Headlines for December 30 - January 5

A Stand For Justice


US Military Investigates 'Death Squad' Accused of Murdering Afghans
In the chat, Winfield says he is troubled by one murder by other members of his unit. "Some innocent guy about my age just farming. They made it look like the guy threw a grenade and them and mowed him down ... Everyone pretty much knows it was staged. If I say anything it's my word against everyone. There's no one in this platoon that agrees this was wrong. They all don't care."


Leading conservatives openly support a Terrorist group
GOP Rep. Peter King is launching a McCarthyite Congressional hearing to investigate radicalism and Terrorism sympathies among American Muslim while ignoring his own long history of enthusiastic support for Catholic Terrorists in Northern Ireland; as Marcy Wheeler says: "Peter King would still be in prison if the US had treated his material support for terrorism as it now does."


Israeli PM appeals to US to free convicted spy
Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher speculated that it could be part of a deal over the stalled peace talks. He said Netanyahu could sell concessions to his hard–line government more easily if he won freedom for Pollard at the same time.

On the other hand, Alpher said, it could be just a "populist gesture on Netanyahu's part directed at various circles in Israel and the American Jewish community."

How is it that releasing an American traitor would please the American Jewish community? Explain that one to the rest of us.


Pollard Again by Philip Giraldi
That this man should go free to curry favor with the Israel Lobby and with a snake like Netanyahu is despicable. Bill Clinton almost did it and one wonders if a politically damaged Obama will take the plunge. If he does, the defense and intelligence communities will not stand for it, setting up an interesting confrontation with the White House over the next two years. Obama should once and for all state emphatically that Pollard will never go free.


'Mossad, US, UK cooperating to sabotage Iran nukes'
The sabotage included, according to the report, the introduction of the Stuxnet computer virus into 30,000 computers in Iran’s nuclear reactors and explosions in October in which 18 Iranian technicians were killed at a factory in the Zagros mountains that manufactured Shihab missiles.

According to the sources, the assassination of five Iranian nuclear scientists were also carried out by the Mossad in cooperation with the American and British intelligence agencies.


Will 2011 Become 1848? by Philip Giraldi
Sarah Palin recently paused in her campaign to amass as much money in as short a time as possible to inveigh against Iran in December 23rd’s USA Today. Mamma Grizzly, who in all probability had the article written for her by some neocon hack like Bill Kristol, opens up with “Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons” and goes downhill from there. “Israel would face the gravest threat to its existence…Iran’s leaders have repeatedly called for Israel’s destruction”…“a second Holocaust”…“Iran has provided arms used to kill American soldiers”…she is the “biggest state sponsor of terrorism.”


Iran claims to down spy planes but offers no proof
Iran's Revolutionary Guard claims to have shot down several Western spy planes, including two in the Persian Gulf, but provided no evidence.




Iran invites world, save US, to tour nuclear sites



Rudy Giuliani and John Bolton Are Terrorists Now
The former Bush officials presumably like the MEK because the MEK wants to kill Iranians, which is a good thing right now even though Saddam Hussein probably killed more Iranians than anyone who ever lived and that didn't seem to get him much sympathy from John Bolton.


US memo: Iranian hard-liners blocked nuke deal



Census: Number of Poor May Be Millions Higher
The number of poor people in the U.S. is millions higher than previously known, with 1 in 6 Americans — many of them 65 and older — struggling in poverty due to rising medical care and other costs, according to preliminary census figures released Wednesday. Let's send Israel another billion.


Number of Uninsured Americans Soars to 50 Million
Last week the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured issued a new report giving a grim assessment of the toll the recession and high unemployment has taken on the nation's workforce: the number of uninsured rose to 50.0 million in 2009, an increase of 4.3 million. Let's send Israel another billion dollars.


63 Percent of Americans Oppose War in Afghanistan
Opposition to the war in Afghanistan is at an all-time high, with 63 percent of the public now opposed to U.S. involvement there, according to a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey.


What’s “Weird” About Ron Paul?
Truth be told, from the last election to today, the degree to which Paul has been out of sync with his party and the larger conservative movement has more often reflected where everyone but Ron Paul has strayed from conservative principles. National Review is correct to note that the congressman is weird among conservatives — Ron Paul has never been as confused, hypocritical or politically schizophrenic as the larger conservative movement. Weird


Judith Miller Scolds Assange for not ‘Verifying’ Sources
Judith Miller was heavily exploited as a very useful, very willing tool for the neoconservatives pushing the country into war with Iraq in 2003. Citing unverified evidence of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, Miller wrote for The New York Times a series of reports that were later used by the Bush Administration as grounding for the invasion. Here was her response when it all backfired and fingers started pointing to her shoddy, agenda-ridden reporting:

“[M]y job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.”


