by Stephen Lendman

The status applies to all Wall Street giants, none, however, the equal of Goldman, the Grand Master. Like the fabled comic book Superman hero, it's:

-- faster than its competitors, thanks to its proprietary software ability to front run markets (illegal, but no matter);

-- more powerful than the government it controls; and

-- able to leap past competitors, given its special status.

Founded in 1869, GS calls itself "a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm that provides a wide range of services worldwide."

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By Gary G. Kohls, MD

It isn’t just Teflon and ScotchGard that are in our bodies. BigPharma’s drugs are turning up in the drinking water supply - and in the fish.

For over a decade now environmental toxicologists have been doing chemical analyses on the water of lakes, streams and acquifers that are the sources of public drinking water, especially the waters that are downstream from wastewater treatment facilities. The results have been alarming.

The tests have consistently found measurable levels of prescription drugs, including arthritis drugs, contraceptives, psychostimulants, tranquilizers and antidepressants like Prozac, as well as cosmetics and synthetic food additives like dyes and preservatives that are excreted down the drain through the pill-popping publc’s kidneys.

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Mary Shaw

April 19, 2010, marks the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which 168 people died (including 19 young children) and more than 680 people were injured.

Crazed Muslims? Actually, no.

This crime against innocent people was committed not by dark-skinned, jihad-driven, Islamic radicals. No, it was committed by two "Christian" white guys. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were supposedly angry about the 1993 Waco fiasco. And so -- no coincidence, I think -- they bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on the two-year anniversary of the fire that destroyed David Koresh's Waco compound, in which 76 people died.

These white American right-wing vigilantes took the "law" into their own hands and avenged the deaths of 76 people by killing 168 unrelated innocent people. They killed innocent babies for revenge on an unrelated incident outside of their control.

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by Stephen Lendman

Fine is held in solitary confinement under horrendous conditions

The Law Offices of Richard I. Fine & Associates (richardfinelaw.com) web site says he established the firm in 1974. His credentials include a Doctor of Law from the University of Chicago, a Ph.D in International Law from the London School of Economics, a Certificate from the Hague Academy of International Law, among his many other awards, including Lawyer of the Decades 1976 - 2006.

He's also been widely published in legal journals with regard to antitrust, comparative and international law. Fine's resume is long and impressive. Before entering private practice, he "founded and was chief of the first municipal antitrust division in the United States, for the City of Los Angeles." He was also Special Counsel to the Government Efficiency Committee of the LA City Council, and a member of the US Department of Justice Antitrust Division.

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By David Kennedy

Dear Franklin,

I have just read your letter to Janet with its heart-rending account of the Sabra-Shatilla massacre. It is good to know there are still people who care about humanity and display a decency that is all too rare among humans, especially the most powerful - those who control such events as the Sabra-Shatilla massacre as described at A Letter To Janet About Sabra-Shatilla.

We live in a sick, sick world, a world that is full of hypocrisy and duplicity. Science has opened the door to all kinds of wizardry that allows evil people to control the destiny of most of humanity. I was taught Physics by the man who first split the atom (in 1932). He was a mild-mannered man who, on seeing where his discovery was leading, left Cambridge to return to his native Ireland and dedicate himself to teaching. Ironically, he was a pacifist. Who can tell what evil men will do with our discoveries? But science marches on regardless, putting more and more powerful weapons into the hands of powerful and unscrupulous humans: such is the madness of the human brain.

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By Franklin Lamb

Dr. Franklin Lamb is an American who has dedicated the best years of his life and more to the service of Palestinians. This is a letter to his wife Janet, that was published in Counterpunch, on the anniversary of the Sabra & Shatila Massacre, on Sept. 14, 2007 Today is the anniversary of the US Embassy Bombing in Beirut.. A very sad day for Mr. Lamb. Please let him know that you have read his story. fplamb@gmail.com .

Dearest Janet,

It's a very beautiful fall day here in Beirut today. Twenty-five years ago this week since the massacre at the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra-Shatilla. Bright blue sky and a fall breeze. It actually rained last night. Enough to clean out some of the humidity and dust. Fortunately not enough to make the usual rain created swamp of sewage and filth on Rue Sabra, or flood the grassless burial ground of the mass grave (the camp residents named it Martyrs Square, one of several so named memorials now in Lebanon) where you once told me that on Sunday September 19, 1982, you watched, sickened, as families and Red Crescent workers created a subterranean mountain of butchered and bullet-riddled victims from those 48 hours of slaughter. Some of the bodies had limbs and heads chopped off, some boys castrated, Christian crosses carved into some of the bodies.

