Introducing Mike Gravel, the next president

Meet the Next President of the United States of America

Until the first Democratic presidential debate here on Thursday night, former senator Mike Gravel campaigned in almost total obscurity since becoming the first Democrat to declare more than a year ago, in April 2006. But all that changed with a few provocative remarks from the stage of South Carolina State University with his seven better-known rivals looking on.

Former senator Mike Gravel's remarks at the debate of Democratic presidential candidates Thursday in South Carolina have left his campaign overwhelmed with attention.

Gravel: "Who is this guy??"

Has anyone seen this dude yet, Mike Gravel, at the Democratic Presidential Debate the other night? He totally went off on everyone, all the Zio-Dems & owned all of them. He also said "the military industrial complex owns not only our government but our culture."

After debate, little-known Democrat draws a crowd
ORANGEBURG, S.C. -- Until the first Democratic presidential debate here on Thursday night, former senator Mike Gravel campaigned in almost total obscurity since becoming the first Democrat to declare more than a year ago, in April 2006.
But all that changed with a few provocative remarks from the stage of South Carolina State University with his seven better-known rivals looking on. He said the early leading Democratic candidates "frightened" him because they had taken nothing off the table, including nuclear weapons, for possible military action against Iran.
"Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?" he asked Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.
"I'm not planning on nuking anybody right now, Mike," Obama replied.
"Good, then we're safe for a while," Gravel said.
He accused candidate Joseph Biden Jr., the Delaware senator, of having "a certain arrogance" in dictating to Iraqis how to run their country.Biden hit back, saying Gravel was living in "happy land."
Yesterday, Gravel said his debate appearance gave a public that does not know him or his record "a taste of the kind of leadership I can provide." He spoke by telephone from San Diego, where he flew immediately after the debate to address the California Democratic Convention yesterday. "What will make a difference in this campaign is not money, it's not celebrity, it is a person who is prepared to tell the American people the truth," he said. "The people are fed up and as president I will do a 180 and move this country in the opposite direction."
A native of Springfield, Mass., Gravel served two terms in the Senate, representing Alaska from 1969 to 1981 . He made his mark as a fierce Vietnam war critic who staged a one-man filibuster that led to the end of the military draft. He drafted legislation to end funding for the war and released the Pentagon Papers, which detailed government deception over Vietnam, at the end of June 1971. The Nixon administration decided not to prosecute Gravel for having Beacon Press in Boston publish the papers, though the US Supreme Court ruled that Gravel could release them only inside the Capitol, based on the Constitution's speech and debate clause. Gravel today is a fierce critic of the Iraq war and government secrecy.
"This war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis," he said in the debate. Believing that Congress has the power to both declare and end wars, he called for a law to end the war.
"He's the one to say not only that the emperor has no clothes, but that the emperor wannabes have no clothes," said national pollster John Zogby, adding, "There is an angry voter. I don't know how that will take shape, it's way too early. But you got a sense why Mike Gravel is in the race on Thursday and that he is in the race."
The reaction to Gravel's performance has overwhelmed his campaign. His aides said they got more requests for interviews yesterday than in the first 12 months of the campaign. Gravel's website could not handle the flood of hits after the debate, they said. Bloggers complained that they were ready to donate money but were unable to get into the website .
"He started out with less money than the cost of a John Edwards haircut," said Elliott Jacobson, Gravel's national finance director.
Gravel told reporters after the debate: "We stayed in a $55 motel. I'll hitchhike to the next debate if I have to."
Earlier this month, Gravel returned home to Arlington, Va., from a campaign appearance in New York on a $25 ticket on Van Moose bus lines. He had spoken at the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network candidates' forum, sharing the stage with Senator Hillary Clinton and Obama -- both of whom have already raised more than $20 million each.
Gravel said he decided to run for president because of his anger over Iraq. Friends urged him to use the campaign to also push two policy goals: direct democracy and a revamped federal tax code. Gravel advocates a constitutional amendment and a federal statute establishing legislative procedures for citizens to make laws through ballot initiatives .
He also supports the Fair Tax, which would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and corporate and individual income taxes, replacing them with a 23 percent national sales tax on all new goods and services. Each month, taxpayers would receive a check to offset the tax on basic items such as food and medicine.
"People are talking about him," Zogby said. "And they are going to hear from him over the next few months as long as he's got money for a bus ticket."

FLASHBACK: CNN Bars Candidate From Debate

CNN, the Manchester Union Leader and the Hearst-owned WMUR-TV have formally decided to exclude Democratic Presidential Candidate Senator Mike Gravel from the debates they will be sponsoring in New Hampshire. This decision calls into question media censorship and goes against a fundamental American belief in “Fairness,” which is especially critical in the political process.
Gravel Dismisses CNN, WMUR-TV And Union Leader Statement

Gravel Won’t Be Buried

“Some of these people [the other candidates] frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say “there’s nothing off the table with respect to Iran. That’s code for using nukes, nuclear devices. I’ve got to tell you, if I’m President of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. In my mind, it’s immoral, and it’s been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy.”


Columbine parents launch appeal of decision to seal depositions
A lawyer for the parents of two Columbine High School victims filed formal notice Thursday that they will appeal a federal judge's decision to keep statements by the gunmen's parents secret for 20 years. U.S. District Judge Lewis T. Babcock ruled April 2 that depositions by the parents of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold would remain sealed for 20 years. The depositions were made for a civil lawsuit that was settled out of court. Several Columbine parents, scholars and law-enforcement officials had argued the depositions should be opened at least to researchers in hopes they could help prevent future school shootings.

Depleted uranium munitions cause concern near Oahu military base

Ethical Problem - Durbin
Durbin kept silent on prewar knowledge

The Senate's No. 2 Democrat says he knew that the American public was being misled into the Iraq war but remained silent because he was sworn to secrecy as a member of the intelligence committee.
"The information we had in the intelligence committee was not the same information being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it," Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said Wednesday when talking on the Senate floor about the run-up to the Iraq war in 2002. "I was angry about it. [But] frankly, I couldn't do much about it because, in the intelligence committee, we are sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that is being given to this Congress."

This is an admission that the government KNEW they were lying at the time. Thus ends any and all pretense that the claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was a misunderstanding, or an intelligence mistake.

Former Lt. General declares Bush 'seems to have gone AWOL'
"The conflict in Iraq is different. Over the past couple of years, the President has let it proceed on automatic pilot, making no corrections in the face of accumulating evidence that his strategy is failing and cannot be rescued. Thus, he lets the United States fly further and further into trouble, squandering its influence, money, and blood, facilitating the gains of our enemies. The Congress is the only mechanism we have to fill this vacuum in command judgment."

NY Police Report Bomb to Frame Activist as Terrorist
Alex Jones commented, "We have New York police on tape threatening to frame someone for terrorism in a nonchalant fashion. How bad would it have gotten if there were no cameras around? If they'll talk like this on camera, heaven help us."

Protesters demand impeachment as President Bush speaks at Miami-Dade College
Hundreds of people gathered at the Kendell Miami-Dade College campus in Miami on Saturday to protest an appearance by President Bush.The protesters were commemorating "National Impeachment Day" with a peaceful march while Miami police looked on. The president was escorted in and out of the campus through an entrance on the far side of the campus, where he could not see the protests. Two pro-Bush supporters rode their bicycles in front of the protesters screaming "Commies," but by and large, the rally drew few administration supporters.

14 arrested in Senate impeachment demonstration
Fourteen anti-war protesters were arrested in a Senate office building Thursday after unfurling a banner calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Local Businesses Monitor Names of Cheney Protestors, Form Massive "Do Not Hire" List
Why are business tracking the names of soon to be graduating students? "You are being tagged as trouble makers and added to massive 'Do Not Hire' lists," says Denise Harman, who hires hundreds of graduates every year.

Four students arrested for heckling FBI director
Mueller was unfazed by the student chants to "free all political prisoners" and "close Guantanamo, stop the lies," and instead commended the protest, saying they were a testament to freedom of expression.

Guantanamo Bay prisoners' lawyers condemn Bush administration
Lawyers representing some of the hundreds of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay have angrily condemned efforts by the Bush administration to make it more difficult for them to visit their clients. The lawyers say restrictions already in place make their jobs all but impossible.

Harvard Students Protest Gonzales at Law School Reunion
In Boston, a twenty-five year law school reunion for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales turned into a protest at Harvard Law School Saturday. Student protesters heckled Gonzales as he posed with former classmates. One student wore a black hood and orange jumpsuit like that worn by prisoners at Guantanamo.

New Orleans Residents Rally for Lower 9th Ward Recovery
In New Orleans, hundreds of people rallied Saturday to call attention to the slow recovery of the Lower Ninth Ward. The area was one of the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina. The Reverend Jesse Jackson helped lead the march. Reverend Jesse Jackson: "Katrina will not be buried. The people will return to this zone because we will fight back. We will not surrender."

Report: Bush Admin Fails to Use Millions in Foreign Katrina Aid
The protest came amid a new report showing the Bush administration has squandered hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid to Katrina victims. According to the Washington Post, the government has spent just forty-million of more than eight-hundred fifty million dollars offered from U.S. allies.

The Honeymoon is Over: Saudi Arabia files for Divorce

“The problem is that [Prince] Bandar has been pursuing a policy that was music to the ears of the Bush administration, but was not what King Abdullah had in mind at all,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel who is now head of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy.

Multiple Sex Scandals Could Sink Bush And GOP
Tobias also said prostitution is a leading cause of AIDS although he admitted to paying one of Palfrey's women for a "massage." ABC News has already reported that a number of Washington VIPs have been Palfrey's clients, including White House and Pentagon officials, top DC lobbyists and lawyers, and, as reported some weeks ago to WMR, some members of Congress are also implicated in DC's latest "Hookergate."

'DC Madam' threatens to bring down Washington
The demise of a call-girl ring and pending trial of an alleged madam claiming thousands of clients has the US capital riveted by the chance powerful men may now be caught with their trousers down, with a senior state department official apparently first to fall.
Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 50, dubbed the DC Madam in local media, has been arraigned in federal court on charges of operating a Washington DC prostitution service for 13 years until her retirement last year.
Palfrey has denied she ran a prostitution ring. Her company, Pamela Martin and Associates, was simply a "high-end adult fantasy firm which offered legal sexual and erotic services across the spectrum of adult sexual behaviour and did so without incident during its 13-year tenure," she said.
Palfrey contends her escort service provided university educated women to engage in legal game-playing of a sexual nature at $333 an hour for a 90-minute session, the Washington Post reported.
But Palfrey has also hinted that she has a record of the phone numbers of thousands of more than 10,000 customers that could embarrass more the a few of the US capital's high-fliers.

The US State Department announced yesterday Randall Tobias, the embattled head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), was resigning for unspecified personal reasons. However ABC News, which said Palfrey has provided it with a record of the numbers of calls to her private mobile phone, reported Tobias stepped down after they spoke to him about his allegedly contacting her number.
Since 2003 Tobias also was President George W Bush's first global AIDS coordinator, a job which drew criticism for his emphasis on faithfulness to partners and abstinence over condom use in trying to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus.
Before entering government he was chairman, president and chief executive of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, and also, from 1997-2000, chairman of the board of trustees at Duke University.
His now-reported links to a firm accused of prostitution have raised more than a few eyebrows.
Tobias served as director of U.S. Foreign Assistance and as the Bush administration’s de-facto AIDS czar. Tobias says he only used the escort service for massages. Tobias has previously come under criticism for promoting abstinence over condom use in the administration’s AIDS policies. As the top official on AIDS funding he was also responsible for a program that requires beneficiaries to renounce sex trafficking and prostitution.

Senior Official Linked to Escort Service Resigns
Deputy Secretary of State Randall L. Tobias submitted his resignation Friday, one day after confirming to ABC News that he had been a customer of a Washington, D.C. escort service whose owner has been charged by federal prosecutors with running a prostitution operation.

"Like Ordering Pizza". Only Slightly More Scandalous.

There are thousands of names, tens of thousands of phone numbers, and there are people there at the Pentagon, lobbyists, others at the White House, prominent lawyers — a long, long list, and as well, the women who work for the service, David, include university professors, legal secretaries, scientists, military officers.
From this article it appears that like Hollywood, DC call girls are not after just the money, but the networking opportunities. Unlike Hollywood, the DC call girls are also in a great position to conduct espionage.

Close to 80 Killed, 170 Injured in Iraq Bombing
In Iraq, nearly eighty-people were killed and more than one-hundred-seventy injured in a car bombing Sunday in the holy city of Karbala. Meanwhile April has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops so far this year. Nine servicemembers were killed this weekend, bringing the toll to one-hundred and three.

