuberant about VP duties. Russia Today: Palin beware – Russians can see you too!

A US-led coalition airstrike in the eastern Afghan province of Khost has killed at least nine Afghan soldiers and wounded four others. Khost province's governor, Arsallah Jamal, said that the coalition forces early Wednesday mistakenly hit a fixed military checkpoint in province's Sayed Kheil area instead of suspected Taliban hideouts. The coalition forces killed 91 civilians in the western Herat province in August which resulted in widespread protest across the war-battered country. AP: 9 Afghan soldiers killed in airstrike. When Afghans betray their fellow citizens by killing Afghans for the US army, they are politely referred to as "soldiers". And whomever they kill, is being dishonestly referred to as a Taliban, "insurgent" or a "terrorist". ― Unfortunately for the 9 "soldiers", all they got in return from their American "friends" for this disgraceful betrayal of their fellow citizens was death. -It was an instant one, alright, but the ignominy will last a little longer.

"The consequences of not having a SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) and of not having a renewed UN authorization are pretty dramatic in terms of consequences for our actions," Robert Gates told reporters at a press conference at the Pentagon after Iraq's cabinet decided on Tuesday to seek changes to the draft pact. "What really needs to happen is for us to get this SOFA done. It's good for us. It's good for them. It really protects Iraqi sovereignty," Gates claimed. What really protects Iraqi sovereignty, is for the US to pull out. NOW. This is what is good for "them". Times Online: Iraqi MPs demand changes to US troop withdrawal agreement. FCNL: "President" Bush Asserts Right to Control Iraqi Oil. The People's Voice: Iraqis protest against proposed security agreement with US. Global Research: War is Illegal.

EU lawmakers have joined US civil liberty campaigners in criticising a new scanner technology that allows airport security staff to see through passengers' clothes, calling it a virtual strip search that should only be used as a last resort. "Many travelers will consider these scanners an enormous intrusion" on their personal privacy, Philip Bradbourn, a British Conservative member of the EU assembly, said on Tuesday.

When I was in Crawford, Tx at Camp Casey in the Summer of '05, I would receive hundreds per day. Of course, I am dishonoring my son's memory and I am un-patriotic and even a "whacko" "nut job" "bat shit crazy" and their favorite: "mama moonbat." I dared to question their President and the lies that led to my son's death. I refused to be an appreciative Gold Star Mother wearing a wilted carnation at the Memorial Day observances and accepting my grief in patriotic silence.

Germany’s Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office has said that Ukraine and Georgia have too many problems to be considered ready for NATO membership.

A Kabul appeals court has quashed a death sentence imposed on the Afghan student Sayed Pervez Kambaksh for downloading information from the internet on women's rights. The judges ruled however, that the 24-year-old trainee journalist should serve 20 years in jail – a decision Mr Kambaksh's lawyers insisted was unconstitutional and should be overturned by the country's supreme court.

Brajveer Singh does not own a wide-brimmed hat, leather boots or a pair of jeans. And he has never ridden a mechanical bull. But he can lay claim to being a real-life urban cowboy. Singh is among the dozens of men who spend their days roping cattle on the streets of this city as part of a long and frustrating battle to rid India's capital of stray cows. There is perhaps no more stereotypical image of India than that of a stray cow sauntering down the middle of a busy city street, seemingly oblivious to the traffic swerving around it.

They're almost an endangered species, the dwindling number of people who say the country is heading in the right direction. But they're out there. The way they see it, the U.S. has come through tough times before and will do it again. Fewer than one in seven, or 15 percent, say the country is on the right path, according to the latest Associated Press-Yahoo News poll of adults. In these economically tough times, they tend to be older, less educated, conservative and supporters of Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Every day, we walk past people in the streets without having the slightest clue that they are homeless because they do not fit the stereotypical image. Even of those that do fit the common-held image, you simply cannot tell by looking at them what past contribution to society they may have made or what contribution they may be capable of producing in the future. You never know what value or talent could be concealed behind the grubby faced facade.

A major earthquake somewhere in California is virtually a certainty in the next 30 years, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Some of the most hazardous regions of the state are also the most populated, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. A major quake in one of these areas is guaranteed to be a disaster that will take many lives.

In 1893, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his ship Fram were victims of a strange phenomenon as he sailed past the Nordenskiöld Archipelago, north of Siberia. Nansen wrote afterwards: "Fram appeared to be held back, as if by some mysterious force, and she did not always answer the helm … We made loops in our course, turned sometimes right around, tried all sorts of antics to get clear of it, but to very little purpose." Nansen called the effect "dead water", reporting that it slowed Fram to a quarter of her normal speed. You Tube: Mysterious 'dead water' effect caught on film (Video).

