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Russia united -- for the time being
Eric Walberg
The winner by default Russian Communist
Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.
The Duma elections held no surprises, but the election turmoil can’t obscure the kind of politics that will continue to characterise Russia over the coming decade thanks to United Russia and its eminence grise.
With a 60 per cent turnout, United Russia’s solid 49.5 per cent plurality in the 4 December Duma elections, giving it 238 of the 450 seats, is the envy of any Western political party. But it is nonetheless a disappointment after its 2007 sweep, where it gained over two-thirds of the seats. Very, very few parties ever approach the magic two-thirds that lets them ignore the opposition and change the constitution, and Prime Minister and president-virtually-elect Vladimir Putin even put a positive spin on the results: “This is an optimal result which reflects the real situation in the country,” Putin, 59, said coolly. “Based on this result we can guarantee stable development of our country.” (He will be recrowned president in pro forma elections 4 March.)
OCCUPY WALL STREET IS ONE STEP AWAY FROM A FOURTH REICH GULAG: THEN WHO GOES NEXT?
IronBoltBruce
Global Revolution 1: American Revolution 2: Day 83: Communication 1 IronBoltBruce's Kleptocracy Chronicles for 8 Dec 2011 (g1a2d0083c1) Will you go quietly like the Jews, or make a stand against Fascism?
Section 1031 of the National Defense Authorization Act (S.1867/H.R.1540) as currently worded (see text below) authorizes the President to use Military Force to detain indefinitely and without trial persons who engage in belligerent acts or are part of or support forces engaged in "hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners": http://tinyurl.com/c4w2wdh
Obama and Israel’s security
By Alan Hart
If American election campaign funders who support Israel right or wrong formed a circle and demanded that President Obama stand naked in the middle of it while they sang Hava Nagila (“Let us rejoice”), I am sure he would agree to do so. That thought came into my mind when I read the Reuters’ report, published in Ha’aretz, of what Obama said to a group of fundraisers in the Manhattan home of Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress.
Then, as my imagination let rip, I imagined Obama thinking to himself, while he was naked and they were rejoicing, something like, “Thank God they didn’t demand that I bombed Iran as the price of their money and votes.”
Remembering the Atrocities – and the Consequences for the Soldiers – on the 7th Anniversary of the Massacre of Fallujah
By Gary G. Kohls, MD
Subject: Eyewitness accounts of US soldiers committing wholesale war crimes in Fallujah, Iraq – November 2004
I ran across an old email message that I had sent 7 years ago this month to a catholic friend of mine (a radical peace activist nun) with whom I have corresponded for years.
I reprint that message here, because many of the predictions I and many other antiwar activists like me were making before Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) began. Many of us were against the war because we understood the long-term consequences of war that are consistently ignored by the uber-patriotic “beyond draft age” flag-waving politicians and corporate war profiteers who instigate wars but don’t have to fight them themselves. My message has proven to be prophetic, but I take no great comfort in having said them.
Obama Raises the Military Stakes: Confrontation on the Frontiers of China and Russia
James Petras
Introduction
After suffering major military and political defeats in bloody ground wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, failing to buttress long-standing clients in Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia and witnessing the disintegration of puppet regimes in Somalia and South Sudan, the Obama regime has learned nothing: Instead he has turned toward greater military confrontation with global powers, namely Russia and China. Obama has adopted a provocative offensive military strategy right on the frontiers of both China and Russia.
Blagojevich gets 14 years, but what about these guys?
By Michael Collins
(Washington, DC) Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich just got 14 years in prison. He wheeled and dealed to leverage contributions and other favors based on his position as governor. He was indicted by former special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (who tanked the Valerie Plame case).
Maybe it was the former governor's colorful (and to some vulgar) language captured on audio tapes or his brash style. Regardless of the motives, the time, money and attention wasted on his indictment and trial stands in stark contrast to the crimes never prosecuted, crimes that resulted in death, unnecessary illness and suffering, and the loss of trillions of dollars caused by the perpetrators of the current economic crisis. (Image: michaelpickard)
While prosecutors pick easy targets like Blagojevich, serious crimes go unprosecuted.
President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney lied about the basis for invading Iraq. As a result, they are responsible for the deaths of soldiers resulting from that invasion and occupation.
Russia Bashing
by Stephen Lendman
On December 4, parliamentary elections were held to fill 450 State Duma seats, Russia's Federal Assembly lower house.
With nearly all votes counted, RIA Novosti said Medvedev/Putin's United Russia party won 238 seats, falling slightly below a majority with 49.67% of the vote.
It added that it's "a far cry from the commanding two-thirds constitutional majority the party held in the State Duma for the past four years" based on tabulated results so far.
United Russia is the nation's dominant party. In December 2001, it was founded by merging the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties. Vladimir Putin served as acting President after Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999. From May 7, 2000 - May 7, 2008, he was President. Dmitry Medvedev succeeded him. Putin now serves as Prime Minister. He's United Russia 2012 presidential candidate. On March 4, presidential elections will be held.
Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine
Ellen Brown
On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion in below-market loans and guarantees to rescuing the financial system; and that these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.
The Fed insisted that the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, but the Bloomberg report said the banks reaped a $13 billion windfall in profits; and “details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.”
A Hopeless Legion of Loons
By Sheila Samples
"Oh, big conniver, nothing but a jiver, done got hip to your jive, Slippin' and a slidin', peepin' and a hidin', won't be your fool no more." ~~Little Richard
Fear and despair are billowing across the US political landscape, due in no small part to nearly three years of President Barack Obama's soaring jive even as he was breaking promises to millions of jobless, homeless, helpless Americans. Many of us watched, aghast, as Obama repeatedly took careful aim and shot himself in both feet; then, rather than deciding to fight on his knees, began scrambling around on them in a futile search for bipartisanship.
Ain't gonna happen. Those hoary old Republicans with whom he has strenuously attempted to bond have been around the political block more than once. Most are sexist; homophobic to the core, and racist from the core...on in. They’re absolutely committed to -- obsessed with -- not only Obama's failure, but his complete destruction.
Human Rights Day
by Stephen Lendman
A commonly accepted definition calls human rights basic freedoms "to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law."
The UN said "(o)n Human Rights Day 2011, we pay tribute to all human rights defenders and ask you to get involved in the global human rights movement."
On December 9, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay will host a live online Facebook/Twitter/Weibo (Chinese) global conversation from 9:30AM - 10:30AM EST to answer questions participants ask. They're your rights, she says. "Know them, demand them, defend them."
December 10 commemorates the day General Assembly members adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.
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