Rebuilt 7 of 8 Touted Iraq Projects Found Crumbling
The New York Times reports American inspectors looked at eight initiatives the Bush administration had hailed as signs of progress there. Seven were found to be no longer operational and were described as “crumbling.” The United States has previously admitted, sometimes under pressure from federal inspectors, that some of its reconstruction projects have been abandoned, delayed or poorly constructed. But this is the first time inspectors have found that projects officially declared a success -- in some cases, as little as six months before the latest inspections -- were no longer working properly.

New Mexican Guard demands apology from U.S. Army
The commander of New Mexico's National Guard is demanding an apology from the Army brass after dozens of his soldiers in a mostly Hispanic unit were ordered to strip to their gym shorts and searched for gang tattoos while on duty in Kuwait. The search, in which the soldiers were ordered to take off their shirts, shoes and socks and then were looked over for tattoos, was prompted by an unsubstantiated allegation from a soldier in another unit who complained about gang activity among soldiers in Kuwait.

U.S Limits Entry of Iraqi Refugees
New figures show the Bush administration has failed to live up to promises to allow even a limited number of Iraqi refugees into the United States. Just sixty-eight Iraqis have been admitted in the last six months. Meanwhile more than thirteen-hundred Cubans and twenty-four hundred Iranians have been taken in over the same period. Around two million Iraqis have fled Iraq since the U.S. invasion.

Afghanistan and Iraq: it’s the same war
Most Canadians are proud that Canada refused to invade Iraq. But when it comes to Afghanistan, we hear the same jingoistic bluster we heard about Iraq four years ago. As if Iraq and Afghanistan were two separate wars, and Afghanistan is the good war, the legal and just war.

State Dept.: 45% of Terrorist Attacks Occur in Iraq
The State Department is expected to report today another rise in the number of annual terrorist attacks. Figures from the National Counterterrorism Center show more than fourteen thousand attacks last year, up thirty-percent from 2005. Forty-five percent of those attacks were in Iraq. The McClatchy news service reports the State Department considered postponing or downplaying the report’s release.

After Bill Moyers Iraq Documentary, DC Reporters in Damage-Control Mode
You can watch the whole documentary here.

Also watch the interview with Jon Stewart
This Friday, April 27th on Bill Moyers Journal (check local listings), Bill Moyers talks with Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART, about how faking the news can reveal more of the truth than all of the Sunday-morning talk shows put together.

7/7 Mastermind was working for British Intelligence, Group was used by Brits in Kosovo in the late 90s
The July 29 edition of FOX News Channel's Day Side programme revealed that the so called mastermind of the 7/7 London Bombings, Haroon Rashid Aswat, is a British Intelligence Asset.
Former Justice Dept. prosecutor and Terror expert John Loftus revealed that the so called Al-Muhajiroun group, based in London had formed during the Kosovo crisis, during which Fundamentalist Muslim Leaders (Or what is now referred to as Al Qaeda) were recruited by MI6 to fight in Kosovo.
Loftus stated that "...back in the late 1990s, the leaders all worked for British intelligence in Kosovo. Believe it or not, British intelligence actually hired some Al-Qaeda guys to help defend the Muslim rights in Albania and in Kosovo. That's when Al-Muhajiroun got started."

Protests Worldwide for Darfur Intervention
Protests were held around the world Sunday on an international day of action to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the conflict in Darfur. Marches were held in capitals including Washington, Rome, Tel Aviv, and London. Sudanese member of parliament Salih Osman spoke out at an event in Cairo, Egypt.
Sudanese member of parliament Salih Osman: "The message is that the situation is still there. People are dying on a daily basis. Survivors and victims in Darfur need protection. We ask the world to provide protection to the people and to help them go back to their homes."
The UN estimates at least two-hundred thousand people have been killed and more than two and a half million displaced in what it calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Israelis target Palestinians with weapons causing 'burns ... by heat so intense that many cases have required amputation'
"The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what caused the injuries," Saka said. Complicating the issue was the death of many patients several days afterwards, although they appeared to recover initially. Accusations that Israel is using Gaza and its inhabitants as a laboratory to test new military weapons, have been made from several quarters.
Sounds like white phosphorus.

Heroin is "Good for Your Health": Occupation Forces support Afghan Narcotics Trade
The occupation forces in Afghanistan are supporting the drug trade, which brings between 120 and 194 billion dollars of revenues to organized crime, intelligence agencies and Western financial institutions.
The proceeds of this lucrative multibllion dollar contraband are deposited in Western banks. Almost the totality of revenues accrue to corporate interests and criminal syndicates outside Afghanistan.

Thousands Protest U.S. Raid on Afghan Civilians
In Afghanistan, thousands of people rallied against the U.S. military Sunday following a raid that killed at least three civilians. Demonstrators carried bodies of the victims and refused to leave a main road until surviving prisoners were released.
Unidentified protester: "They are committing so many operations against us. We do not want them. We do not want this kind of life in the future. America is our enemy! America is our enemy! Karzai is our enemy! Karzai is our enemy!"

Attacks Spark Fears of Taliban Defeating NATO
ln Afghanistan, the Taliban insurgency is spreading, even reaching some provinces in the north that had never been its strongholds. Last week, Taliban fighters attacked a district only 45 miles from the capital, Kabul. Afghans increasingly fear that NATO and Afghan forces will lose the war.

U.S. Supreme Court won't hear Khadr's case

Saleh Nizar, Iraq: “I thought I would not stand the torture”
As result of the torture he endured, one of his legs sustained serious injuries and doctors said it might require amputation. Nizar, who has a heart condition which he did not receive treatment for while in prison, now spends much of his time in hospitals and clinics trying to stay alive.

CIA held suspect in secret prison for months
"The CIA can't seem to get its story straight," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch. "If they can get good intelligence without using abusive techniques, why do they so desperately need to use the abusive techniques?" But he said that there was no way to know whether Iraqi had been mistreated, because "no independent monitors have been able to see him since his arrest."

The Waterboard Test: Where John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Barack Obama et al. Stand on Torture
Obama calls it ineffective. Giuliani says he’s against it. But would any of them get rid of the loophole making it legal -- as long as we outsource the dirty work?

German Prosecutors Drop Rumsfeld War-Crimes Case
In Germany, prosecutors have dropped a war crimes suit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials. The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights filed the complaint on behalf of a dozen victims of torture in U.S. custody. Germany’s laws on torture and war crimes permit the prosecution of suspected war criminals wherever they may be found. But German prosecutors say they’ve dropped the case because it has no ties to crimes committed on German soil. Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights called the decision political, not legal, and said the case could be re-filed in Spain.

Bush Has Destroyed Iraq and America
The reasons given for the American invasion of Iraq have been exposed as lies, revealing America as either a country of fools and idiots or of war criminals. Worldwide polls show that America is no longer regarded as a guiding light but is tied with Israel as the second greatest threat to world stability.

Ecuador President Backs Amazon Residents’ Case Against Chevron
In Ecuador, the oil giant Chevron is being accused of causing massive environmental damage to the Amazon rainforest. Nearly thirty-thousand Amazon residents have filed suit against Chevron seeking six billion dollars in damages. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa traveled to the forest area to back the residents’ case.
Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa: "This is the damage caused, I insist, the damage caused in the Ecuadorean Amazon by mining by Chevron's Texaco. It's 30 times greater than the damage that the Exxon Valdez caused but it looks like if it occurs in the third world, it doesn't matter."

Argentina’s Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo Mark 30th Anniversary
In Argentina, today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the first action that launched the group the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. On April 30th, 1977, a group of mothers who lost children under Argentina’s military dictatorship met to trade stories and provide support. That meeting later spawned the first of scores of demonstrations and actions against Argentina’s military leaders.
Plaza de Mayo member Enriqueta Maroni: "It was during the time when desperation and pain forced us to look for our children. It was the only thing we wanted: to find our children. It was a painful time for us and, over time, we transformed it into struggle and then resistance, but an active resistance."

Migration overhaul urged
President Calderon on Friday once again urged the U.S. Congress to overhaul its immigration laws, insisting that both Mexico and the United States would benefit from reforms that recognize the "blood, sweat and tears" of migrant workers

South American Leaders Gather for ALBA Summit
In Venezuela, leaders from several Latin American and Caribbean nations gathered this weekened for the fifth meeting of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA. ALBA’s four core members -- Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua -- formed the pact two years ago as an alternative to U.S.-backed trade deals.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez: “ALBA continues to grow. The FTAA is dead. Viva ALBA."

Rocket Fuel Chemical in Food Supply
Perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel, is turning up in the nation's food -- in vegetables like lettuce and spinach -- and water supply. You've never heard of it? Most Americans haven't, but millions have been exposed to it. This week Congress held hearings to determine just how dangerous it is to humans' health.

Experts On Mammograms And Breast Cancer

Mammograms Cause Breast Cancer

Mammograns Offer Zero Health Benefits Doctors Conclude

Taiwan stung by millions of missing bees
Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.

California warns of seafood dangers

Citing concerns over the domoic acid poisoning that has already sickened hundreds of birds, state health regulators on Friday urged people not to eat certain types of seafood — including shellfish and sardines — caught by recreational fishermen off most of the Southern California coast. Friday's warning comes as hundreds of sick or dead marine birds are being washed ashore up and down the coast, their conditions linked to a particularly virulent outbreak of the naturally occurring domoic acid toxin, scientists say.

Aspartame - FDA Spins News on 2nd Cancer Study
In a move designed to head off yet more negative publicity for the toxic sweetener, the FDA issued a press release on Friday - just days before Soffritti's talk at the Mount Sinai Medical Schoo, restating the FDA's earlier contention that there is "no evidence the sweetener causes cancer".
Morando Soffritti, an Italian researcher with the Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna is known for his publication of a study that found aspartame, the artificial sweetener consisting of two amino acids and a methanol binding agent, caused multiple cancers in rats. Soffritti was in New York on Monday, 23 April, to accept a prestigious academic award and to talk about a second study his institute is conducting with lower doses of aspartame. Although results have not yet been published, the study appears set to confirm the findings of the first study and the researchers are finding negative health effects even at very low dosages of aspartame, comparable to the intakes of people who are regularly using diet drinks.
See New Study by Ramazzini Institute Confirms Aspartame Carcinogenic

Man Arrested for Bomb Plot at Texas Abortion Clinic
In Texas, a potentially major attack was avoided this weekend at an abortion clinic in Austin. Police say they arrested a man who placed an unexploded bomb containing nearly two-thousand nails, a propane tank and a device similar to a rocket outside the clinic’s doors.

Fired Imus Sidekick Defends Remarks, Calls Sharpton “Terrorist”
The former sidekick and producer fired along with the radio host Don Imus has followed his dismissal with more controversial remarks. In his first interview since he was dismissed for calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team ‘hard core hos’, Bernard McGuirk defended his comments to Fox anchors Sean Hannity and Alan Colmes.
Bernard McGuirk: “I mean, nobody uses the n-word. You just don't do that. But b's and hos, I mean, we're just try -- what am I going to say, dames?” & “Well, I hope that Al Sharpton's blow dryer falls in the -- no.”
Sharpton helped lead the protests for Imus’ dismissal. Later in the broadcast, McGuirk went on to call Sharpton “terrorist.”

Fractured Fairy Tales

Following House, Senate OKs War Funding With Non-Binding Timetable
The Senate has voted to provide nearly one hundred billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while setting a non-binding timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. The vote came one day after the bill passed in the House. The final vote was fifty-one to forty six. Senators Gordon Smith of Oregon and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska were the lone Republicans to vote with Democrats. Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman joined Republicans to oppose the bill. White House spokesperson Dana Perino promised an immediate veto.

White House spokesperson Dana Perino: “I just spoke to the President in the oval office and as he's said he's going to veto the legislation and looks forward to working with congressional leaders to craft a bill that he can sign."

Democratic Leadership ignoring the will of the voters who put them in Congress
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has borrowed a page from the Bush-Cheney-Rove playbook and has been having her staff, particularly her press secretary, Drew Hammil, harass members of the media and the peace movement, including Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out.
This, coupled with Pelosi's non-support for Dennis Kucinich's bill of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney, is sending a message -- one that the Democratic leadership of the House is not representing the wishes of the American people and is failing to understand the message sent by last year's election.
Pelosi's father, Baltimore Mayor Tommy D'Alessandro, was a loyal Democrat who walked in lockstep with President Lyndon Johnson in his support for the Vietnam War. D'Alessandro also swallowed the J. Edgar Hoover line that the race riots in Baltimore following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 were organized in advance by sinister forces, i.e. "Communists." Nancy appears not to have fallen very far from daddy's tree.

War Hawk Kristol Confronted By Military Wife: ‘You All Don’t Understand…We Are People Too’
During a C-SPAN appearance this morning, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol was confronted by a military wife living in Ft. Hood, TX, who called in to criticize him for “pushing the war.”

