Apologies for the tardiness. I will try and get caught up in the days to follow.
A Stand For Justice
9/11 Victims’ Family Members React to the Killing of Osama Bin Laden
Taliban vow revenge for bin Laden's death
Fears of Qaeda vengeance after U.S. kills Osama
World leaders warned of revenge attacks after Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. assault in Pakistan on Monday that brought to a dramatic end the long manhunt for the al Qaeda leader who had become the most powerful symbol of Islamist militancy.
Osama bin Laden raid yields trove of computer data
The assault force of Navy SEALs snatched a trove of computer drives and disks during their weekend raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, yielding what a U.S. official called “the mother lode of intelligence.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54151.html#ixzz1N2Z83oOH
Prosperous but Unequal: OECD Report Spotlights Alarming Trend
Growing by 7.8% last year, the Israeli economy ranked fifth highest in growth among the group’s 34 members. Israel’s growth outstripped that of the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany and France.
Read that again. We are giving Israel BILLIONS of American taxpayer dollars each year. These are not loans. Meanwhile, across America, cities, towns and villages are having to make drastic budget cuts as Israel PROSPERS (at our expense. WHY? Ask your Congressman.
Exxon Profit Up 69 Percent as Gas and Oil Prices Boost Top Five Oil Companies
Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell today reported first-quarter profit increases of 69 percent and 30 percent, respectively, from the same period last year. With rising gas and oil prices, analysts expected the five biggest oil companies -- with Exxon as the largest -- to report that they are swimming in revenue.
Tread lightly on Syria, Russia warns UN Security Council
Gaza demonstrators condemn death of bin Laden
About 25 people holding pictures and posters of bin Laden rallied outside a Gaza City university. The crowd included al–Qaida sympathizers as well as students who said they opposed bin Laden's ideology, but were angry at the U.S. for killing him and consider him a martyr. I will remind you that there are over 1 million Palestinians in Gaza, and another couple million in the West Bank. Predictably, this headline was put on the front page of Yahoo as was the case when in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, the handful of Palestinians passing out candy was aired alongside footage of the carnage. Nah, there's nobody in the media that wants you to hate all Palestinians or anything..
Syria: 4 soldiers killed in attack on army post
Syria's state–run television says "armed terrorists" have attacked a military post in the southern city of Daraa, killing four soldiers and capturing two.
Oil falls below $113 after bin Laden killed
Syrian forces kill 62, U.S. toughens sanctions
A medical source told Reuters soldiers in Deraa killed 19 people when they fired on thousands of protesters descending from nearby villages in a show of solidarity with the southern city where Syria's uprising broke out six weeks ago.
Brotherhood: U.S. troops should now quit Iraq, Afghan
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said on Monday that U.S. soldiers should be withdrawn from Afghanistan and Iraq after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks that led to two U.S.–led wars.
Bin Laden's Death: What This Means for Pakistan's ISI
That bin Laden had been living in a specially constructed compound less than an hours' drive from Pakistani military HQ, and in the same town as the country's premier military academy, makes the near constant denials by Pakistan's intelligence agencies that the terror group leader was in the country difficult to swallow.
America’s Middle Class Crisis: The Sobering Facts
The bottom line is simple says Schwenninger: The middle class is shrinking, which threatens the social composition and stability of the world's biggest economy. "I worry that we're becoming a barbell society – a lot of money wealth and power at the top, increasing hollowness at the center, which I think provides the stability and the heart and soul of the society... and then too many people in fear of falling down."
What’s In It for Us, Mr. Obama? by Philip Giraldi
That Washington has become a victim of the internal politics of the Middle East is largely due to manipulation by Israel and its lobby, which has turned all Americans into enablers of Israeli policies, no matter how short-sighted or ill-conceived. It is the US national interest that has been sacrificed in the process. That is the point
....Several congressmen, including Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor explicitly stated their opposition to any reduction in aid to Israel. But the real surprise came in the final spending bill. Israel not only was not cut in its assistance level, it received $205 million in additional funding for its Iron Dome defensive missile development, which competes with US defense firm Raytheon’s Patriot system. Read that excerpt again, folks. As schools are being closed in YOUR towns and cities, we're still shoveling billions to Israel in order for it to continue to pillage and plunder Palestine.
