Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090928/younge

Spare a thought, and maybe even a dime, for Kenneth Gladney. In August he and other members of the right-wing St. Louis Tea Party arrived at a town-hall meeting organized by Missouri Democrat Russ Carnahan to lobby against universal healthcare. In the spirit of this fraught summer, a fight broke out, ending in six arrests. Who threw the first punch depends on whom you ask. But who got the worst of it was fairly clear. Gladney was taken to the emergency room with injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face and ended up in a wheelchair. His troubles were just beginning. Recently laid off, this particular anti-health reform protester, it turned out, had no health insurance. Last heard, he was still accepting donations for his medical expenses.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/11-9

Some people cancel holidays abroad, others stage yard sales or start shopping at low-cost supermarkets. To that list must now be added a new way to get through economic hard times: grow cannabis. So far this year, police in parts of the country where cannabis is traditionally grown have chopped down plants with a street value of $12bn. The core growing area is in California, Washington and Oregon to the west, but the Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia are also witnessing an explosion. More than 600,000 cannabis plants have been cut and burned in those states this summer, reversing a previous decline in production brought about by stringent law enforcement. It is not only the quantity of crop that is on the rise, the nature of the growers is also changing.

Link: http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/02/hbc-90004409

Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous shackling, positional torture, interference with religious practices and beliefs, verbal abuse, restriction of recreation, the behavior of mentally ill detainees, an isolation regime that was put in place for child-detainees, and his conversations with prisoners David Hicks and Rhuhel Ahmed. It makes for fascinating reading.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/03/drugs-prohibition-latin-america

While Latin American countries decriminalise narcotics, Britain persists in prohibition that causes vast human suffering. Simon Jenkins guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 September 2009 20.30 BST Article historyI guess it had to happen this way. The greatest social menace of the new century is not terrorism but drugs, and it is the poor who will have to lead the revolution. The global trade in illicit narcotics ranks with that in oil and arms. Its prohibition wrecks the lives of wealthy and wretched, east and west alike. It fills jails, corrupts politicians and plagues nations. It finances wars from Afghanistan to Colombia. It is utterly mad. There is no sign of reform emanating from the self-satisfied liberal democracies of west Europe or north America. Reform is not mentioned by Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel. Their countries can sustain prohibition, just, by extravagant penal repression and by sweeping the consequences underground. Politicians will smirk and say, as they did in their youth, that they can "handle" drugs.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/090609C

Chief executives of the top 20 financial firms that received taxpayer bailout funds averaged $13.78 million in personal compensation last year, according to a report released today. The annual "Executive Excess" study, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, this year looked at bank recipients of Troubled Asset Relief Program funds. Those 20 firms, which eliminated more than 160,000 jobs since Jan. 1, 2008, awarded a combined total of $3.2 billion- including bonuses - to their top five executives. The compensation for those 100 top executives "would bankroll 66 weeks of unemployment insurance benefits for 160,000 workers," the report said. "America's executive pay bubble remains unpopped," said Sarah Anderson, who has worked on 15 previous executive pay reports.

Link: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/forest_solutions/protecting-trees-protecting.html

We already know we are putting too much heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) into the air when we burn fossil fuels to generate electricity, fuel our cars, and heat our homes—but by cutting down and burning trees, we are also releasing an astounding amount of the same heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Tropical deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of the world's global warming pollution. About 20 percent of carbon emissions come from tropical deforestation—more than every car, truck, plane, train, and ship on the planetcombined. Deforestation is happening at an alarming rate—an acre of tropical forest every second. We cannot address global warming effectively if we ignore 20 percent of the problem.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/40891prs20090901.html

The government has said it will continue to withhold dozens of documents related to the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. The Justice Department was facing an August 31 deadline to release the documents, including a presidential directive authorizing CIA "black sites" as well as CIA inspector general (IG) records and documents from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) regarding the CIA's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques," in response to two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. U.S. District Court Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York ordered the government to turn over the documents by August 31 or else provide justification for continuing to withhold them. In a filing late Monday, the CIA said it will not release the documents, claiming that disclosing details about the enhanced interrogation program would harm national security.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/40838prs20090824.html