Handle With Caution -DEBKAfile is not a particularly reliable source: DEBKAfile reports that Arab Internet sites, most of them Jordanian, claim that 10 days ago on Oct. 12, Meir Dagan, the head of Israel’s external intelligence service, the Mossad, was targeted by assassins while visiting Amman. Some describe a large bomb explosion alongside his convoy and add that Israeli and Jordanian guards with the convoy were injured. Others say Dagan himself was hurt or even killed in the attack. They claim Israel and Jordan are keeping the incident a secret.

Government plans to build a giant database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit were last night dealt a major blow after the man in charge of prosecuting terrorism in England and Wales warned of the dangers posed by a "Big Brother" security state. Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), told ministers not to "break the back of freedom" by creating irreversible powers that could be misused to spy on individual citizens and so threaten Britain's hard-won democracy. CS Monitor: A financial new world order? You Tube: The New World Order is Here!

When you go to a foreign country, it is common to bring a translation dictionary to help curb the confusion that comes with trying to understand a foreign language. Likewise, in American politics, we also need a translation guide to understand mainstream discussion given the universal double standards, egotistical national chauvinism, and internalized elite values. Propaganda in the US rests mostly in what is not said, but rather assumed. Such a system of indoctrination is extremely powerful as it serves the purpose of making certain thoughts not so much undesirable, but unthinkable, strikingly reminiscent of Orwell's depiction of totalitarian control and manipulation of the English language in his novel, 1984.

If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, it’s sure teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens(New Orleans), tortures its enemies(Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire(Iran), flouts international treaties(UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on(FISA), and intimidates, its critics(No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well. POAC: 14 Points of fascism: The warning signs. WUFYS: Fascism Has Replaced American Democracy: Blame The Roundtable.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama will leave the campaign trail to go to Hawaii this week to visit the ailing grandmother who helped raise him, an aide said on Monday. "Recently his grandmother has become ill and in the last few weeks her health has deteriorated to the point where her situation is very serious," said Obama aide Robert Gibbs.

Fearing as "inevitable" a global recession following the US financial meltdown, Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said the magnitude of the turmoil was increasing in "seriousness" and wanted the international
community to make "concerted efforts" to tackle the crisis. "The financial turmoil arising from the Sub-prime loan issue in US August 2007 is increasing in seriousness. I recognise that financial crisis triggered by the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers could lead to a global recession. "Although the impact of this financial crisis on Japanese financial institutes has been limited so far, it seems inevitable that the slow-down of international economy will have an influence on the Japanese economy as well," Aso told PTI in an e-mail interview. You Tube: The federal reserve caused the 700 billion dollar bailout and economic crash: Currently, the Federal Reserve is printing billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street while destroying the middle class and the dollar with inflation. If our country wants a sound and transparent monetary system, we need to abolish the Federal Reserve.

George Packer from the New Yorker magazine reports on an email he got from Ken Adelman today indicating that the neo-con is planning on voting for Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.As Packer points out, this is no small thing.

Three Putnam County voters say electronic voting machines changed their votes from Democrats to Republicans when they cast early ballots last week. This is the second West Virginia county where voters have reported this problem. Last week, three voters in Jackson County told The Charleston Gazette their electronic vote for “Barack Obama” kept flipping to “John McCain”. In both counties, Republicans are responsible for overseeing elections. Pakistan Daily: U.S.A Elections 2008 It's Already Stolen.

Tens of thousands of Iraqis marched from the working class districts of Sadr City to the centre of Baghdad on Saturday to denounce moves by the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to finalise a security agreement with the Bush administration. The pact is intended to provide a fig-leaf of legality for the ongoing occupation of Iraq by the US military after a United Nations mandate expires on December 31. You Tube: Raw Video: Massive Baghdad Protest.

Bush is anti-American and so, too, those who have provided him material support. They share his guilt and should, likewise, be tried for capital crimes as specified in US federal laws and numerous international laws to which the US is bound by treaty. It is those who have ignored and deliberately broken these laws with 'malice aforethought' who are truly 'anti-American'. NYT: Bush Decides to Keep Guantánamo Open.