Palestinian factions sign unity deal in Cairo
Abbas said Israel does not wish to see the Palestinians united because it thrives on their divisions. Divide and conquer is a strategy employed in the Middle East to lessen any threats, and so too is it employed here in the US. If everyone is at each other's throats here because of party line issues, then they aren't paying attention to the real problem in this country.
Israel Acquires Additional Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules Lockheed Martin
Israel ordered its first C-130J in April 2010 and will receive that aircraft in spring 2013. The next two aircraft will be delivered in late 2013 and late 2014 respectively. The contract also covers a number of items to meet Israel’s unique operational requirements. The Israeli Air Force’s new Super Hercules are the longer fuselage or "stretched" variant of the C-130J. At US taxpayers' expense, no doubt.
Iranian state TV carries report of Israeli build-up
Iranian state television ran a report Monday saying Israeli military aircraft were massing at a U.S. air base in Iraq for a strike on Iran.
Iran: US should leave Mideast with bin Laden death
The United States has no excuse to keep troops in the Middle East after killing al–Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a senior Iranian official said Monday.
Osama bin Laden's death won't end Afghan mission, U.S. and NATO officials say
US Silences on the Arab Spring are Deafening
While Washington intervened in Libya to protect civilians from Muammar Gaddafi's attacks, it's responding to uprisings in Bahrain, Yemen, and Iraq with a particular quiescence. The Obama administration has hardly said a peep about the need for democracy in Saudi Arabia or the other oil-rich states of the Gulf, even as those regimes are cracking down on the small but growing number of democracy activists in their midst.
Pressure Builds to End Afghan War
A weariness about the Afghanistan war had set in well before bin Laden’s killing. A March poll by ABC News and The Washington Post found that nearly two-thirds of those responding no longer think the war is worth fighting.
FBI using surveillance software to track suspects online
The documents show that software called the Computer and Internet Protocol Address Verifier (CIPAV) was used by the FBI since at least 2001. The software allows the FBI to collect a variety of information from a computer every time it connects to the Internet, including the IP address, Media Access Control (MAC) address, open communication ports, list of the programs running, URLs visited, and more.
Forty years of hurt
THE dollar’s recent decline has taken it to new lows.
US aims financial hits at Syrian officials, Iran
President Barack Obama authorized the action for repression and human rights abuses committed by Syrian authorities seeking to quell six weeks of protests. Activists say more than 500 people have been killed, 42 on Friday alone.
5 banks fail in Fla., Ga., Mich.; makes 39 in '11
The FDIC expects the cost of resolving failed banks to total around $52 billion from 2010 through 2014.
IAEA chief: Syria tried to build nuclear reactor
Suggesting that Amano had erred in making the public comments, the IAEA later put out a statement that he "did not say that the IAEA had reached the conclusion that the site was definitely a nuclear reactor."
“Kill-the-Doll-ar…Kill-the-Dolll-ar…!”
Cue Ride of the Valkyries. Ben Bernanke is pre-flighting the helicopter. He explained today it’s become necessary to Destroy the Dollar in Order to Save It
Constant Conservative Ron Paul
Paul’s conservative consistency remains true, even when—and perhaps especially when—his fellow conservatives disagree with him. When conservatives attack Paul for his non-interventionist foreign policy views, the Texas congressman is quick to remind them that it is mathematically impossible to reduce the debt or deficits without addressing Pentagon spending. Cutting NPR, Planned Parenthood and earmarks will do nothing to effectively reduce the debt, no matter how much each might excite conservatives emotionally.
Middle East politics at play in passport dispute
when the mother asked that her son's passport and other documents indicate that he was born in Israel, State Department officials refused, citing longstanding U.S. policy to refrain from expressing an official view about Jerusalem's status. Israel has proclaimed the once–divided city as its capital; the U.S. and most nations do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital.