Depleted Uranium - Poisoning U.S. Troops And The Planet
Lori Brim has joined other parents, hundreds of other sick soldiers, legislators, research scientists and environmental activists who say the cause of their problems results from exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive metal used in the manufacture of U.S. tank armor and weapon casings.
While the military continues to deny the connection of depleted uranium to sicknesses plaguing returning servicemen and women, a newly mandated study stemming from legislation signed by President Bush in October is just getting under way.

72 Dead in Iraq Violence
In news from Iraq, at least seventy-two people died in violence around the country Thursday. Twenty-seven bullet-riddled bodies were found on the streets of Baghdad. Another eight people were killed and nineteen wounded in a bombing near Baghdad University.

Serving British soldier exposes horror of war in 'crazy' Basra
"Basra is lost, they are in control now. It's a full-scale riot and the Government are just trying to save face," said Private Paul Barton.

Iraqi civilians believed dead in US strike-military
"Additionally, coalition forces believe that two women and two children were also killed during the strike," the statement said. "The bodies were left on the site."

Petraeus Warns of Increasing Iraq Casualties
The violence comes as the top US commander in Iraq is warning US and Iraqi casualties are likely to rise as the military struggles to carry out its goals. General David Petraeus spoke Thursday in Washington.

Gen. David Petraeus: "The situation in Iraq is, in sum, exceedingly complex and very tough. Success will take continued commitment, perseverance and sacrifice, all to make possible an opportunity for the all-important Iraqi political actions that are the key to long-term solutions to Iraq's many problems. Because we are operating in new areas and challenging elements in those areas, this effort may get harder before it gets easier."

Iranians backed Iraqi cell that killed 5 US soldiers: US general
Iran's Qods Force funded, armed and trained a network of secret Iraqi cells that kidnapped and killed five US soldiers in January in Karbala, the top US commander in Iraq said Thursday.
Oh? Then how come the attackers were (according to other reports) speaking English?

Officer: Generals Misleading Public on Iraq
Meanwhile an active-duty Army officer has come out with a scathing critique of how top U.S. generals are handling the war in Iraq. Writing for the Armed Forces Journal, Leutenant Colonel Paul Yingling writes military leaders have under-stated the strength of the Iraqi insurgency to the American public. He writes: “For reasons that are not yet clear, America’s general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq’s government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq.” Yingling continues: “Our generals are not worthy of their soldiers.”

Army Charges U.S. Officer Overseeing Baghdad Prison
In other Iraq news, a senior U.S. army officer overseeing a prison in Baghdad has been charged with aiding the enemy. Lt. Col. William Steele is accused of several offenses including allowing prisoners to use a cellphone and having a relationship with a prisoner’s daughter.

Uncomfortable truth: U.S. troops ignored sex slave atrocity, used Japanese-run brothels
Japan's abhorrent practice of enslaving women to provide sex for its troops in World War II has a little-known sequel: After its surrender -- with tacit approval by U.S. occupation authorities -- Japan set up a similar "comfort women" system for American GIs.

U.S. slams brakes on unsnarling border
Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff pulled out of talks this week after two years of high-level discussions. U.S. sources close to the discussions say the chief explanation for the move is a lingering view in the Bush administration that Canada is a pipeline for terrorists.

Rice signals rejection of U.S. House subpoena in Iraq weapons of mass destruction inquiry
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a U.S. congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.
Rice has signaled she’ll reject a House subpoena to testify on her knowledge of the Bush administration’s use of pre-war intelligence to lead the country into the Iraq war. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wants to look into the administration’s false claim Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Rice spoke Thursday in Oslo.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “If there are questions [Rep. Henry Waxman] has, I hope he would post them and I would be happy to answer them [in writing]. But there is a constitutional principle. This all took place in my role as national security adviser and there is a separation of powers and advisers to the president under that constitutional principle are not generally required to go and testify in Congress."
Why doesn't she want to own up to her lies publicly?

Ex-CIA Head Criticizes Admin on Pre-War Intel
Former CIA Director George Tenet has accused the Bush administration of blindly leading the country into war on Iraq and then using him as a scapegoat when their pre-war claims proved false. In a new book released next week, Tenet writes: “There was never a serious debate that I know of within the administration about the imminence of the Iraqi threat.” He adds there was also never any discussion of containing Iraq without a full-scale invasion. Tenet also takes issue with administration officials’ repeated citing of his infamous ‘slam dunk’ remark about evidence Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Tenet says he was referring to the ease of making a public case for war, not the specific issue of WMDs. Tenet was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom award in December 2004, six months after he resigned in the fallout over the administration’s pre-war intelligence.

White House dismisses ex-CIA chief Tenet's criticism
"A senior White House counselor on Friday dismissed former CIA Director's George Tenet portrait of a Bush administration that rushed to war in Iraq without serious debate," reports The Associated Press. "This president weighed all the various proposals, weighed all the various consequences before he did make a decision," said Bartlett.

Dems Hold First Presidential Debate
In election news, the eight leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination held their first debate Thursday in South Carolina. Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards opened with criticism of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s refusal to join him in apologizing for voting to authorize the Iraq war.

John Edwards: “Senator Clinton and anyone else who voted for this war has to search themselves and decide whether they believe they've voted the right way. If so, they can support their vote. If they believe they didn't, I think it's important to be straightforward and honest."

That was former Senator John Edwards. Senator Clinton said she has already taken responsibility for her vote.

Sen. Hillary Clinton: "If I knew then what I know now, I would not have voted that way. But I think the real question before us is what do we do now? How do we try to persuade or require this President to change course?"

Meanwhile Ohio Congressmember Dennis Kucinich explained why he’s the only candidate to support the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Rep. Dennis Kuccinich: "I took an oath to defend the Constitution. My colleagues have spent a lot of time talking about Iraq tonight. This country was taken into war based on lies," he argued. He then added, "Mr. Cheney must be held accountable, he's already ginning up cause for war against Iran. We have to protect and defend this Constitution...the American people should know there is at least one person running for president who wants to reconnect America to its goodness, its greatness, its highest principles."

And former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel challenged what he called the military-industrial complex.

Mike Gravel: "We have no important enemies. What we have to do is to begin to deal with the rest of the world as equals and we don't do that. We spend more as a nation on defense than the rest of the world put together. Who are we afraid of? Who are you afraid of ? I'm not. Iraq has never been a threat to us. We invaded them it is unbelievable. The military industrial complex not only controls our government lock stock and barrel, but they control our culture."

UN: 400,000 Flee Somalia Fighting
In Somalia, clashes between U.S. backed-Ethiopian forces and fighters aligned with the Islamic Courts Union in the capital Mogadishu are being described as some of the heaviest fighting in the city’s history. Local human rights workers report at least three-hundred twenty-nine people have been killed over the past ten days. Meanwhile the United Nations is warning more people have been displaced in Somalia in the past three months than anywhere else in the world.

UN relief coordinator John Holmes: “A couple days ago, I was talking about 320,000 people having fled, which is about one-third of the population. I think those estimates are rising rapidly. I think it's impossible to give an accurate figure but we're probably nearer 340,000 or 350,000 now, and maybe I've even seen an estimate of 400,000 as people are fleeing the fighting."

Putin Halts Arms Treaty over US Missile System
Tensions are increasing over the Bush administration’s plans to build a missile system in Eastern Europe. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced he’s suspending Russia’s obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty. The Cold War treaty caps the deployment of conventional arms inside the former Soviet Union and outside its old borders. Putin says he based his decision on a buildup of NATO military bases near Russia and US plans to host missile facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Immigration Officials Sued for Detaining 7-Year Old Boy
A family in California has filed a civil suit against U.S. officials for seizing a young boy and detaining him for more than ten hours in a recent immigration raid. Seven-year old Kebin Reyes was asleep the night of March 6 when immigration officers burst into his bedroom. Kebin and his father Noe Reyes were taken to a detention center in San Francisco. They were kept in a locked room and given only bread with mayonnaise and water. Reyes says he showed immigration officers the boy’s U.S. passport but was ignored. He was also denied permission to call a relative to pick-up Kebin from detention. Reyes says his son has been withdrawn and has had several nightmares since the raid.

No bees? Not just strange, but scary
When you consider that perhaps half the plants in nature depend upon pollinators like bees to reproduce, you have to wonder what a future without bees holds - not just for the animals that live on those plants, but for human beings.

Link Between Disappearing Bees and GM Crops?
Crops engineered to produce Bt do so in very large quantities. It’s produced by every cell in the plant including roots, stems, leaves and flowers. It’s also present in the pollen of these plants. The amount of Bt in these plants is enough to trigger allergies in some people, and irritate the skin and eyes of farmers who handle the crops. In India, when sheep were used to clear a field of left over Bt cotton, several sheep died after eating it.

Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."

Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods

learn that lab animals fed GM soy had altered sperm cells and embryos, and a five-fold increase in infant mortality, or that genes might transfer from GM corn to turn your intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories—for the long-term.

Genetically Modified Foods are inherently unsafe
"British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health questions." The Guardian In 1992, Murray Lumpkin, M.D., then director the FDA’s Division of Anti-infective Drug Products, warned: “IT WOULD BE A SERIOUS HEALTH HAZARD TO INTRODUCE A GENE THAT CODES FOR ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE INTO THE NORMAL FLORA OF THE GENERAL POPULATION.”

Push for energy-saving fluorescents ignores mercury disposal hazards
Last month, the Prospect, Maine, resident went out and bought two dozen CFLs and began installing them in her home. One broke. A month later, her daughter's bedroom remains sealed off with plastic like the site of a hazardous materials accident, while Bridges works on a way to pay off a $2,000 estimate by a company specializing in environmentally sound cleanups of the mercury inside the bulb.

Police officer, ex-officer plead guilty in woman's killing
ln Atlanta, two police officers have pleaded guilty in the shooting death of a ninety-two year old African-American woman. The victim, Kathryn Johnston, had fired on the officers after they had broken into her home. One of the officers has admitted they obtained a search warrant by lying about information from a police informant. When the plainclothes officers burst in without notice, police said Johnston fired at them and they fired back. No cocaine was found. Officers Gregg Junnier and Jason Smith are expected to serve at least ten years in prison.

BYU Preparing Protest for Vice President Cheney's Arrival
In Utah, hundreds of students gathered at Brigham Young University Thursday to protest a commencement address from Vice President Dick Cheney. More than 3,000 students, professors and alumni at the Mormon school had signed a petition to oppose Cheney’s visit.

Group: NBA Legend Supports Demands on Abbot AIDS Controversy
Here in New York, activists with the group ACT UP - the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power - confronted the basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson last night over his endorsement of the pharmaceutical company Abbot Laboratories. Earlier this year the company announced it would withhold seven new drugs from sale in Thailand including a new AIDS drug and treatments for arthritis and high blood pressure. The unprecedented move was called a retaliation to Thailand’s plan to importing or producing cheaper, generic copies of Abbott’s AIDS drug Kaletra. According to an ACT-Up press release, activists confronted Johnson with banners reading ‘Abbott’s Greed Kills People With AIDS In Thailand.” ACT-Up says Johnson voiced support for their demands and said he was raising the issue with Abbott executives.

Activists Unfurl 30-Ft. Impeachment Banners in Senate Building
ln Washington, fourteen people were arrested in the Senate office building Thursday for unfurling two thirty-foot banners calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. One banner read: “Your silence, your legacy’ while the other listed articles of impeachment.”

'Little girl Rambo' decries US propaganda

'Little girl Rambo' decries US propaganda

Initial reports also suggested that Ms Lynch had been abused after she came round in the hospital. She said the reports were lies: she had been treated well and the Iraqis had tried to return her to US forces.
Ms Lynch criticised the Pentagon, saying: "I'm still confused why they lied and tried to make me into a legend." Ms Lynch said the real heroes were those who died in the attack and those who rescued her.

Al Jazeera memo trial opens

The attempt to cover up George Bush’s plan to bomb the Arabic television channel Al Jazeera has resulted in two men being put on trial for allegedly breaking the Official Secrets Act.
Prosecutors allege Keogh passed the memo to O’Connor in May 2004. He placed it in a file he handed to his boss, Tony Clarke, then a Labour MP.
The story was dismissed as “outlandish” by the White House. Blair denied receiving details of any US proposal to bomb Al Jazeera. However, at the time an unnamed Whitehall source let slip to the media the idea that Bush’s proposal had been a joke – confirming that the conversation had taken place.

A Media Role in Selling the War? No Question.

Perhaps the truth shall eventually set you free, but first it might make you very, very depressed. Tonight's edition of "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS is one of the most gripping and important pieces of broadcast journalism so far this year, but it's as disheartening as it is compelling. It's always depressing to learn that you've been had, but incalculably more so when the deception has resulted in thousands of Americans dying in the Iraq war effort.
And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.

Russia Withdraws From European Conventional Forces Treaty

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he was suspending Russia’s obligations under the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, the Reuters news agency reports. The Russian President linked the move to U.S. plans for a missile defence shield in Europe. He made the announcement as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and NATO counterparts prepared to meet Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a NATO-Russia meeting in Oslo.

