Headlines for June 30 - July 6

A Stand For Justice


Oil up past $96 on higher price forecast
Oil prices bounced back above $95 a barrel Tuesday on the back of forecasts for more expensive crude in 2012, though gains were limited by the dollar's rise and doubts about global demand. Speculators strike again. Treason.


Israeli minister: Don't take eyes off Iran
Britain believes Tehran has conducted at least three secret tests of medium–range ballistic missiles since October, amid an apparent escalation of its nuclear program and increased scrutiny from the International Atomic Energy Agency.


The Tea Party and Goldman Sachs: A Love Story
The whole point of the tea party is to focus concern over our stagnant economy on something called “big government” while ignoring the big corporations that have bought the government as an accessory to their marketing strategies.


The US Must End Its Illegal War in Libya Now by Dennis Kucinich
the war is illegal under the United States constitution and our War Powers Act, because only the US Congress has the authority to declare war and the president has been unable to show that the US faced an imminent threat from Libya. The president even ignored his top legal advisers at the Pentagon and the department of justice who insisted he needed congressional approval before bombing Libya.


Think tank: Shrink ground forces, end counterinsurgency missions for savings
To help heal the nation’s economic sores, Washington could free up billions annually by drastically altering how it uses the U.S. military and shaving the size of the Army and Marine Corps, according to a new study.


Winners and Losers by Philip Giraldi
Bolton, a leading neoconservative, has been calling for attacking Iran for a number of years. As part of his argument, he always maintains that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon is imminent. He never explains why it hasn’t happened yet, making one suspect that his warnings are baseless and politically motivated. Even the United States intelligence community, in its recently concluded review of the National Intelligence Estimate of 2007, has stated its belief that there is no evidence that Iran has restarted the nuclear weapons program that it abandoned in 2003.


As recovery lags, corporations prosper–and lobby for more
So to recap: This recovery is among the weakest since World War Two. But three years after the financial industry caused the economy to tank, corporations are doing better than ever, without using their profits to hire people. Meanwhile, they're lobbying for more tax breaks, which would make the deficit problem worse.



Hezbollah leader rejects Hariri court indictments
He also portrayed the head of the court, Antonio Cassese, as a friend of Israel who is hostile to Hezbollah and said many of its officials had links to U.S. intelligence.

"This investigation, and this court... as far as we are concerned is American and Israeli," he said.


U.N. prosecutor says Hezbollah should help Hariri probe
Footage aired by Nasrallah on Saturday included scenes of a conference in Israel at which the U.N. Lebanon tribunal's president Antonio Cassese was praised as a friend of Israel.

Nasrallah also showed pictures of documents which he said showed that 97 computers used by investigators had been shipped out of Lebanon via Israel, instead of directly from Beirut's airport or seaport, to the tribunal's headquarters in the Netherlands.


U.S. urges Lebanon to act on Hariri indictments
Of course the US urges Lebanon to do so - at Israel's urging of course. This was a complete setup from day one to turn the Lebanese against Hezbollah. It has Israeli false flag operation written all over it.


Letter: AIPAC a big Kirk supporter
Such a plan provides a powerful suggestion that Kirk is in someone’s back pocket. It also brings to mind a February 2010 report on the TPMMuckraker website that states that the senator received $1,025,000 from pro-Israeli Pacs — AIPAC, in particular.

After that, he called for the U.S. Navy to assist the Israeli navy to intercept the next Gaza relief flotilla on the high seas


The FBI's synagogue bomb plot
Throughout the sentencing, Judge McMahon remained firm: this case was a government invention. The men in question did not agree to carry out the crime due to ideology. They had no allegiance to, or even knowledge, of the terrorist group Jaish-i-Mohammed, in whose name they allegedly acted. They were not motivated to criminal behaviour by their allegiance to Allah. They were motivated, purely and simply, by money; as such, they were criminals deserving punishment, but not terrorists. As Judge McMahon repeatedly stated, these men were not equivalent to the 2010 Times Square bomber, Faisal Shazad, or other ideologically motivated terrorists. It's not the entrapment that bothers this reporter but rather the potential for the spread of anti-Semitism. Ok.


Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans
Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. The pro-Israelis use the same methods.


Hezbollah chief defends Hariri suspects in Lebanon
Nasrallah said the suspects named in the indictment are brothers "who have an honorable history in resisting Israeli occupation." He went on to cast doubt on the U.N.–backed tribunal investigating the crime and said it was biased. Awful strange that those fingered were Israel's enemies, eh? Can you say false flag?


Syrian forces shoot dead 14 in Hama: activists



The Peasants Are Revolting by Philip Giraldi
Brooks appears to be bothered most by the fact that the Tea Partiers are so common. How dare they not pay attention to “scholars and intellectual authorities,” which undoubtedly includes David Brooks himself. Brooks seems unaware that it is precisely folks like him and his scholarly buddies who have gotten the rest of us in a mess that appears to have no exit door. His invocation of the “ancient habits of our nation” appears to accept running up catastrophic debts while fighting a series of wars of choice, which he, of course, chose and even cheerleaded. That is not so much an ancient habit as a recent one, brought to us courtesy of Brooks and his friends over at The Weekly Standard, The Wall Street Journal, and the American Enterprise Institute.


Movement to Abolish Corporate Personhood Gaining Traction
Throughout the country people have responded by organizing against “corporate personhood,” a court-created precedent that illegitimately gives corporations rights that were intended for human beings.


Russia criticizes US over abuses in wars abroad



Debating Taboos by Ralph Nader
Make your own list of public taboos. For example, in all the talk about debts, deficits and taxes, notice the near total silence about a huge revenue producer, with a ready base of popular support, a Wall Street securities transaction tax--often called a tax on high volume financial speculation. In President Obama's 70 minute news conference last week, not one reporter asked his position on this proposed tax. Moreover, no President has been asked this question in public for at least the last 40 years. Yet several countries have such a tax and the U.S. had such a tax until about fifty years ago.


Pandit’s Payouts Climb Toward $200 Million as Top Bailout Recipient Slips
“Pandit, his $1 pay notwithstanding, cannot be considered modestly paid,” said Graef Crystal, a compensation expert and Bloomberg News consultant based in Las Vegas. “Taxpayers saved this bank, and he’s getting a bundle while shareholders are getting shortchanged on the stock price.”


McCain & Lieberman Keep Up Interventionist Rhetoric



Is Default Inevitable? by Patrick J. Buchanan
Administrations of both parties contributed to this rise in the federal share of gross domestic product. But the GOP committed itself in 2010 to rein it in, without raising taxes. On that pledge the GOP triumphed and should keep its commitment.


America: Indebted to War
The most significant Republican proposal to actually reduce spending to a degree in tune with the severity of our problem was put forth by Sen. Rand Paul. Paul introduced a plan in March that would balance the budget in five years and reduce the debt by $4 trillion. Paul’s plan sought not simply to stop or reform spending—but to cut it—the very thing virtually every Republican claims to support and agrees must happen.


Syrian forces kill 24, protesters tell Assad to go
The assaults concentrated on the northern section of Jabal al–Zawya region, home to 15,000 people, many of whom are trying to flee to Turkey, which already has 10,000 refugees from attacks in Idlib earlier this month.

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