A lawsuit followed. The dispute over Menachem's passport, a mix of the thorny politics of the Middle East and a fight between Congress and the president over primacy in foreign policy, has landed at the Supreme Court. The justices could say as early as Monday whether they will hear the case.
Another waste of taxpayer dollars.
Mike Huckabee for President 2012 What His Holocaust Gaffe Reveals - The Daily Beast
Huckabee usually gets away with this sort of thing because he is pro-Israel, if by pro-Israel one means unequivocally supporting Israeli irredentism. Unlike the majority of American Jews, he opposes a two-state solution, and in February he said Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem should be resettled in “a territory that [is] in the hands of Muslims, in the hands of Arabs,” which might make him the first modern American presidential aspirant to openly champion ethnic cleansing.
...Huckabee even leads group tours of evangelicals to Israel for about $4,500 a person; naturally, one of the stops is Megiddo, or, in Greek, Armageddon He sounds like a real genius...
Death in the Desert by Philip Giraldi
I am not suggesting for a second that the recent bombing is in any way faked, but it is easy to forget what Ghadafi is really like and what he is capable of.
Is Israel's Rightwing in Eric Cantor's District?
Cantor is listed on Maplight.org as the top recipient of campaign money from "pro-Israel" groups in the U.S. House of Representatives, having taken in over $200,000. These groups, most of them affiliated with AIPAC, dump tens of millions of dollars into U.S. elections each cycle. And they certainly appear to get what they pay for.
Surprise, Surprise! Iraq War Was About Oil by Ray McGovern
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair spoke publicly about Israel’s input into the all-important Bush-Blair deliberations on Iraq in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002. Inexplicably, Blair slipped up on his propensity for hiding important facts from the public and told some truth, though his indiscretion got little attention in America’s FCM. Blair said:
“As I recall that [April 2002] discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us [Bush and Blair], whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.”
Panic From the Houses of Congress and Aipac?
Netanyahu, the conferees were told, wants Congress to flex its muscle with the White House and deliver a strong message to President Obama that his political future is tied to Israel’s. Hence the current “America needs Israel more than ever stupid!” campaign wafting from the Israel Lobby across the talk radio airwaves.
Syrians protest from rooftops after army action
Mission Accomplished
This is the perfect moment for the president to declare victory in the Global War on Terror (I’m ready to play along) and announce our expedited withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan.
US to examine possible sanctions against Venezuela
Rep. Connie Mack, R-Fla, who is the Chairman of the House Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, has accused Venezuela of violating the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Accountability and Disinvestment Act of 2010 imposed by the United States against Iran
10 States Where Pensions Are Running Out of Money
World is Drowning in Corporate fraud
Two years after the biggest financial crisis in history, fueled by unscrupulous behavior by the biggest banks on Wall Street, not a single financial leader has faced jail. When companies are fined for malfeasance, their shareholders, not their CEOs and managers, pay the price. The fines are always a tiny fraction of the ill-gotten gains, implying to Wall Street that corrupt practices have a solid rate of return.
Bills would transfer oversight of terror cases
A bill in the House of Representatives, sponsored by Rep. Bobby Shilling, R-Ill., would require terrorism suspects, including those arrested in the United States, to be placed in military custody unless the Defense secretary rules otherwise.
Have We Forgotten 9/11?
Government officials now say there are less than 100 Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan where we have 100,000 troops. We now know Saddam Hussein had nothing to with Bin Laden and yet 50,000 troops remain in Iraq. Prominent hawks like Sen. John McCain are calling for more intervention in Libya and relatively new hawks like Sen. Marco Rubio want to see stronger U.S. action in Syria. Both senators also believe we should stay in Iraq and Afghanistan indefinitely. None of this has anything to do with fighting Al-Qaeda.
Let’s Declare Victory
The most profound effect of bin Laden’s death will be on Americans. Since September 11, 2001, we have waged two (three?) wars in the name of stopping bin Laden’s brand of Islamic terrorism. This is as close to a clear cut victory that we are ever going to get. That also makes it out best chance of getting American soldiers out of Afghanistan.
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