The Green Zone Follies

We had to stop, could not turn around because there were vehicles behind us, frantically trying to flee in all directions, and so I saw what were the shredded remains of all fifteen soldiers littering the street and smoldering. There was not a word of this in our media at home and the official casualty lists, posted on the net didn’t mention any of them. There are fifteen that never got reported. Fellow in the next building from me does the casualty reports for transmitting back to the States and he says they publish the names of one in ten.

US prison chief arrested in Iraq

Lt Col William Steele is accused of giving detainees free use of a mobile phone at Camp Cropper and fraternising with the daughter of a detainee.

Republican puts out 'action alert' claiming Rice will be subpoenaed tomorrow

A spokesman for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice suggested that she had more important things to do than testify before Congress the day before a House Committee is threatening to issue a subpoena for her cooperation with an investigation into the evidence used to build the case for the Iraq War.
Panel Votes to Subpoena Condoleezza Rice
Rice appears to reject Waxman's subpoena

In a press briefing in Oslo, according to the AP's Matthew Lee, Rice took the opportunity to state directly for the first time that she didn't see her testimony as necessary.

Court Asked to Limit Lawyers at Guantanamo

Saying that visits by civilian lawyers and attorney-client mail have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantanamo,” a Justice Department filing proposes new limits on the lawyers’ contact with their clients and access to evidence in their cases that would replace more expansive rules that have governed them since they began visiting Guantanamo detainees in large numbers in 2004.

Federal report censors Afghan torture references

The revelations were reported by The Globe and Mail on Wednesday after the paper obtained a report by Canadian diplomats in Kabul, under an Access to Information request. However, every reference in the report to abuse or torture in prison was blacked out.
The report, titled "Afghanistan-2006; Good Governance, Democratic Development and Human Rights" was identified as intended for "Canadian Eyes Only." It seems to provide evidence from the federal government representatives on the ground that senior officials and ministers knew torture, abuse and disappearances are commonplace in Afghan jails. The Globe report says the blacked-out sections don't seem to involve national security or privacy issues, and there is no explanation as to why they were removed.

Tom DeLay: Reid And Pelosi Are ‘Very, Very Close To Treason’

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial board yesterday, former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) accused Senate Majoirty Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) of “getting very, very close to treason” by opposing the war in Iraq.

As if ANYONE takes DeLay seriously at this point.

Dusty & 'the boys'

The first anniversary of the April 10 2006 seizure in Mexico’s Yucatan of a American-registered DC9 caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine passed virtually unnoticed last week. It shouldn’t have...
Porter Goss resigned less than a month later, the same day the FBI executed a search warrant at the house of the No. 3 official in the Central Intelligence Agency, Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, soon to go on trial for corruption with accomplice Brent Wilkes.

Contractor Wants Indictments Dismissed
Lawyers for a defense contractor accused of bribing a congressman and committing fraud with a top CIA official have asked a judge to dismiss charges. The lawyers claim the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego deliberately and illegally disclosed grand jury secrets to the news media.
The indictments were returned against Wilkes and former CIA official Kyle "Dusty'' Foggo on Feb. 13, two days before U.S. Attorney Carol Lam left office. Lam's firing was part of a purge of eight U.S. attorneys.
The charges stem from an investigation of former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke'' Cunningham, who pleaded guilty in November 2005 to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from defense contractors and was sentenced to more than eight years in prison.
The leaks detailed charges that prosecutors proposed to the grand jury and disclosed the anticipated timing of indictments, information that was ``solely within the government's control,'' Geragos wrote.
Wilkes and Foggo, the CIA's No. 3 official until his resignation last May, have pleaded not guilty to fraud, conspiracy and money laundering. Foggo was charged with directing $1.7 million in contracts to Wilkes, who allegedly reciprocated with lavish trips and a job offer. Wilkes also pleaded not guilty in a separate indictment on charges of conspiracy, bribery, money laundering and making unlawful monetary transactions of more than $700,000 to Cunningham.

Kucinich Introduces Impeachment Articles Against Cheney

Because I believe the vice president's conduct of office has been destructive to the founding purposes of our nation. Today, I have introduced House Resolution 333, Articles of Impeachment Relating to Vice President Richard B. Cheney. I do so in defense of the rights of the American people to have a government that is honest and peaceful. It became obvious to me that this vice president, who was a driving force for taking the United States into a war against Iraq under false pretenses, is once again rattling the sabers of war against Iran with the same intent to drive America into another war, again based on false pretenses.

SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS FOR IMPEACHMENT OF VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY
Kucinich announces impeachment charges against Vice President Cheney

GM crop failure a warning, says US adviser
A former agricultural adviser to US presidents says the failure of a genetically modified field pea trial should act as a warning for future GM crop testing. The 10-year CSIRO trial was abandoned when tests found the peas were making mice seriously ill. Dr Charles Benbrook, who advised presidents Carter, Bush senior, Reagan and Clinton says the field pea trial failure shows current GM crop testing is grossly inadequate.
"I don't believe that this new study proves that all genetically engineered food is posing a great threat to people but it certainly confirms the need to go back and look at the major food crops," he said.
He has called for changes to the Gene Technology Act, which is currently under review, to tighten GM crop regulation and increase scientific scrutiny of potential commercial varieties.
But the Grains Council's David Ginns says the failed field pea trial was an isolated case, and the fact health concerns were discovered shows current monitoring is adequate. "It picked up a problem early and the project was terminated on the basis that there were concerns raised in the trial."
This brings us back to the collapse of bee colonies. The claim that cell phones are the cause is easily disproven by the fact that the collapse began in isolated pockets, then progressed state-to-state. Had cell phones been the cause, the collapses would have appeared everywhere simultaneously. So, we are back to looking at GM crops as the probable cause of the bee colony collapse.

Ahmadinejad offers to hold direct talks with U.S. President Bush
Iran's leader proposes talks with Bush

Clinton: US might have to confront Iran

Democratic presidential candidate and New York Senator Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that it might be necessary for America to confront Iran militarily, addressing that possibility more directly than any of the other presidential candidates who spoke this week to the National Jewish Democratic Council.
Who's she working for?

Will Israel Strike Iran?

Israel would prefer that Iran be struck - by some other power and rendered weak by another nation. For Israel it would be best if the United States and a coalition of the West emasculated and neutered Iran of nuclear capabilities. Should that not occur, then yes, I believe that Israel will, under certain circumstances strike Iran.

22 Jewish Leaders Arrested Calling for Removal of Iran at UN

Twenty-one rabbis, and a Jewish community layperson were arrested at the United Nations Tuesday, demanding that Iran be removed from the international body.

Al-Qaeda Reportedly Planning Attack "on Par With Hiroshima"

According to a leaked intelligence report Al-Qaeda is planning to "shake the Roman throne" with an attack on "a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki." The report indicates that the plan will have the help of supporters in Iran.

How convenient for the neocons.

Giuliani Cautions: Another 9/11 if Democrats Win

At a town hall meeting at New England College in Henniker, N.H., Rudy Giuliani, a US Presidential candidate and former NY City mayor, warned that America would be prone to another terrorist attack equal to that of 9/11 if Democrats win the 2008 election.

Giuliani Caught In Bizarre Building 7 Lie

Rudy Giuliani has been caught in a bizarre lie about WTC 7, in which he claims the building collapsed in stages over a sustained period of time, when in reality the structure fell in under seven seconds.
Keep 'em coming, Rudy. You'll save your supporters a lot of money in campaign contributions at this rate...

The Evidence is in

Professor Steven Jones presenting his X-ray spectrometry evidence from samples taken at the WTC site. They dramatically show a PERFECT MATCH for the highly specialized compound "thermate" (used for cutting through steel) found in the WTC debris. (And no, thermate was NOT used during the clean up operation...this stuff was in the building, and ignited, prior to collapse.)

9/11 firefighter lung ailments on the rise

Twenty-six firefighters who toiled at Ground Zero came down with sarcoidosis, an inflammatory illness that often attacks the lungs, in the five years after 9/11 - a significant increase, a new study has found. The study has angered the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which complains that the NYPD has refused to acknowledge that 9/11 caused sarcoidosis in cops.
The PBA., which has its own registry of ailing WTC responders, counts 19 cops with sarcoidosis. Unlike the FDNY, the NYPD has been reluctant to link the disease to 9/11. The NYPD has also rejected some cops' medical bills for sarcoidosis.
"First they denied any connection between the WTC and sarcoidosis. Now that there's scientific evidence, they refuse to accept it," PBA president Patrick Lynch told The Post.
NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said Commissioner Ray Kelly welcomed line-of-duty death benefits recently given the daughter of detective James Zadroga, 34, a 9/11 responder who died of respiratory illness.
"The department hasn't refused to acknowledge a link. The medical division is reviewing the cases," Browne said.

Innocence Project frees 200th wrongfully convicted man

Jerry Miller was exonerated yesterday in Chicago after serving 24 years in prison. He becomes the 200th person to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

UN asks Israel for bomb records
A UN envoy has urged Israel to hand over detailed electronic records of its cluster bomb strikes on Lebanon in 2006 to help clear the bombs removal.

Canada to ban incandescent light bulbs by 2012

Canada is the second country in the world to announce such a ban. Australia said in February it would get rid of all incandescent bulbs by 2009.

Over 450,000 Federal Workers Are Tax Deadbeats

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and ranking Republican Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) sent a letter to President Bush today complaining that over 450,000 federal workers and retirees owe $3 billion in federal taxes.

Doctors owe more than $1 billion in back taxes

"Fascist America, in 10 easy steps"

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.

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2 Create a gulag
3 Develop a thug caste (Blackwater & other mercenary contractors)
4 Set up an internal surveillance system
5 Harass citizens' groups
6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7 Target key individuals
8 Control the press
9 Dissent equals treason
10 Suspend the rule of law
"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands ... is the definition of tyranny," wrote James Madison. We still have the choice to stop going down this road; we can stand our ground and fight for our nation, and take up the banner the founders asked us to carry.


Cpl. Pat Tillman
Tillman brother blasts military
WASHINGTON - Pat Tillman's brother accused the military Tuesday of "intentional falsehoods" and "deliberate and careful misrepresentations" in portraying the football star's death in Afghanistan as the result of heroic engagement with the enemy instead of friendly fire.
"We believe this narrative was intended to deceive the family but more importantly the American public," Kevin Tillman told a hearing of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. "Pat's death was clearly the result of fratricide," he said. "Revealing that Pat's death was a fratricide would have been yet another political disaster in a month of political disasters ... so the truth needed to be suppressed," said Tillman, who was in a convoy behind his brother when the incident happened three years ago but didn't see it. He said the Tillman family has sought for years to get at the truth about Pat Tillman's death. "We have now concluded that our efforts are being actively thwarted by powers that are more interested in protecting a narrative than getting at the truth and seeing justice is served," he said.
Tillman was killed on April 22, 2004, after his Army Ranger comrades were ambushed in eastern Afghanistan. Rangers in a convoy trailing Tillman's group had just emerged from a canyon where they had been fired upon. They saw Tillman and mistakenly fired on him.
Committee chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., contended that the federal government invented sensational details and about the death of Pat Tillman and the rescue of Jessica Lynch from Iraq." "The government violated its most basic responsibility," said Waxman.

Dustin Brim went into the Army a healthy man. A year later, he returned home. His body was riddled with incurable cancer. Could his own weapons and armor — made with a byproduct of enriched uranium — have been the cause?

Soldier health scare back in news
Lori Brim has joined other parents, hundreds of other sick soldiers, legislators, research scientists and environmental activists who say the cause of their problems results from exposure to depleted uranium, a radioactive metal used in the manufacture of U.S. tank armor and weapon casings. Health and environmental effects of depleted uranium are at the heart of scientific studies, a lawsuit in the New York courts and legislative bills in more than a dozen states (although not in Florida). News stories claiming negative signs of depleted uranium’s impact, including death and birth defects, are surfacing from Australia to England to the Far East.

Dustin Brim in Iraq before becoming ill. (Courtesy Lori Brim)

Lori Brim cradles her son Dustin, sick with cancer at age 22 in 2004 after serving in Iraq. (Courtesy Lori Brim)

Bush Dishonors War Dead By Using Their Families

I'm sure White House staffers don't tell these families how their anguish is to be used and Bush didn’t waste much time yesterday before harnessing that grief to bolster his disastrous non-strategy in Iraq. The family of Michael Carlson, who died in Iraq two years ago, was present and Bush lowered the ethical bar still more by using the Carlson family -- and even a poem about being a soldier that Michael had written in high school -- to goad Congressional Democrats into accepting his ridiculous stay-the-course policy.



