Headlines for May 12 - May 18

A Stand For Justice


Politics Obama announces steps to speed US oil production
Facing continued public unhappiness over gas prices, President Barack Obama is directing his administration to ramp up U.S. oil production by extending existing leases in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coast and holding more frequent lease sales in a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska.


President Urged to Seek Congressional Approval for Military Action in Libya
Today, members of The Constitution Project's bipartisan War Powers Committee, including its co-chairs, former Members of Congress Mickey Edwards (R-OK) and David Skaggs (D-CO), as well as war powers expert Louis Fisher, urged President Obama to immediately seek congressional approval if he plans to continue America's military operations in Libya.


Iran: Bushehr nuclear power plant 'successfully launched'
Iran's nuclear power plant in Bushehr has been put online, Iranian Foreign Minister said on Wednesday, adding that the plant would become fully operational within several weeks.


Israel Hunts Syria Infiltrators After Day of Bloodshed
In Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian territories, people gathered to mourn the 14 people killed when Israeli troops opened fire on thousands of protesters who sought to breach its northern borders.


Israel burnishes missile shield as Mideast churns
Partly funded by the United States, Arrow III is envisaged as the future Israeli bulwark against Iran and Syria, with shorter–range interceptors providing protection against rockets favored by neighboring Lebanese and Palestinian guerrillas.


Treasury to tap pensions to keep goverment afloat
The Obama administration will begin to tap federal retiree programs to help fund operations after the government loses its ability today to borrow more money from the public, adding urgency to efforts in Washington to fashion a compromise over the debt.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11136/1146916-84-0.stm?cmpid=nationworld.xml#ixzz1NnCrPLTX



Warrants Let Agents Enter Homes Without Owner Knowing
These search warrants don’t involve knocking on doors or any type of warning at all. Delayed-notice search warrants, or "sneak-and-peek" warrants, allow federal agents to enter your home without telling you they’ve been there until months later.




After 2 Months, No End in Sight to Libyan Air Campaign



Iraq dossier drawn up to make case for war – intelligence officer
In hitherto secret evidence to the Chilcot inquiry, Major General Michael Laurie said: "We knew at the time that the purpose of the dossier was precisely to make a case for war, rather than setting out the available intelligence, and that to make the best out of sparse and inconclusive intelligence the wording was developed with care."


15 Syrian army personnel killed in clashes: paper
The death toll of Syrian army members and security forces killed in clashes with "armed terrorist gangs" in the towns of Tal Kalakh and Daraahas has risen to 15, the state-run al-Baath daily reported Wednesday.


Tea party godfather Ron Paul running for president
As far back as 2007, long before people were evoking the fabled Boston Tea Party to symbolize their disgust with an overtaxing central government, Ron Paul was hosting a "Tea Party Fundraiser" aboard a shrimp boat near Galveston.

Organizer and Paul campaign volunteer Elizabeth Day remembers that supporters wore period dress and rolled fake barrels of tea into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Can't stand the fact that the mainstream media only grudgingly give Paul attention - and they continue to tar and feather him as a 'nut' when they do. His views are not offbase, not by a long shot. His views are right on par with the Founding Fathers of this nation. Unfortunately, he stands alone on Capitol Hill with his beliefs. So comparatively speaking, compared to the rest on Capitol Hill that are beholden to foreign and corporate interests - sure, his views I guess could be seen as radical. As radical as the views that our Founding Fathers had in their day.


Corporate Demands, Federal ‘Reform,’ Keep Shifting Healthcare Costs to Workers
GE’s demands are particularly obscene because it is sitting on $25 billion in savings and is threatening to close more U.S. plants, i.e. move more jobs to Mexico, China and elsewhere. And they're particularly dangerous because GE is modeling bad behavior for other corporations to emulate.


House panel authorizes nearly $700 billion in Defense spending



House Dems protest GOP's plans for permanent war against terror
"By declaring a global war against nameless individuals, organizations and nations 'associated' with the Taliban and al Qaeda, as well as those playing a supporting role in their efforts, the Detainee Security Act would appear to grant the president near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further congressional approval," Democrats wrote. "Such authority must not be ceded to the president without careful deliberation from Congress."


ACLU Sues Homeland Security Over Seizure Of Activist's Computer



With heavy hearts, Christians leave Baghdad



Those Irrepressible Neocons
Jennifer Rubin, on the other hand, was just one of those plugging along in Kingdom Neocon (she was a contributing editor to Commentary and its blog, Contentions) until recently, when the neocon editor of the Washington Post editorial page, Fred Hiatt, plucked her from obscurity and brought her to the Post.