Justice Department Documents Describe Enhanced Interrogation Techniques Used As Late As 2007 The government today handed over to the American Civil Liberties Union a detailed official description of the CIA's interrogation program. That document, a December 2004 CIA background paper sent to the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), provides a detailed official account of the CIA's detention, interrogation and rendition programs - from a detainee's initial apprehension, to his transfer to a CIA "black site," to his interrogation - and describes the use of abusive interrogation techniques including forced nudity, sleep deprivation, dietary manipulation and stress positions. The document was one of dozens of documents, comprising hundreds of pages, that were made public today in response to two ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits for documents related to the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody overseas. The OLC documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/40833res20090824.html and www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/40834res20090824.html Earlier today, the ACLU released a CIA Inspector General report on the agency's "enhanced interrogation" program and related documents. Those documents are available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/40832res20090824.html

Link: http://www.greenleft.org.au/2009/808/41587

The coup d’etat carried out by the generals and their civilian front men in Honduras on June 28 poses an immediate threat to the Venezuelan revolution and the international Bolivarian movement for unity and social change throughout Latin America. An attack on any progressive Latin American government, and in particular a member of the Bolivarian Alliance for Latin America (ALBA - the nine-nation, anti-imperialist alliance initiated by Venezuela and Cuba, which Honduras joined last year), is a danger to all people’s governments in the region. The coup, which overthrew Honduras’ democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, was a direct attempt to undermine ALBA, pave the way for an assault on revolutionary Venezuela, and enable Honduras to once again be used (as it was in the 1980s) as a launching pad for imperialist attacks on left-wing governments and movements in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Mobilize the Workers To Defeat the Putsch! Honduras: Coup d’État in the Maquiladora Republic Yankee Imperialism, Hands Off! For a Federation of Workers Republics of Central America!

Link: http://shuswapnews.com/news/2009/08/14/who-recommends-global-mandatory-vaccination-canada-prepares/

President Barack Obama holding a Homeland Security Council meeting about the swine flu outbreak in the Cabinet Room, while Dr. Richard Bresser speaks, May 1, 2009. (White House photo by Pete Souza) Why are health ministers in places like British Columbia, Australia and Greece telling the public that ’swine flu’ is just ordinary H1N1 type A seasonal flu, while at the same time they are preparing to vaccinate their entire populations against H5N1 avian flu using untested vaccines that contain live avian flu? Why are pandemic plans being laid to combat a more serious second wave of ’swine flu’ when it is already clear that such an outbreak is not happening in the southern hemisphere, where the flu season is already under way? Both Australia and Argentina report a normal flu season with no mutation of the ’swine flu’ virus.

Link: http://novakeo.com/?p=4601

The Internet is abuzz with news about the construction of internment camps all across America. Of course, “mainstream” media outlets refuse to touch the subject; or if they do, they pooh-pooh the story; they do what Glenn Beck recently did: try to debunk the story as fallacious and impugn people who speak of it as “conspiracy nuts.” The fact that the Becks, Hannitys, Limbaughs, and O’Reillys of the media circus refuse to deal with the construction of large numbers of internment camps does not make them disappear, however. For starters, all anyone need do to begin a serious investigation of the subject of internment camps is Google the phrase “FEMA Camps.” There is more than enough evidence in that search engine alone to keep one busy with some in-depth private investigation of the subject for quite a while.

Link: http://www.antemedius.com/content/fifty-top-us-war-criminals-who-need-be-prosecuted

Compiled below, in hopes that it may be of some assistance to Eric Holder, John Conyers, Patrick Leahy, active citizens, foreign courts, the International Criminal Court, law firms preparing civil suits, and local or state prosecutors with decency and nerve is a list of 50 top living U.S. war criminals. These are men and women who helped to launch wars of aggression or who have been complicit in lesser war crimes. These are not the lowest-ranking employees or troops who managed to stray from official criminal policies. These are the makers of those policies.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/safefree/nsaspying/40805prs20090820.html

A federal court today dismissed an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit challenging an unconstitutional government spying law. The ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed the landmark lawsuit in July 2008 to stop the government from conducting surveillance under the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), which gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to sweep up Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls. The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of a broad coalition of attorneys and human rights, labor, legal and media organizations whose ability to perform their work – which relies on