Injured Troops Struggle to Get Health Care

When a service member is retired for medical reasons, the military's disability rating makes a difference. If Ngo had been rated 30 percent disabled or higher, he would have gotten a monthly disability check instead of a small severance check. He also would have stayed in the military's health-care system.

Humans in secret radioactive tests

DOZENS OF people drank, inhaled or were injected with radioactivity as part of a series of secret experiments carried out by the nuclear industry in the 1960s, according to official documents passed to the Sunday Herald. Tests exposing humans to radioactive caesium, iodine, strontium and uranium were conducted despite doubts about their legal and ethical implications. One proposal even envisaged injecting plutonium into elderly people to help assess contamination risks.
See A SHORT HISTORY OF US GOVERNMENT RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE

Doctors battle the new shell shock

All the signs are that the sustained war is creating a mental health problem in the US military - the modern equivalent of shell shock, a combination of post-traumatic stress disorder, which induces a continuing state of anxiety, and traumatic brain injury that may have several physical symptoms.
"Six hundred of the soldiers who came here from Iraq last year had mental health conditions," says Lieutenant-Colonel Gary Southwell, Landstuhl's chief psychologist. "And 20 per cent of them were suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome - flashbacks, hyper-vigilance, memory loss. "One of the major reasons people are being sent home is self-destructiveness and suicidal thoughts."
Meet the new shell shock, same as the old shell shock. Killing other people is bad for your mind.

New World Court Website

Today, as its sixtieth anniversary year draws to a close, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, launched its new website.

Pentagon announces new faces in charge at Guantanamo

The transition comes at a sensitive time - just weeks after Defense Secretary Robert Gates testified at Congress that, given the "taint" of impropriety at Guantanamo Bay, the war court would lack credibility in some parts of the globe.
"Taint of impropriety"? That's putting it mildly.

Desperation in Gitmo's Camp 6
According to the report, Camp 6 "has created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation in which detainees are confined to almost completely sealed, individual cells, with minimal contact with any other human being."
Prisoners in Camp 6 are confined to 8-by-10-foot cells for at least 22 hours a day, and are allowed out only infrequently to shower or to exercise in enclosed areas surrounded by high concrete-and-wire walls. They are not able to speak to each other except by shouting through a narrow gap at the bottom of their steel cell doors. There are no outside windows, and detainees have reported that air conditioning is left on high--making the metal cells intolerably cold.




General Petraeus: Iraqis will have to 'learn to live' with 'sensational attacks'

Iraq has many Virginia Techs every single day

... under American occupation.
Why is it a tragedy in Virginia but just business as usual in Baghdad?

Iraqi doctor denied visit to U.S. conference

An Iraqi doctor who concluded that more Iraqi civilians have died in the war than has been reported has been prevented from attending a medical conference at the University of Washington.

IRAQ: Thousands without food and supplies due to failing distribution system

The RI said that the Iraqi government is not transferring the IDPs’ cards for political reasons. The NGO believes that the authorities are reluctant to issue new cards so as not to mix the ethnic and sectarian make-up of the country’s different regions.

US training Sunni extremists to attack Hizbullah; operations to be attributed to Al-Qaeda

It was learned from influential members of the US delegations that the Washington special[-forces] apparatus has begun assembling, arming and training members of Islamic extremist groups to undertake assaults on Hizbullah, in the framework of the conflict that it [the Bush administration] plans between the Sunni and the Shiite population, in districts where the two groups are contiguous. And it will be arranged to camouflage the agents in this by attributing the attacks to AlQaeda.


Al-Qaeda World Headquarters and Regional Offices Traced!

Yes Al-Qaeda exists! They have 3 main offices and 1 liaison office. We traced their main offices to Tel-Aviv- Israel (head quarters), London – UK (Regional office), Langley-Virginia (North America Head office), and Berlin-Germany (liaison office). They have a combined budget of $100 billion plus (A lot of their income comes from drugs trade). Some very dangerous criminals in the history of the world are at the head of this organisation with connections in many countries, and a support base of many Sayans.

Who is erasing Iraq's history?

Before the invasion, suicide bombings were unheard of in Iraq. The 1990's had some car bombs in Baghdad, which bewildered Iraqis and it would seem were generated by former US darling Iyad Allawi's Iraq National Accord. American spokespersons have a mantra: “Al Qaeda”. But there was no Al Qaeda (anyway a CIA creation) in Iraq before the invasion. Has the most powerful army on earth no ability to control Iraq's borders? Saddam Hussein never had a problem. Anyway, the US military itself has stated that only a minimal percentage of attacks are by foreign fighters and Iraqis have lived together for centuries. When a friend - and many others - said, just prior to the invasion: “Let them come, we have been fighting invaders for centuries”, she was talking about just that. Not Iraqis fighting Iraqis.

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Construction on Baghdad barrier halted

Iraq's prime minister said Sunday that he has ordered a halt to the U.S. military construction of a barrier separating a Sunni enclave from surrounding Shiite areas in Baghdad after fierce criticism over the project at home.

Iraqis Blame US Occupation for Bloody Week

Iraqis blame the U.S. occupation for the failure of two parallel security plans drawn up by U.S. forces and Iraqi troops that failed dramatically with the bombings last week that killed more than 300 people in Baghdad.

Washington awaits a CIA chief’s revenge

WASHINGTON is braced for a showdown between the Central Intelligence Agency, the White House and the Pentagon when George Tenet, the former CIA chief, publishes his memoirs next week. Anxious to restore his reputation after failing to prevent the September 11 attacks and overreacting to flimsy evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Tenet is said to spread the blame freely among other senior members of President George W Bush’s administration.

REAL CRIMES OF WOLFOWITZ IGNORED

Israel Rafalovich: News Analysis; The Wolfowitz Controversy, a Wake-Up Call for Europe

The staff of the World Bank and development organisations are calling for his resignation, as anger increased after last Thursday’s apology that he erred in the handling of the promotion of his girlfriend, a former senior communications officer in the World Bank's Middle East Department.



SCOOP: US Attorney for Delaware is being replaced?

The US Attorney for the District of Delaware, Colm F. Connolly, is being replaced by Keith M. Rosen, an attorney from the New York office of Chadbourne & Parke LLP. In light of Gonzogate, one has to consider what the real reasons for the replacement are. And, again, one has to wonder why there are no press releases or public announcements of this replacement.

Bush Administration Awash in Scandals

Campaigning in 2000, Texas Gov. George W. Bush would repeatedly raise his right hand as if taking an oath and vow to "restore honor and integrity" to the White House. He pledged to usher in a new era of bipartisanship. What ever happened to restoring honor and dignity?



Ex-Justice Dept. Attorneys Accuse Bush Admin of Restricting African American Vote to Favor Republicans
Another scandal is brewing inside Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department. Former Justice Department attorneys have publicly accused the Bush administration of politicizing the department's Civil Rights Division which was formed 50 years ago to protect the voting rights of African-Americans. According to a recent report by the McClatchy newspapers, the Bush administration has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates. We’re joined by Joseph Rich, the former head of the civil rights division of the Justice Department, and Bertha Lewis, Executive director of New York Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Vermont Senate Wants to Impeach Bush

The Vermont Senate on April 20 voted 19-6 for a resolution for a resolution calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. In so doing, it became the first state legislative body in the country calling for impeachment proceedings against President Bush.

Another ex-congressional aide caught in Abramoff scandal

An aide to Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, accepted $30,000 worth of tickets from Jack Abramoff and took a golf junket to Scotland in exchange for assisting the lobbyist, according to court papers filed Monday.



Key Initiative Of 'No Child' Under Federal Investigation

The Justice Department is conducting a probe of a $6 billion reading initiative at the center of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, another blow to a program besieged by allegations of financial conflicts of interest and cronyism, people familiar with the matter said yesterday.

French parties call voting machines a 'catastrophe'

The Socialists, the Communist Party and the Greens put on a rare show of unity to call the machines, used for around 1.5 million of France's 44.5 voters, a "catastrophe."



Police poised to charge Blair's top adviser

THE corruption scandal involving the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has intensified, with police poised to charge some of his advisers. And an embarrassing document has surfaced that reveals Mr Blair's strategy for wooing and "flattering" wealthy donors.

India, China Newspaper Shares Surge as U.S. Media Nosedives

The newspaper business is bad and getting worse, billionaire Warren Buffett said last month. He was talking about U.S. papers, which are among the investments of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the holding company he heads. Shares of publishers outside the U.S. are another story.

The Myth Of Jewish Refugees From Arab Land

Victimizing the Jews has been the successful old political trick Zionists have been using to gain international political sympathy for the Israeli cause, and to justify all aggression and terror the Israeli army perpetrates on Palestinians and on the neighboring Arab countries. Whenever the international views turn against Israel, due to its aggression, a new Jewish victimizing story pops up.

US confirms that Israel bought their bombs

In a notice to Congress, the Pentagon's Defence Security Cooperation Agency said Israel had requested as many as 3500 MK-84 "general purpose" bombs, spares and parts plus US government technical assistance in a deal worth up to $US65 million ($77.8 million) if all options are exercised.

Will US sell Israel more smart bombs for a new war on Lebanon?

Many reports circulated from Israel talking about another war this summer with Lebanon’s Hezbollah to make up for the defeat during the last summer war. During the 33 day conflict, more than 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed, and over one million displaced. Moreover, Lebanon was left in ruins …its infrastructure was leveled and over 100, 000 homes destroyed.
One analyst told Ya Libnan "the US congress should look at this picture (of a cluster bomb victim) before authorizing the sale of more bombs to Israel", and ask themselves the question 'How will the US taxpayers feel if they find out what Israel is doing with the US weapons?' This is not an act of self defense as claimed by Israel . This is state sponsored terrorism" he added.



The CIA and the Lockerbie Bomb

"An internal investigation by Pan Am is believed to have found that the bomb planted on Flight 103 was put on the plane during a stop-over in Frankfurt... The Pan Am report is believed to have concluded that the bomb was not aimed at the killing of Americans in general, but was targeted specifically to kill a small band of DIA operatives that had uncovered a drugs ring run by a 'rogue' CIA unit in Lebanon... The drugs-ring and the connection to Hezbollah is said to have been set up by Israeli Mossad agents."

FLASHBACK: New OKC Revelations Spotlight FBI Involvement In Bombing

New claims by Oklahoma City Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols that Timothy McVeigh was being steered by a high-level FBI official are supported by a plethora of evidence that proves McVeigh did not act alone and that authorities had prior warnings and were complicit in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building.

John Kerry: Building 7 Was Deliberately Demolished

Questioned on WTC 7 by members of Austin 9/11 Truth Now at a Book People event in Austin Texas, Kerry responded, "I do know that that wall, I remember, was in danger and I think they made the decision based on the danger that it had in destroying other things, that they did it in a controlled fashion."

WP: FDA aware of dangers to food

Congressional critics and consumer advocates said both episodes show that the agency is incapable of adequately protecting the safety of the food supply.

Dakota Staton, one of my favorite singers, dies at 76

Dakota Staton has been one of my favorite jazz vocalists since discovering her music in the early 1990's. I collected as many of her records as I could find, and even started a band, Here's How, which performed some of her tunes.



Among my favorite albums of hers are "Crazy He Calls Me", "In the Night" (with George Shearing", "Softly", "More Than the Most, "The Late, Late Show", "Dynamic", "Live at Storyville", "Time to Swing", and "Round Midnight." Most of them have not been re-issued on cd yet, but you can find "More Than The Most", "Late, Late Show" & "Live at Storyville" on Collectibles reissue cds.



I always loved the bluesy feeling in her singing, which I felt crossed over between soul and jazz similar to the way someone like Patsy Cline crossed over between pop and country. Dakota had such a powerful tone and a unique way with phrasing that is a huge influence on my singing. Her precise diction and hornlike feeling were incredible. I saw "Good Night & Good Luck" and felt that Dianne Reeves' performance was a tribute to Dakota.



With her dramatic visual style and glamorous costumes she really was a link between 1920's blues women and the modern era, an iconic personality. She was very underrated among jazz singers in my opinion, and perhaps now more people will discover what they have been missing.

Love you, Dakota!



Dakota Staton, 76, Jazz Singer with a Sharp, Bluesy Sound, Dies

Dakota Staton, a highly respected jazz and blues singer known from the 1950s on for her bright, trumpetlike sound and tough, sassy style, died on Tuesday in Manhattan. She was 76 and had lived in New York for many years.



Sharynn Harper, a spokeswoman for Ms. Staton's family, confirmed the death, citing no specific cause. She said Ms. Staton had been in declining health in recent years.
In 1957, Ms. Staton (pronounced STAY-ton) burst on the scene with her first full-length album, "The Late, Late Show," released by Capitol Records. The album was a hit, and the title track became her most famous number. Her other well-known songs include "Broadway" and "My Funny Valentine," from the same album, and "What Do You Know About Love?," which she recorded earlier as a single for Capitol.