Beyond their Commentary roots, the two are almost ideologically identical. And that means that they are both driven, above all other considerations, by dedication to the concept of Greater Israel (a concept which is taken more seriously inside the Beltway than it is in Israel itself).

....So let's not hear from this crowd about the poor Iranians or Syrians or Libyans, or whatever other group they suddenly profess to care about. Better they should think about those thousands of Americans, along with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, who perished as a consequence of the horrific war they enthusiastically agitated for. Don't they have enough to atone for without adding more deadly U.S. military interventions? Beautiful piece.


Pollard Again By Philip Giraldi
The Lobby has been active lately in the lead-up to the AIPAC conference. A letter calling on Obama to free Pollard has been circulating since January and has attracted a number of endorsements including George Shultz. Last week 36 congressmen signed on to a letter originated by Rep. Steve Israel (no irony intended) calling on the Turkish government to stop the next aid flotilla planned for Gaza, which will likely depart next month. The letter implies that there will be dire consequences, and rightly so, if the ships are allowed to sail. Today the White House press secretary all but commended Israel for killing twenty protesters along the Syrian and Lebanese borders during demonstrations on Sunday, praising the “restraint” and noting that it was a proper remedy for “unauthorized border crossing.”


Arab Spring Fails to Improve U.S. Image
for the most part, Obama’s handling of issues in the Muslim world, including the recent uprisings in the Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran and Afghanistan, are met with disapproval.


Israel’s Security Elite Joins the Opposition
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that the leaders of Israel’s security establishment, the people who’ve led the fight against the state’s enemies for decades, are more frightened now than they’ve been in a long time. You might be shocked, though, to hear what’s got them in a panic.




'Catastrophic' picture emerges of Syrian town
At least eight people were killed Sunday in Talkalakh – the most recent casualties from a government crackdown that already has killed 850 people nationwide since mid–March, according to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria. A town of about 70,000 residents, Talkalakh has been under a military siege since last week.


The Jewish Roots of Madoff's Crime
Madoff’s $50 billion fraud, which landed him in jail for the rest of his life; decimated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of investors, and left his own family in ruins, was not a Jewish crime — it was too far-flung and globalized to deserve that narrow description. It was a crime perpetuated by someone who happened to be Jewish. But now, two and a half years after Madoff’s arrest, Henriques’s work makes it evident that this was a crime enabled by Jewish businessmen like Chais, Shapiro, Levy and Picower; by Jewish power brokers like Ezra Merkin, and by Jewish institutions that gave into the allure of easy, reliable, bountiful money without doing the due diligence they owed their clients, donors and causes.




Medvedev says Russia 'won't back' UN Syria resolution
Britain, France and Germany have been pushing for the UN Security Council to condemn Syria's crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been using tanks and troops to crush the dissent.


France says gaining support for U.N. Syria resolution
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said on Tuesday France and Britain were close to getting nine votes for a resolution on Syria at the U.N. Security Council, but Russia and China were still threatening to use their veto.


U.S. accuses Syria of inciting Israel border clashes
White House spokesman Jay Carney expressed regret for the loss of life in confrontations on Israel's frontiers with Syria, Lebanon and Gaza on Sunday but said Israel "has the right to prevent unauthorized crossing at its borders." We're still Israel's bitch.


The People vs. Goldman Sachs
A Senate committee has laid out the evidence. Now the Justice Department should bring criminal charges


Osama bin Laden Transfigured by Philip Giraldi
amidst the euphoria over the death of America’s great enemy, many Americans have, perhaps surprisingly to some, not embraced the more war all the time agenda and instead are seeing the death of bin Laden as an opportunity to restore some measure of normality and sanity to our fractured foreign and defense policies. President Obama has scored a great success in the eyes of most Americans


Scores of Syrians flee violence to Lebanon



US, EU ready new sanctions on Syria



US Middle Class Disappearing Into Abyss?



One Lawman With the Guts to Go After Wall Street
Eric Schneiderman will probably fail, as did his predecessors in that job; the honest sheriff doesn’t last long in a town that houses the Wall Street casino. But decent folks should be cheering him on. Despite a mountain of evidence of robo-signed mortgage contracts, deceitful mortgage-based securities and fraudulent foreclosures, the banks were going to be able to cut their potential losses to what was, for them, a minuscule amount.

---