Nato chief attacks "lack of will" on Afghanistan. There are about 50,000 troops in the Nato-led international force. The US maintains a separate force in the southeast, which it is intending to expand by up to 15,000, making a total of more than 40,000. Britain has about 8,000 troops in southern Afghanistan. "I want more forces from all nations," a senior Nato commander said yesterday. He described Nato's operations in Afghanistan as "disjointed in time and space". An example was counter-narcotics. That, he said, was the responsibility of the Afghan government. Yet it could not take on that task on its own. "The money from the narcotics trade is feeding the insurgency," he said. "It buys weapons and pays fighters that kill soldiers and Afghan citizens alike. It is a cancer - contributing to corruption, impeding legitimate commerce and undermining governance." What this fool is blithely ignoring, is that apart from the pipelines from the Caspian sea that are to pass through Afghanistan, the other strategic reason the CIA & the US government are in this stricken country is because of CIA's heavy involvement in the heroin trade in this area ever since 1979. (In fact, it created it. You can find out more about this HERE and HERE.) Now the Pentagon want these US client states and partners-in-crime to do even more of its dirty work. They're having qualms about it? -Anyway, all their blunders make it difficult to sell this war in Europe. It also is because of this: Deutsche Welle: An Unwinnable War in Afghanistan: Even if NATO isn't thinking of a withdrawal, the attackers are managing to sow the seeds of doubt in the soldiers' home countries. When 10 French soldiers were killed in Afghanistan in August, the country was in a state of shock for weeks. The growing threat is having the effect that soldiers are sticking close to their base camps and avoiding any contact to the civilian population, which then only shows increasing animosity towards the soldiers. Clearly, such a "spiral of alienation" is no help to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. [This is not about the "reconstruction of Afghanistan". The US is there because of the pipelines and its heroin business and NATO is there because of the member states' oath of FEALTY to their American overlords. But Nato chief General Craddock is right about one thing though: The narcotics trade is a cancer. -He just can't bring himself to admit that the US & NATO are the main causes of it. ] PressTV: US-led mission 'wavering' in Afghanistan. Index Research: Index on Afghanistan and Pakistan - Murder & Security, Aug/Sept. ’08.

“We could not find a single person in the entire locality who could agree with the [police] story of the ‘encounter’,” reports a citizens’ fact-finding team that visited Jamia Nagar several days after the shooting. “There is a complete unanimity in the opinion of the people about the one-sided nature of the firing and the time for which it continued. ... No one told us about an exchange of fire. It was ‘only one kind of sound’.”

A US breakfast television anchorwoman who had a bit part in the Oliver Stone biopic W about President Bush has been found beaten nearly to death in her bed. Anne Pressly, 26, was discovered by her mother at 4.30am after she failed to respond to a wake-up call for her shift yesterday on Daybreak, the early breakfast show on KATV , a TV station in Arkansas.

I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These are human beings. I've since been plagued by guilt. I feel guilt any time I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn't walk who we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt any time I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt any time I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.

Dressed in a red, blue and white stars and stripes scarf, Ratchet the dog wagged his tail excitedly, leapt out of his crate and onto US soil for the first time after leaving his Iraqi home for a new life in America.

After abruptly canceling on him in September, last week Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) went back to David Letterman’s show, where he apologized and admitted he “screwed up.” On his blog on Friday, Larry King said that he is waiting for McCain to offer him the same courtesy, after abruptly canceling a Sept. 2 appearance.

One of Russia’s harshest critics, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, has been left with egg on his face after his campaign team sent a cap-in-hand letter to the Russian mission in the UN begging for cash. But Russia says it won't donate, insisting it doesn't interfere in politics abroad.

More than a year before 9/11, media mogul Rupert Murdoch produced a television program that depicted a passenger aircraft being hijacked by remote control and flown into the World Trade Center. A chief of the international Zionist network, Murdoch has close and long-standing relations with the individuals who gained control of the twin towers shortly before they were destroyed. One question has to be asked: Did Rupert Murdoch have prior knowledge of 9/11?

Russia says it agrees on the installation of a US anti-missile radar system in the Czech Republic if Washington complies with Moscow's conditions.

A prominent Palestinian human rights group says it has found evidence that 68 children were killed in the Gaza Strip in the 12 months to June this year as a result of "disproportionate and excessive lethal force" by the Israeli military. The deaths are documented, with witness testimony, in a report published today by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Many of the deaths resulted from an Israeli military incursion into Jabaliya, in eastern Gaza, in late February and early March, in which more than 100 Palestinians, at least half of them civilians, died in what Israel said was an operation to stop rockets being fired into southern Israeli towns. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights HERE.

Any decision to attack Iran would be an 'irreversible error' unforgivable until the fall of the enemy, says a senior Iranian commander. "Mistake can be rectified but the launch of an invasion of Iran would be an irreversible error that we will respond to until their collapse," said top Iranian Army commander, Major General Ataollah Salehi. PressTV: 'War on Iran to spell Israel's collapse'.

As we prepare to elect the next leaders of our country to their proper positions in congress and the White House, it would seem an opportune time to examine what elements make a man, or woman, a great leader. And indeed, there has been much discussion on the subject. Wisdom and judgment have been cited as crucial factors any number of occasions. LA Times: Rep. Michele Bachmann works to undo self-inflicted political damage. CityPages: Colin Powell calls out Michele Bachmann.