Ms. Staton, who recorded more than two dozen albums, was widely praised by critics and worked with many distinguished musicians, among them the pianist George Shearing and the arrangers Nelson Riddle and Sid Feller. But she never attained the fame of singers like Dinah Washington, whom she cited as a deep influence. This may have been partly because Ms. Staton was born a hair too late; by the time she began recording albums, rock 'n' roll was shouldering aside her brand of bluesy jazz.



She continued performing well into her 60s, however. Writing in The New York Times in 1998, Robert Sherman called Ms. Staton "one of America's great vocal stylists."
Dakota Staton was born in Pittsburgh on June 3, 1930, and began singing and dancing as a child. By the time she was 18, she was singing in nightclubs in Detroit and other Midwestern cities; she later settled in New York. In 1955, Down Beat magazine voted her the most promising newcomer of the year.



In the late 1950s, Ms. Staton married Talib Dawud, a trumpeter; the marriage ended in divorce. (Ms. Staton, who converted to Islam after her marriage, used the name Aliyah Rabia for a time.) Her brother, Fred Staton, a saxophonist who lives in New York City, is her only immediate survivor.
Among Ms. Staton's other albums are "Dynamic!" (Capitol, 1958); "Dakota at Storyville" (Capitol, 1961); "Isn't This a Lovely Day" (Muse, 1992); and "Live at Milestones" (Caffe Jazz), released last month.

Ooops -- RNC lost 4 years of Rove's emails

Lawyer: Republican National Committee Lost 4 Years of Rove E-mails
New details are emerging in the growing controversy over the White House’s claim to have lost dozens of e-mails sought in the Congressional investigation into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. The Washington Post is reporting a Republican National Committee lawyer now says the RNC is missing at least four years’ worth of e-mails from senior presidential adviser Karl Rove. Democrats have accused Rove and other aides of improperly using their private RNC e-mail accounts to avoid leaving a paper trail in the attorney firings. On Thursday, Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy blasted the White House claim to have lost the e-mails.

Patrick Leahy: “They say they have not been preserved. I don’t believe that! Those e-mails are there; they just don’t want to produce them. We’ll subpoena them if necessary. You can’t erase e-mails, not today. They’ve gone through too many servers. That’s like saying the dog ate my homework.”

House panel subpoenas Gonzales documents
The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed new documents Tuesday from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as part of its investigation into the firings of federal prosecutors, with the panel chairman saying he had run out of patience.
One Justice official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said the House request included the full text of all documents that had been partially or completely blacked out in the Justice Department's initial release of more than 3,000 pages last month. The Justice official said some U.S. attorney evaluations were included in these documents.

Six U.S. Attorneys Given 2nd Posting in Washington
A half-dozen sitting U.S. attorneys also serve as aides to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales or are assigned other Washington postings, performing tasks that take them away from regular duties in their districts for months or even years at a time, according to officials and department records.

10 States Introduce Impeachment
In 10 U.S. states, either this year or last year or both, the state legislature has introduced and considered, though not yet passed, a bill to petition the U.S. House of Representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney. The question, of course, is what in the heck is wrong with the other 40 states? We can't find a single state legislator with the decency to uphold the U.S. Constitution and at least introduce a resolution to impeach?

World Bank Staffers Call on Wolfowitz to Resign
World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is embroiled in a scandal that could see him lose his job. Wolfowitz was found to have ordered a major pay increase and promotion for his longtime companion, Shaha Riza. The World Bank’s staff association is calling on Wolfowitz to resign. On Thursday, Wolfowitz tried to address staff members but was met with chants and boos calling for his departure. Wolfowitz also appeared at an unusual news conference to plead his case.

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz: "I made a mistake for which I am sorry. But let me also ask for some understanding. Not only was this a painful personal dilemma, but I had to deal with it when I was new to this institution and I was trying to navigate in unchartered waters."

Lawmaker: Iraq Crackdown “Dead” Following Parliament Bombing
The casualty figure from Thursday’s bombing of the Iraqi parliament has been revised to one, with another 22 people injured. It was the worst attack on Baghdad’s Green Zone since it was erected four years ago. The bombing hit the parliament cafeteria where lawmakers and staff were eating following legislative session. A Sunni lawmaker says the attack means the two-month old crackdown on Baghdad has failed. Saleh al-Mutlaq said: “The security plan is dead. If they are able to reach inside the parliament, then we should not talk about the security plan anymore.” Outside the Green Zone, many Iraqis discussed the impact of knowing one of Iraq’s most heavily-guarded areas could not be protected.

Baghdad resident Salam: "The news we heard today, in fact it does not shake us or the people in the street but in makes us laugh. explosions are now in the most critical places, the parliament, which represents the people. It is a violated place."

CBS Radio Cancels Don Imus over Racial Slurs
CBS Radio has pulled the plug on the radio host Don Imus. On Thursday, CBS announced it would no longer carry Imus’s syndicated radio broadcast following his racial slurs about the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. The announcement came one day after Imus was dropped by MSNBC. Both CBS Radio and MSNBC had initially suspended Imus for two weeks but now say his termination is effective immediately.

2nd Female Rep. Leaves Hispanic Caucus
On Capitol Hill, a second female congressmember has announced she’s leaving the Congressional Hispanic Caucus over opposition to its male leadership. Democratic Congressmember Linda Sanchez of California follows her sister, Congressmember Loretta Sanchez, who left earlier this year. Loretta Sanchez has accused caucus chair Joe Baca of calling her : “a whore.”

PBS Criticized for Excluding Latino, Native Voices from WWII Documentary
A coalition of Latino organizations have been criticizing PBS over a forthcoming documentary by Ken Burns on World War II because it ignores the role played by Latino soldiers in the war. The 14-hour film, “The War,” includes no interviews with any Latino veterans even though over 500,000 Latinos served in the war. The documentary also includes no interviews with any Native American veterans.

Boycott on Palestinians Leading to “Devastating” Crisis
In the Occupied Territories, the aid group Oxfam is warning the international boycott of the Palestinian government is leading to a “devastating” humanitarian crisis. Donors including the U.S., European Union and Canada stopped funding one year ago after Palestinians elected Hamas to lead parliament. Poverty has increased thirty percent. The number living on less than fifty-cents a day has doubled to over one million. Nearly half of Palestinians in the territories do not have enough food to meet their needs. Oxfam’s international director Jeremy Hobbs said: “International aid should be provided impartially on the basis of need, not as a political tool to change the policies of a government.”

Zimbabwe Opposition Leader: 600 Activists Detained, Tortured
In Zimbabwe, main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has announced plans to negotiate with President Robert Mugabe’s government. Tsvangirai says some six hundred opposition activists have been abducted and tortured this year.

Morgan Tsvangirai: "For over a period of a month, the Mugabe regime has sustained a vicious war against the MDC and its supporters. The targeted attacks on, and the attempted assassinations of the MDC leadership on March 11 2007 marked the beginning of a systematic programme designed to cripple and ultimately destroy all other democratic formations."

Turkish Military Chief Calls for Attack on Iraqi Kurds
In Turkey, the head of the Turkish military is proposing a cross-border attack into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish rebels stationed there. General Yasar Buyukanit made the call in a rare news conference Thursday.

Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit: "Do we need to have an operation into northern Iraq? There are two aspects to this issue. First, from a military point of view, an operation in northern Iraq must be made. Will there be any benefits ? Yes there will be. The second aspect is political. To make an operation beyond our borders, there must be a political decision."

Monsanto's GM corn MON863 shows kidney, liver toxicity in animal studies

A variety of genetically modified corn that was approved for human consumption in 2006 caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats in a study performed by researchers from the independent Committee for Independent Research and Genetic Engineering at the University of Caen in France. The corn in question, MON863, is made by the Monsanto Company and approved for use in Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, the Philippines, and the United States. It has had a gene inserted from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), which causes the plant's cells to produce a pesticide.
• It seems that the more these GM foods are tested, the more frightening the implications seem to be for human health. When companies like Monsanto do their own in-house testing, results are mysteriously favorable in nearly all cases, but when independent labs run their own tests, the results are downright shocking.
• I find it interesting that the FDA believes U.S. consumers should not be allowed to know which foods are genetically modified and which aren't. The push for honest labeling of GM foods has been blockaded by corporate interests and corrupt federal regulators.
The same product that the bees are declining to pollinate.



Mysterious disappearance of US bees creating a buzz

According to estimates from the US Department of Agriculture, bees are vanishing across a total of 22 states, and for the time being no one really knows why. Bee numbers on parts of the east coast and in Texas have fallen by more than 70 percent, while California has seen colonies drop by 30 to 60 percent. It is normal for hives to see populations fall by some 20 percent during the winter, but the sharp loss of bees is causing concern, especially as domestic US bee colonies have been steadily decreasing since 1980. There are some 2.4 million professional hives in the country, according to the Agriculture Department, 25 percent fewer than at the start of the 1980s. And the number of beekeepers has halved.
The situation is so bad, that beekeepers are now calling for some kind of government intervention, warning the flight of the bees could be catastrophic for crop growers. Domestic bees are essential for pollinating some 90 varieties of vegetables and fruits, such as apples, avocados, and blueberries and cherries.
The phenomenon now being witnessed across the United States has been dubbed "colony collapse disorder," or CCD, by scientists as they seek to explain what is causing the bees to literally disappear in droves.
In cases of colony collapse disorder, flourishing hives are suddenly depopulated leaving few, if any, surviving bees behind.
The queen bee, which is the only one in the hive allowed to reproduce, is found with just a handful of young worker bees and a reserve of food. Curiously though no dead bees are found either inside or outside the hive. The fact that other bees or parasites seem to shun the emptied hives raises suspicions that some kind of toxin or chemical is keeping the insects away, Cox-Foster said.
Those bees found in such devastated colonies also all seem to be infected with multiple micro-organisms, many of which are known to be behind stress-related illness in bees. Scientists working to unravel the mysteries behind CCD believe a new pathogen may be the cause, or a new kind of chemical product which could be weakening the insects' immune systems. The finger of suspicion is being pointed at agriculture pesticides such as the widely-used neonicotinoides, which are already known to be poisonous to bees. France saw a huge fall in its bee population in the 1990s, blamed on the insecticide Gaucho which has now been banned in the country.

Menu Foods CFO sold stock before pet food recall

The chief financial officer of Menu Foods Income Fund says it was a "horrible coincidence" that he sold nearly half his units in the pet food company less than three weeks before a massive product recall.

Professor who criticized Bush told added to terrorist 'no-fly' list

When inquiring with a clerk why he was on the list, Murphy was asked if he had participated in any peace marches.
"We ban a lot of people from flying because of that," a clerk said.

US renews terror caution
The US state department renewed on Tuesday its "Worldwide Caution" alerting US citizens to the continuing threat of "terrorist actions and violence" against Americans and US interests overseas.

Iraqi lawmakers threaten to quit in protest
Iraqi Cabinet ministers allied to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr threatened Wednesday to quit the government to protest the prime minister's lack of support for a timetable for U.S. withdrawal, according to a statement. Such a pullout by the very bloc that put Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in office could collapse his already perilously weak government.
The Iraqis want the same thing as a majority of the American public.

Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw
Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting “Death to America!”

Experts bash Bush: Pullout won't bring 'enemy' to U.S.
It's become President Bush's mantra, his main explanation for why he won't withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq anytime soon. In speech after speech, in statement after statement, Bush insists that ''this is a war in which, if we were to leave before the job is done, the enemy would follow us here.” The line, which Bush repeated Wednesday in a speech to troops at California's Fort Irwin, suggests a chilling picture of warfare on America's streets. But is it true? Military and diplomatic analysts say it isn't. They accuse Bush of exaggerating the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland.

Red Cross warns of 'ever-worsening' crisis for Iraqi civilians
The Iraqi people face an "ever-worsening crisis," the International Committee of the Red Cross said Wednesday in a report highlighting the growing suffering of civilians four years after the US-led invasion.

Neocon Lieutenant Colonel Blames Iraq’s Victims
Even before Bush the Junior’s invasion, at least 500 children a day in Iraq died from disease, mostly cancer from depleted uranium.
“Cases of lymphoblastic leukaemia have more than quadrupled with other cancers,” the Lancet, an esteemed British medical journal, reported in 1998. “In men, lung, bladder, bronchus, skin, and stomach cancers show the highest increase. In women, the highest increases are in breast and bladder cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Diseases such as osteosarcoma, teratoma, nephroblastoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma are also increasing with, according to the review, the most affected being children and young men. Congenital malformations have also increased, as have diseases of the immune system.”

Breaking: Double the Troops in "Surge"
Bush's "surge" of 21,000 surges to 48,000.

US Forced to Import Bullets from Israel as Troops Use 250,000 for Every Rebel Killed
US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

Divide and rule - America's plan for Baghdad

Revealed: a new counter-insurgency strategy to carve up the city into sealed areas. The tactic failed in Vietnam. So what chance does it have in Iraq?