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2009/aug/17/environment-climate-change

The collapse of civilisation will bring us a saner world, says Paul Kingsnorth. No, counters George Monbiot – we can't let billions perish. Dear George On the desk in front of me is a set of graphs. The horizontal axis of each represents the years 1750 to 2000. The graphs show, variously, population levels, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exploitation of fisheries, destruction of tropical forests, paper consumption, number of motor vehicles, water use, the rate of species extinction and the totality of the human economy's gross domestic product... in the last inch or so – around 1950 – it veers steeply upwards... The root cause of all these trends is the same: a rapacious human economy bringing the world swiftly to the brink of chaos.

Link: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Federal-deficit-higher-in-apf-3876319127.html?x=0&.v=5

Record federal deficit climbs higher, $180.7 billion in July, $1.27 trillion so far this year. The federal deficit climbed higher into record territory in July, hitting $1.27 trillion with two months remaining in the budget year. The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the July deficit totaled $180.7 billion, slightly more than the $177.5 billion economists had expected. The Obama administration is projecting that when the current budget year ends on Sept. 30, the imbalance will total $1.84 trillion, more than four times last year's record-high. The soaring deficits have raised worries among foreign owners of U.S. Treasury securities including the Chinese, the largest holder of such debt. Massive amounts of government spending to combat the recession and stabilize the U.S. financial system have pushed the deficit higher. The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with depleted government tax revenues, also are major factors.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m57008&hd=&size=1&l=e

The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster. This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a "Congressional Fact Sheet" entitled "Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters." That proposal would amend current law, thereby "authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency."

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3222476/Suns-protective-bubble-is-shrinking.html

The protective bubble around the sun that helps to shield the Earth from harmful interstellar radiation is shrinking and getting weaker, Nasa scientists have warned. Data has shown that the sun's heliosphere is shrinking. New data has revealed that the heliosphere, the protective shield of energy that surrounds our solar system, has weakened by 25 per cent over the past decade and is now at it lowest level since the space race began 50 years ago. Scientists are baffled at what could be causing the barrier to shrink in this way and are to launch mission to study the heliosphere. At the boundary where they meet a shock wave is formed that deflects interstellar radiation around the solar system as it travels through the galaxy. The scientists hope the IBEX mission will allow them to gain a better understanding of what happens at this boundary and help them predict what protection it will offer in the future. Without the heliosphere the harmful intergalactic cosmic radiation would make life on Earth almost impossible by destroying DNA and making the climate uninhabitable. Sun Makes History: First Spotless Month in a Century | George Noory with Holly & Stan Deyo part 1-8

Link: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.media/browse_thread/thread/c2aaab93d6281c18

THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the decisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare. Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power. Start with Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

Link: http://vdare.com:80/roberts/090805_expiring_economy.htm

By Paul Craig Roberts Tent cities springing up all over America are filling with the homeless unemployed from the worst economy since the 1930s. While Americans live in tents, the Obama government has embarked on a $1 billion crash program to build a mega-embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, to rival the one the Bush government built in Baghdad, Iraq. Hard times have now afflicted Americans for so long that even the extension of unemployment benefits from 6 months to 18 months for 24 high unemployment states, and to 46 - 72 weeks in other states, is beginning to run out. By Christmas 1.5 million Americans will have exhausted unemployment benefits while unemployment rolls continue to rise.

Link: http://youcannothandledthetruth.blogspot.com/2009/08/americans-are-victims-of-undeclared-war.html

As all the pushing and shoving over universal health care coverage moves into high gear, one thing remains indisputable. If Americans were healthy the costs of insuring them would be a whole lot less, and coverage could easily be provided for all without breaking a sweat. Healthy people have no need to visit doctors or take expensive medicals tests. They don`t even need checkups or perceived authority figures to tell them what they already know. Unfortunately, most Americans are currently nowhere near a state of vibrant health. This is partly their fault in failing to take responsibility for keeping themselves healthy. But the greater fault lies in the fact that Americans have been victims of an ongoing undeclared war by their government and corporate leaders who have conspired to keep them in a state of disease.