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BY GILAD ATZMON

Jews are usually proud to define themselves as Jews. Some Jews may, for instance, proudly carry the Jewish banner (Jews for Peace, Jews for Justice, Jews for Jesus and so on) as if they believe that the ‘J’ word contains special righteous attributions. However, they also will be gravely offended if they are called a ‘Jew’ by others. Suggesting to a Jew that “he is a Jew” or “behaves like a Jew” can be regarded as a serious ‘racist’ offence.

It is linguistically noticeable that the symbolic identifier ‘Jew’ or ‘Jewish’ operates as both noun and as an adjective. As much as the term points to a ‘thing’ it is also descriptive. However, I assume that symbolic identifiers associated with ideological and identity politics tend to function in a dual grammatical mode. The words ‘feminist’, ‘socialist’, ‘Nazi’ and ‘white supremacist’ can point to a human subject but they can also be descriptive. I guess, for instance, that a feminist who proudly carries the feminist flag may also accept that being called ‘a feminist’ will also assign some particular characteristics and ideological beliefs. Crucially, we also accept that being a feminist, a socialist, a Nazi or a white supremacist are matters of political choice. People are not bornfeminists or as socialists. They adopt those ideologies or identities later in life.

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by Numerian posted by Michael Collins

Reading the SEC allegations against Goldman Sachs and Co., you get the impression the agency would prefer a simple world where you could charge a company with lying and be done with it. Lying to one’s clients is at the core of the suit against Goldman Sachs. Unfortunately there is apparently no law against lying in phone conversations and meetings, but there are laws against fraudulent written representations, and this is the legal foundation on which the SEC is basing its suit.

The meaty stuff in the SEC complaint is to be found in the behavior of Goldman Sachs and its employee who structured the transaction known as ABACUS 2007-AC1. Fabrice Tourre, now age 31, was a vice president on the structured product correlation trading desk. He put together the ABACUS deals and is said in the complaint to have left out pertinent information, or lied altogether, to the firm that helped set up the ABACUS deal and make it sellable to investors. No other Goldman Sachs employee is identified in the suit, and the management on the trading desk or in his department are described only in shadowy terms.

Goldman’s response this week to the suit says that they will defend themselves vigorously (and no doubt with many millions of dollars of legal expense), so they are not throwing Mr. Tourre to the wolves as some rogue trader. This would have been the logical thing to do since the allegations against Mr. Tourre are especially damaging. By embracing and defending him so readily, we therefore have to assume Mr. Tourre’s behavior is emblematic of the Goldman Sachs culture, and how he comported himself is how many others behaved at the firm. This in itself is very revealing about Goldman Sachs and its management.

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by Stephen Lendman

Working pro bono for Israeli government agencies, the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (RI) provides "real-time strategic decision-making" support in areas of national security and socioeconomic policy.

Saying global peace and justice groups threaten Israel's legitimacy, its recent series of articles, policy papers, and presentations counterattacked - a combination of damage control and rethink despite legitimate criticism showing Israel delegitimizes itself, and no amount of policy paper makeover will change it. Only Israel can do that, but in its 62 year existence never tried.

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by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Radical right wingers --tea baggers et al --are accused of 'trawling for assassins. It's but one of several outrages now associated with the disingenuous, bigoted 'tea bagger movement'. The idea of 'assassinating' a President because he is both black and Democratic threatens to finish off America as a nation of noble ideals. Earlier the self-absorbed right wing --thinking themselves rich --allowed themselves to be used by a GOP party machine. They were fooled. To them, I say that like the rest of us, you have awakened as a cockroach unless you were one already. A nation in which about one half of the population openly pines for the murder of the only fairly elected president in some 9 years may be finished. It's hard to see any redemption following from that crooked, malevolent mentality. The writing is on the wall. The American ideals most us grew up with are on life-support! It was all by design and began with the Presidency of Ronald Reagan about whom GOP-types swooned: "He made us feel good about ourselves!"

Not only have the Wall Street Journal and the hosts of Fox News been issuing their usual dark mutterings, but a new slogan has began appearing on bumper stickers, t-shirts, and even teddy bears: "Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8."That psalm reads, “Let his days be few; and let another take his office. Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."Maddow seemed mainly amused by the teddy bears, but when she turned for comment to former right-wing evangelical leader Frank Schaeffer, he emphasized that in a religious context "it means something more threatening.""The situation that I find genuinely frightening right now," Schaeffer explained, "is that you have a ramping up of biblical language ... and what it's coalescing into is branding Obama ... as 'not us.' ... Now he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel ... who should be slaughtered, if not by God then by just men."--Former evangelist: Religious right is ‘trawling for assassins’

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