Iran, China close to oilfield deal

Iran has announced that it is close to a deal with Sinopec of China, the state-owned parent of Sinopec Corp, on developing the Yadavaran oilfield.

Iranian envoy wounds 'confirmed'

The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him.

Iran film 'to tell sailors' tale'

The Iranian military says it will soon release a film documenting the arrest, interrogation and statements by UK sailors held in Iran for two weeks.
Iran plans book, CD on Britons' detention

3 Generals Spurn the Position of War 'Czar'

At least three retired four-star generals approached by the White House in recent weeks have declined to be considered for the position, the sources said, underscoring the administration's difficulty in enlisting its top recruits to join the team after five years of warfare that have taxed the United States and its military.


Judge rejects Padilla torture argument

A federal judge refused to dismiss terrorism charges against Jose Padilla over claims that the alleged al-Qaida operative was tortured in U.S. military custody, removing one of the last major obstacles to the start of his trial next week.

More than 1,000 killed in attack on Mogadishu, report says

More than 1,000 civilians were feared to have been killed in the latest fighting between Ethiopian-backed government troops and Islamic insurgents in Mogadishu, according to a report published by a Somali clan Tuesday. The report said 1,086 civilians including women and children have been killed and more than 4,000 injured in the fighting which saw tens of thousands flee the city.

A US-Made Mess in Somalia

The U.S. media has focused to date almost exclusively on the rising Islamist movement in Somalia and U.S. "covert" assistance to the Ethiopian invasion that supported Somalia's transitional government against the stronger Islamists. The media should be focusing on one of the major causes of the Somali mess: U.S. government meddling.

Mortgage mess spreads to Alt-A segment

Subprime turmoil ensnaring companies that lend to people with good credit.


ABC News: Could a Google Search Have Helped Prevent the War in Iraq?

The July 2000 letter, which was obtained from Italian intelligence services, appeared to be an official correspondence from the Niger government to the president of Iraq, confirming a deal to sell 500 tons of pure uranium to Iraq annually. But if the CIA had done a simple Internet search on some of the terms used in the letter, the agency would have quickly learned that it was a forgery.
The fact is that experts (and bloggers) knew the letter was a forgery at the time. Joe Wilson confirmed the story was fake and reported it to CIA who reported it to the White House BEFORE Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech. The reaction of the Bush White House was NOT "Let's recheck this", but to go on the attack to silence Joe Wilson, which triggered the Valerie Plame affair. ABC is trying to sell the "if we had only known back then" lie. The truth is, we all DID know back then what we know now. The Niger documents were forgeries and not very clever ones. The Italian Parliament investigated the forgeries and named four men as the forgers: Ahmad Chalabi , Francis Brookes, Dewey Clarridge, and Michael Ledeen.

US Submarine Forced to Leave Persian Gulf

The damaged US nuclear submarine 'Newport News' which polluted the Persian Gulf waters with radioactive and chemical materials after it collided with a Japanese super tanker in Hormoz Strait was forced to leave the Persian Gulf following strong protests by Iranian officials.

AL GORE GIVES OCCIDENTAL THE RIGHT TO OBLITERATE NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE

Occidental's planned drilling of the Elk Hills doesn't only threaten the memory of the Kitanemuk. Environmentalists say a rare species of fox, lizard and the kangaroo rat would also be threatened by Oxy's plans. A lawsuit has been filed under the Endangered Species Act. But none of that has given pause to Occidental or the politician who helped engineer the sale of the drilling rights to the federally-owned Elk Hills. That politician is Al Gore.


Ex-AIPAC staffers say Condi leaked them classified info

Two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee say Condoleezza Rice was their informant on sensitive national security matters.

Bari Revisited

Poison gas, used on the German population in order to speed up the war, was not the only toxic agent taken into consideration either. Today we know that a bio-weapon facility named Vigo existed north of Terre Haute, Indiana. If Mathew Meselson, a professor of molecular biology at Harvard and American notable in the area of chemical and biological warfare, can be believed, the American government constructed the Vigo plant in order to begin developing 500,000 four-pound anthrax bombs monthly. The destination of these bombs was Germany, presumably German cities.


Government Report: Bio-Weapons Could Be Used To Combat Overpopulation
For the last few years we have seen government funded projects digging up and re-constituting the virus that caused the Spanish Flu (misnamed, as the flu actually first appeared on US Military bases), and pointedly altering it to get past any inherited defenses we survivors of the last outbreak might have. Meanwhile, the use of such a depopulation tool is being prepped by a campaign of news stories promising us that the next great flu outbreak is going to come from "No shit, this is really where it came from, Honest!" Pigs. Or was that birds. Maybe Fish.

Meanwhile, the much feared Ebola, which has not been seen for quite a while, luckily only broke out in very remote locales in Africa from which carriers of the virus were unlikely to get out, thereby containing the infection. Together with the fact that no natural source for the virus was ever found, and no vector identified between the various infection sites, there is a real possibility that it too is an artificially created depopulation tool.

Who Killed the Electric Car? New Documentary Looks at the Mysterious Disappearance of the EV-1
General Motors has been at the center of one of the nation's largest controversies over clean emissions-cars. In 1996 the company introduced the EV-1 electric car in California and Arizona. Hundreds of the electric cars were soon on the road. Then they all disappeared. The mystery behind their disappearance is the subject of the documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?”

Author Kurt Vonnegut Dead at 84
He was eighty-four years old. Vonnegut authored at least nineteen novels including “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Cat’s Cradle.” In recent years, Vonnegut was a fierce critic of the Bush administration and a columnist for the magazine In These Times.

Army's Hallucinogenic Weapons Unveiled

Army's Hallucinogenic Weapons Unveiled
So much conspiracy and disinformation surrounds the military's past work on LSD and other chemical agents that it's been difficult to separate fact from fiction. That's starting to change, however.
Advocates of using chemical agents in nonlethal warfare are increasing, making now a good time to start reviewing the historical record. A recently published book on the Army's infamous "Edgewood Experiments" involving hallucinogenic agents like LSD may help shed more light on the debate. The infamous CIA work, MK ULTRA, is often considered synonymous with all government LSD experimentation. But the historical record is far more complex.
This may be the first and last time in my life that I call a self-published book a "must read," but psychiatrist James ments section). The predominant interest in BZ at Edgewood was as a calmative agent, however, and one of the purposes of Ketchum's book is to make the case for renewed work into such chemical agents.
Some of the "oh my God" moments are perhaps unintended, like when Ketchum opens a chapter at his kitchen table, "eating Puffed Wheat" and reading notes about a test subject's descent into paranoia during LSD tests. Or, in another case, when he describes watching volunteers "carry on conversations with various invisible people for as long as 2-3 days." There are test subjects who "salute latrines" and attempt to "revive a gas mask" that they mistake for a woman.
Yikes, you can't make this stuff up.
Too much work on human experimentation has been shrouded in secrecy -- or lost and destroyed -- rendering a meaningful debate all but impossible.


War Photographer Chris Hondros Witnesses U.S. Shooting of Iraqi Parents in Car With Six Children
Pulitzer Prize-nominated photojournalist Chris Hondros best known for graphic photographs he took in the northwestern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005 when U.S. troops opened fire on a family of eight approaching a checkpoint in a car. Both parents were killed while the six children in the backseat looked on.
These were the photos which prompted me to begin posting this blog.

Judge Orders Columbine Documents Sealed For 20 Years
There are serious questions about what happened at Columbine, including the issue of additional shooters, whether the patsies really did shoot themselves, and why the FBI agent in charge did not recuse himself even though his son was involved in the Trench Coat Mafia and had been the cameraman for the videos the group made.


'Outsourced Guantanamo' - FBI & CIA Interrogating Detainees in Secret Ethiopian Jails, U.S. Citizen Among Those Held
The CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating hundreds of detainees at secret prisons in Ethiopia. Many of the prisoners were recently transferred there secretly and illegally from Kenya and Somalia. They are being held without charge or access to counsel. One of those held is 24 year-old U.S. citizen, Amir Mohamed Meshal.

Who is Monica Goodling?
Counselor to Gonzales abruptly resigns

Justice Department official Monica Goodling resigned her position as counselor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Friday afternoon. Goodling was among the senior Justice Department officials who participated in meetings and e-mail exchanges about the planned dismissals. She went on paid leave as the controversy grew.
The Justice Department said Friday it would have no comment on Goodling's decision to resign. However, it did acknowledge her resignation in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, resigned March 13.
"Attorney General Gonzales' hold on the department gets more tenuous each day," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-New York.



3 U.S. Attorneys' Lawyers Resign Posts

She did not say why the three stepped down and indicated that she would have no further public comment. "We have work to do," her statement said.

Beware of Greek movies bearing bad history and jingoistic subtexts

Visually and aesthetically, 300 is an impressive movie. Unfortunately, it is also a jingoistic bastardization of history that, intended or not, reinforces our cultural prejudices against Iran and the Middle East.
The "Spartans" fight the "Persians", who just happen to have black skin, unlike the real Persians.

Who will bite first, the U.S. or Iran?

The plans for a sneak attack are said to include a deceptive maneuver: the nuclear-powered carrier USS Nimitz left San Diego last Monday and is heading for the Gulf, where it is expected to replace the Dwight Eisenhower in mid-May. According to the logic of a lightning war, everyone will be waiting for the arrival of the third carrier, and so the attack, when it comes, will be a surprise.

CIA Tortures Iranian Diplomat
Iranian Diplomat Jalal Sharafi who was released after being kidnapped in front of Iran's embassy in Baghdad around two months ago said that CIA agents and their Iraqi affiliates had tortured him severely during interrogation.
Speaking to reporters here in Tehran on Saturday, Sharafi who was the Second Secretary of Iran's Embassy in Iraq further showed the tortured organs of his body, and said that Iranian physicians are now treating him.
"While I was shopping in Baghdad streets, I was kidnapped by some agents who used US vehicles and who showed me identification cards of the Iraqi defense ministry. Then they took me to a base around Baghdad airport. While in there, I was interrogated by Arab and English speaking agents."
The diplomat said that CIA had questioned him about Iran's presence and influence in Iraq, the extent of Iran's aids and assistance to Mr. Al-Maliki's administration, Shiite, Sunnite and Kurd groups.
"Once they heard my response that Iran merely has official relations with the Iraqi government and officials, they intensified tortures and tortured me through different methods days and nights," he continued.
Sharafi added, "In the second phase, they endeavored to show me a merciful and kind face and encouraged me to cooperate with them. But I told them that they can discuss their points with the Iranian embassy and that I am only a diplomat working in the embassy and I can't do anything beyond my legal duties. Afterwards, I found out that they were obliged to release me under the intense pressures of the Iraqi officials," he said.
The diplomat also said that he was released around Baghdad airport.

Joe Klein in Tomorrow's TIME: Bush 'Clearly Unfit to Lead'
In the upcoming issue of Time magazine, out Friday, columnist Joe Klein considers what he calls the Bush administration’s “epic collapse.” He concludes with a statement that may make some wonder if he is hinting that the president ought to be impeached.

GOP’s Hagel calls Bush impeachment an option

Iraqis Wish to Put up Saddam's Statue

Iraqis who once celebrated and even participated in pulling down Saddam Hussein's statue four years ago when US tanks rolled into Baghdad in a heart-breaking scene for many Arabs and Muslims are now lamenting the good old days under the late president.

And Iraq's big oil contracts go to ...

While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein's government.

DAILY KOS: EFP factory found. Why did WaPo delete the report?
I had noticed this today from Reuters:

"Iraqi army soldiers swept into the city of Diwaniya early this morning to disrupt militia activity and return security and stability of the volatile city back to the government of Iraq," the US military said in a statement. Bleichwehl said troops, facing scattered resistance, discovered a factory that produced "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank and several weapons caches.

NOTE:the Reuters story was changed at some point during the day.MAIN REUTERS SITE. Pretty important item as it shoots a pretty big hole in one of Bush/Abrams' main propaganda stories about Iran. Turns out there is even more to this story.
According to Atrios, the Washington Post is carrying the Reuters story, and initially included the paragraph about the EFP factory (yes, there is a screenshot). BUT, then the WaPO CHANGED THE REUTERS STORY, OMITTING THE EFP FACTORY PARAGRAPH AND SUBSTITUTING:

The U.S. military said two U.S. soldiers died in separate roadside bombings in the east and west of Baghdad on Friday. One of the bombs was an explosively formed projectile, a particularly deadly type of device which Washington accuses Iran of supplying Iraqi militants.

Americans offered 'aggressive patrols' in Iranian airspace

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.

Representatives okay Real ID ban

T he New Hampshire House voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject the federal Real ID Act as amounting to the creation of a national ID card.