Dramatic spike in gas prices forecast
The former head of Shell Oil has warned that gas prices could hit $5 a gallon by 2012 because of fast-growing demand in emerging countries such as China and India, where more and more people are buying cars, combined with restraints on drilling in the U.S. in the wake of last year's disastrous Gulf oil spill.


Aftenposten: Israel gears up for Iran attack



Standing together against US government witch hunt
In a press release issued by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Murphy stated, "Along with several others, I am being summoned to appear before the Grand Jury on Tuesday, January 25th, in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. We are being targeted for the work we do to end US funding of the Israeli occupation, ending the war in Afghanistan and ending the occupation of Iraq. What is at stake for all of us is our right to dissent and organize to change harmful US foreign policy" First they came for ...


Max Blumenthal « Antiwar Radio with Scott Horton and Charles Goyette
how the David Project – an Israel-lobby-created college campus group targeting pro-Palestinian academics – laid the foundation for the Islamophobia crusade; Pamela Geller‘s interesting history and close affiliation with European fascists; and how widespread fear of a global Islamic caliphate gives the US empire a reason for existence and serves to justify the otherwise nonsensical wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


UK cable in 1980 said Israel ready to use bomb
A British ambassador to Israel warned as early as 1980 that Israel would detonate a nuclear bomb in case of a new war with the Arabs, according to previously secret state documents released on Thursday.




Oil settles below $90 as monthlong rally sputters
"The question everyone has is how much further do we have to go before we start stunting the economic recovery,"


WikiLeaks quotes IDF chief: Iran could hit Israel within 12 minutes
Ashkenazi is supposed to have also told the American delegation on November 15, 2009 that Israel was preparing for a large-scale war with Hamas or Hezbollah.


Lawmaker Plans Controversial Hearings on Islamic Threat
New York Rep. Peter King has long railed against a “wall of political correctness” blocking out his warnings about the mass threat he sees coming from the mosques of America. Now, as incoming chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, the Long Island Republican is poised to do something about this.

King, who has vowed to make hearings on this perceived threat his first order of business as chairman, promises to “do all I can [to] drive the public debate on Islamic radicalization.” But some question whether a former supporter of the Irish Republican Army, which targeted civilians with its bombs, is the right person for this job.


Recall this article, and also this one. The greatest amount of anti-Muslim vitriol in this country effuses from Israel-supporters.


AIPAC Protests Disclosure of Its Secret Files by Grant Smith
AIPAC is determined to treat the Rosen defamation lawsuit as that of a “disgruntled former employee” while dodging more relevant questions about its own handling of government classified information. Rosen has continually introduced highly sensitive AIPAC documents into court filings while threatening to put more about AIPAC’s most sensitive operations into the public domain Well well well. Read the entire article. What was this all about, hmm?...


Now the rich get richer quicker
These figures show that the shocking economic collapse of the last two years has been no collapse whatsoever for the most affluent, even while it remains traumatic for most, and catastrophic for many. Yet instead of generating a sense of moral urgency, this condition has produced a spirit of entitlement among the privileged, complacency among the struggling middle, and resignation among the impoverished.


The Tea Party and Foreign Policy
They really need to get informed on what really is happening overseas. And this knowledge is not going to be gleaned from the likes of Fox News.


Soon To-Be Ex-Congressman John Hall Warns Against Creeping Fascism
In a wide-ranging interview before he prepares to leave the House of Representatives, Hudson Valley Congressman John Hall warned that the nation could quickly descend into Fascism if more is not done to curb the influence of corporate money in politics.


Khodorkovsky's trip to the slammer: "Booyah, Putin"



US worried by 'trend' of Christian attacks
In the past few days, anti–Christian attacks left 21 people dead in Egypt, two slain in Iraq and 86 slaughtered in Nigeria.




There's no substitute for Washington
This week it emerged that $205 million in American aid pledged for the acquisition of an additional Iron Dome missile interception system is being delayed because of a dispute in Congress. And Israel expects the administration to abide by its commitment and increase annual defense aid to $3 billion, an all-time record, while it deliberates over cuts in its defense budget.

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