American who advised Pentagon says he wrote for magazine that found forged Niger documents

In an email to RAW STORY, occasional Bush foreign affairs advisor Michael Ledeen confirmed that he was, "several years ago," a regular contributor to Panorama. Leeden would not provide more specificity.

Pentagon Officer Created Phony Intel on Iraq/al-Qaeda Link

Newly released documents confirm that a Pentagon unit knowingly cooked up intelligence claiming a direct link between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to win support for a preemptive strike against the country.


Saddam’s pre-war ties to al-Qaeda discounted

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

Iranians behind Sept. 11 attacks: Rudy Giuliani

Mr. Giuliani was asked in an interview to clarify that, inasmuch as Iran had no connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Further, most of its people are Shiites, whereas Al Qaeda is an organization of Sunnis.



Robert Gates Warns of Possible Massive Bloodshed in Iraq

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says restricting U.S. military operations in Iraq could unleash massive bloodshed among the country's warring factions.
Genocide, anyone?

Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust

The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and State in Canada

Saudi King 'mistaken' over legality of US troops in Iraq: John Bolton

King Abdullah, a key ally of Washington in the Middle East, described the US occupation of Iraq as "illegitimate" at a meeting of Arab leaders last week in the Saudi capital Riyadh.

Lift Palestinian aid embargo: Moscow

The aid embargo on the Palestinian government is hurting the chances of peace talks with Israel by radicalising Palestinian society, Russia’s top Middle East diplomat said yesterday. Russia wants the immediate lifting of the embargo on direct aid that Western powers imposed after the Hamas Islamist movement came to power in a January 2006 election.

Britain suspends boarding operations in Persian Gulf

Britain has suspended boarding operations in the Persian Gulf and is reviewing all procedures after the detention by Iran of its 15 sailors and marines.



'We Gathered Intelligence'

The captain in charge of the 15 marines detained in Iran has said they were gathering intelligence on the Iranians.

Sailors read ‘retractions’ from prepared written statements

Chertoff: 'Britons Could Attack Us'
Chertoff: Next 9/11 could be launched by Europeans

Britain: “Use lie detectors on politicians, not on unemployed people”
"B-liar and his whole cabinet should given lie detector tests!"



Alleged American Al Qaeda Warns of U.S. Attacks

U.S. officials believe there are several Americans working with al Qaeda, including Adam Gadahn, a former Southern California student who is wanted for questioning by the FBI. U.S. intelligence officials say the voice on the tape does not match Gadahn's or that of any Americans suspected of being part of al Qaeda.

The Media Calls him Al Qaeda, but his Jewish Father calls him Adam Pearlman

What the CNN article never mentions is that Adam Gadahn, or “Azzam the American,” as the media likes to refer to him, is in reality a Jew from California named Adam Pearlman. I’m not kidding reader, I’m as serious as a heart attack, Azzam the American is a Jew. CNN isn’t the only negligent news agency, not a single one of the television networks have mentioned Gadahn’s/Pearlman’s pedigree, not one. The only news source I am aware of that has mentioned the fact that “Azzam the American” is Jewish, was the LA Times and the Washington Post, and then only in the most cryptic manner.

Okinawans outraged by what they say is a cover-up of military-urged mass suicides during WWII battle

Last weekend the Japanese Ministry of Education instructed publishers of school textbooks to alter descriptions of the mass suicide of Okinawa civilians during the battle. The order included eliminating all references to the Japanese military’s direct role in the tragedies, erasing accounts in earlier texts that claimed the Imperial Japanese Army instructed Okinawans to kill themselves rather than submit to U.S. invaders.




Ford CEO paid $39.1 million for four months
Exec’s compensation comes after automaker lost $12.7 billion in 2006.
Ford expects more losses this year and in 2008, but expects to return to profitability in 2009.
Mulally was paid a salary of $666,667 in 2006, a prorated amount based on the $2 million annual salary that the company agreed to pay him, according to Ford’s proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mulally also received a $7.5 million hiring bonus and $11 million to offset performance and stock option awards that he forfeited when he left his previous employer, aircraft maker Boeing Co. He got other compensation totaling $334,433, which included $172,974 for required use of corporate aircraft and $55,469 for relocation costs and temporary housing. Ford also gave Mulally stock and options awards that had an estimated value of $19.6 million when they were granted his first day on the job, the company said.

Paul Wolfowitz's girlfriend at the World Bank was transferred over to State Dept. to work for Condi Rice and she makes more than Condi.

Riza, a senior communications officer for the Middle East and North Africa region, was promoted to a higher-paying position on Sept. 19, 2005, the day she left for Foggy Bottom, without any of the required open competition for the job, the association said. She also got a pay raise more than double the amount allowed by the rules, the e-mail said, followed by another allegedly overly large raise.


Former Wal-Mart Worker Blows Whistle on Company Surveillance Operation, Spying of Critics
A former worker at Wal-Mart is claiming the retail giant is running a sophisticated surveillance operation that targets employees, journalists, stockholders and critics. The worker, Bruce Gabbard, says the retail giant spied on employees, journalists, stockholders and critics of the company.

Rural Aid Goes to Urban Areas

All told, the USDA has handed out more than $70 billion in grants, loans and loan guarantees since 2001 as part of its sprawling but little-known Rural Development program. More than half of that money has gone to metropolitan regions or communities within easy commuting distance of a midsize city, including beach resorts and suburban developments, a Washington Post investigation found.

Senior Military, Intelligence, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials Question the 9/11 Commission Report

9/11 Physicist Contacted To Appear On The View

Physicist Professor Steven Jones has confirmed that Rosie O'Donnell's staff have contacted him regarding a potential future appearance on The View to discuss the improbable collapse of the twin towers and WTC 7.

The 911 Mystery Plane

There can be no doubt as to the plane's identity. The aircraft belonged to the US Air Force. Moreover, this was no ordinary plane. It was an E-4B, the US military's most advanced electronics platform.

Is Sickness a Crime? Arizona Man With TB Locked Up Indefinitely in Solitary Confinement
27-year-old Robert Daniels is being held against his will in a Phoenix hospital ward reserved for sick prisoners. If state officials have their way, he could be there for the rest of his life. Daniels is suffering from a deadly strain of tuberculosis known as XDR-TB. Doctors say he is virtually untreatable. He has been forced to live in a hospital cell in complete isolation.

Bill O'Reilly reports on JFK Assassinations Committee
Bill O'Reilly, when he was on Inside Edition, reported on Oswald's association with the CIA.

Death of the Bees from Genetically modified crops

"If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years left to live." - Albert Einstein

“I have never seen anything like it,” [beekeeper] Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”

“The fact that bees avoid fields sown with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the consequent reduction in pollination activity is a scientific alarm for agriculture and the environment,” it said.
The study, initially published by the Ecological Society of America before being picked up in Italy, looked at pollination and the response of wild bees to organic, conventional and GM rapeseed crops. It measured the abundance of bees and the pollination deficit, which is the difference between potential and actual pollination. The results showed no pollination deficit in organic fields, a slight pollination deficit in conventional fields and a high pollination deficit in GM fields.
Likewise, bees were most abundant in organic fields and least so in GM fields.

Colony Collapse Disorder (or CCD) is the name of the phenomenon that describes the massive die-off affecting an entire beehive or bee colony. It was originally apparently limited to colonies of the Western honey bee in North America, but European beekeepers have recently claimed to be observing a similar phenomenon.

Genetically modified crops (GMO)
Potential effects of gathering pollen and nectar from genetically modified (GM) crops that produce Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin have not been investigated in great detail, but the primary crops involved (corn, and tobacco) are not preferred plants for honey bees (if they visit the plants, they typically do so when there is no other food available; they will gather only pollen from corn, and rarely visit tobacco blossoms). Furthermore, the primary effect of Bt on insects is on larvae, whereas the CCD phenomenon involves the disappearance of the adult bees.
However, professor Kaatz at the University of Halle in Germany who conducted a study on "effects of Bt maize pollen on honeybee" reports that exposure to corn pollen containing genes for Bt production may weaken the adult bees' defense against Nosema. However, if "the bee colonies happened to be infested with parasites (microsporidia), this infestation led to a reduction in the number of bees and subsequently to reduced broods....This effect was significantly more marked in the Bt-fed colonies." In a recently published article in the German magazine DER SPIEGEL, professor Kaatz talks about the possibillity that "genetically modified corn may have altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry -- or perhaps it was the other way around."
According to David Hackenberg, former president of the American Beekeeping Federation and leading the public information concerning CCD as a beekeeper, "beekeepers that have been most affected so far have been close to corn, cotton, soybeans, canola, sunflowers, apples, vine crops and pumpkins." Thus most of the commercially grown Bt plants seem to be included.



Are GM Crops Killing Bees?
By Gunther Latsch, Der Spiegel

A mysterious decimation of bee populations has German beekeepers worried, while a similar phenomenon in the United States is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions. The consequences for agriculture and the economy could be enormous.

Walter Haefeker is a man who is used to painting grim scenarios. He sits on the board of directors of the German Beekeepers Association (DBIB) and is vice president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association. And because griping is part of a lobbyist's trade, it is practically his professional duty to warn that "the very existence of beekeeping is at stake." The problem, says Haefeker, has a number of causes, one being the varroa mite, introduced from Asia, and another is the widespread practice in agriculture of spraying wildflowers with herbicides and practicing monoculture. Another possible cause, according to Haefeker, is the controversial and growing use of genetic engineering in agriculture.
As far back as 2005, Haefeker ended an article he contributed to the journal Der Kritischer Agrarbericht (Critical Agricultural Report) with an Albert Einstein quote: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
Mysterious events in recent months have suddenly made Einstein's apocalyptic vision seem all the more topical. For unknown reasons, bee populations throughout Germany are disappearing - something that is so far only harming beekeepers. But the situation is different in the United States, where bees are dying in such dramatic numbers that the economic consequences could soon be dire. No one knows what is causing the bees to perish, but some experts believe that the large-scale use of genetically modified plants in the US could be a factor.

Politicians, until now, have shown little concern for such warnings or the woes of beekeepers. Although apiarists have been given a chance to make their case - for example in the run-up to the German cabinet's approval of a genetic engineering policy document by Minister of Agriculture Horst Seehofer in February - their complaints are still largely ignored.
Even when beekeepers actually go to court, as they recently did in a joint effort with the German chapter of the organic farming organization Demeter International and other groups to oppose the use of genetically modified corn plants, they can only dream of the sort of media attention environmental organizations like Greenpeace attract with their protests at test sites.
But that could soon change. Since last November, the US has seen a decline in bee populations so dramatic that it eclipses all previous incidences of mass mortality. Beekeepers on the east coast of the United States complain that they have lost more than 70 percent of their stock since late last year, while the west coast has seen a decline of up to 60 percent. In an article in its business section in late February, the New York Times calculated the damage US agriculture would suffer if bees died out. Experts at Cornell University in upstate New York have estimated the value bees generate - by pollinating fruit and vegetable plants, almond trees and animal feed like clover - at more than $14 billion.
Scientists call the mysterious phenomenon "Colony Collapse Disorder" (CCD), and it is fast turning into a national catastrophe of sorts. A number of universities and government agencies have formed a "CCD Working Group" to search for the causes of the calamity, but have so far come up empty-handed. But, like Dennis vanEngelsdorp, an apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, they are already referring to the problem as a potential "AIDS for the bee industry."
One thing is certain: Millions of bees have simply vanished. In most cases, all that's left in the hives are the doomed offspring. But dead bees are nowhere to be found - neither in nor anywhere close to the hives. Diana Cox-Foster, a member of the CCD Working Group, told The Independent that researchers were "extremely alarmed," adding that the crisis "has the potential to devastate the US beekeeping industry." It is particularly worrisome, she said, that the bees' death is accompanied by a set of symptoms "which does not seem to match anything in the literature."
In many cases, scientists have found evidence of almost all known bee viruses in the few surviving bees found in the hives after most have disappeared. Some had five or six infections at the same time and were infested with fungi - a sign, experts say, that the insects' immune system may have collapsed.
The scientists are also surprised that bees and other insects usually leave the abandoned hives untouched. Nearby bee populations or parasites would normally raid the honey and pollen stores of colonies that have died for other reasons, such as excessive winter cold. "This suggests that there is something toxic in the colony itself which is repelling them," says Cox-Foster.
Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that "besides a number of other factors," the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany - only 0.06 percent - and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.
The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called "Bt corn" on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a "toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations."
But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a "significantly stronger decline in the number of bees" occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed. According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have "altered the surface of the bee's intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry - or perhaps it was the other way around. We don't know."
Of course, the concentration of the toxin was ten times higher in the experiments than in normal Bt corn pollen. In addition, the bee feed was administered over a relatively lengthy six-week period.
Kaatz would have preferred to continue studying the phenomenon but lacked the necessary funding. "Those who have the money are not interested in this sort of research," says the professor, "and those who are interested don't have the money."