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Posts: 26

  1. The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder =MUST READ=

    03.Jul.08, 02:26 EDT
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    <table class=""><tbody><tr><td class="" valign="top" width="275">The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder </td><td class="" valign="top" width="10">  </td><td class="">

    The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder
    By Vincent Bugliosi, Vanguard Press
    Why do so many in the liberal media simply move on to another topic after stating that Bush took the nation to

    </td></tr></tbody></table>

    The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

    By Vincent Bugliosi, Vanguard Press. Posted May 24, 2008.

     
    Why do so many in the liberal media simply move on to another topic after stating that Bush took the nation to war based on a lie?

    The following is an excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

    With respect to the position I take about the crimes of George Bush, I want to state at the outset that my motivation is not political. Although I've been a longtime Democrat (primarily because, unless there is some very compelling reason to be otherwise, I am always for "the little guy"), my political orientation is not rigid. For instance, I supported John McCain's run for the presidency in 2000. More to the point, whether I'm giving a final summation to the jury or writing one of my true crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. Therefore, my only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others. This is why I can give you, the reader, a 100 percent guarantee that if a Democratic president had done what Bush did, I would be writing the same, identical piece you are about to read.

    Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That's just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he'd still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths?* For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did.

    MORE ARTICLE HERE:  [MUST READ]   http://www.alternet.org/rights/86232/

  2. The White House Torture Policy =MUST READ=

    03.Jul.08, 02:24 EDT
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    <table class=""><tbody><tr><td class="" valign="top" width="275">An Independent Prosecutor Should Investigate the Architects of the White House Torture Policy </td><td class="" valign="top" width="10">  </td><td class="">

    An Independent Prosecutor Should Investigate the Architects of the White House Torture Policy
    By Marjorie Cohn, Jurist Legal News and Research
    It's not just administration officials who should be targeted for sanctioning torture. The lawyers who advised them

     

    </td></tr></tbody></table>

    An Independent Prosecutor Should Investigate the Architects of the White House Torture Policy

    By Marjorie Cohn, Jurist Legal News and Research. Posted May 13, 2008.

    This is an excerpt from Marjorie Cohn's recent testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

    What does torture have in common with genocide, slavery, and wars of aggression? They are all jus cogens. That's Latin for "higher law" or "compelling law." This means that no country can ever pass a law that allows torture. There can be no immunity from criminal liability for violation of a jus cogens prohibition.

    The United States has always prohibited torture in our Constitution, laws, executive statements, judicial decisions, and treaties. When the U.S. ratifies a treaty, it becomes part of American law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

    The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, says, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification for torture."

    Whether someone is a POW or not, he must always be treated humanely; there are no gaps in the Geneva Conventions.

    The U.S. War Crimes Act, and 18 USC sections 818 and 3231, punish torture, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, and inhuman, humiliating or degrading treatment.

    The Torture Statute criminalizes the commission, attempt, or conspiracy to commit torture outside the United States.

    The Constitution gives Congress the power to make laws and the President the duty to enforce them. Yet Bush, relying on memos by lawyers including John Yoo, announced the Geneva Conventions did not apply to alleged Taliban and Al Qaeda members. But torture and inhumane treatment are never allowed under our laws.

    MORE ARTICLE HERE:   http://www.alternet.org/rights/85204/

  3. Legal Drugs Kill Far More people Than Illegal =MUST READ=

    03.Jul.08, 02:23 EDT
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    New York Times
    Legal Drugs Kill Far More people Than Illegal, Florida Says
    By DAMIEN CAVE
    June 14, 2008

    MIAMI — From “Scarface” to “Miami Vice,” Florida’s drug problem has been portrayed as the story of a single narcotic: cocaine. But for Floridians, prescription drugs are increasingly a far more lethal habit.

    An analysis of autopsies in 2007 released this week by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.

    Law enforcement officials said that the shift toward prescription-drug abuse, which began here about eight years ago, showed no sign of letting up and that the state must do more to control it.

    “You have health care providers involved, you have doctor shoppers, and then there are crimes like robbing drug shipments,” said Jeff Beasley, a drug intelligence inspector for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which co-sponsored the study. “There is a multitude of ways to get these drugs, and that’s what makes things complicated.”

    The report’s findings track with similar studies by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which has found that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. If accurate, that would be an increase of 80 percent in six years and more than the total abusing cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, Ecstasy and inhalants.

    The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.

    Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).

    The study also found that while the number of people who died with heroin in their bodies increased 14 percent in 2007, to 110, deaths related to the opioid oxycodone increased 36 percent, to 1,253.

    Florida scrutinizes drug-related deaths more closely than do other states, and so there is little basis for comparison with them.

    It has also witnessed several highly publicized cases in recent years that have highlighted the problem. Only last year, an accidental prescription drug overdose killed Anna Nicole Smith in Broward County.

    Still, the state has lagged in enforcement. Thirty-eight other states have approved prescription drug monitoring programs that track sales. Florida lawmakers have repeatedly considered similar legislation, but privacy concerns have kept it from passing.

    As a result, federal, state and local law enforcement officials say, Florida has become a source of prescription drugs that are illegally sold across the country.

    “The monitoring plan is our priority effort, but that is not enough,” William H. Janes, the Florida director of drug control, said in a statement accompanying the study. He said Florida was also looking at ways to curb illegal Internet sales and to encourage doctors and pharmacists to identify potential abusers.

    Some local police departments have taken a more novel approach.

    In Broward County on May 31, deputies completed a “drug takeback” in which $5 Wal-Mart, CVS or Walgreens gift cards were distributed to 150 people who cleaned out their medicine cabinets and turned in unused drugs in an effort to keep them out of young people’s hands.

    “The abuse has reached epidemic proportions,” said Lisa McElhaney, a sergeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. “It’s just explosive.”

    Link to story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/14/us/14florida.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss 

     

  4. A VERY SERIOUS READ!! OUR INTERNET?

    03.Jul.08, 02:21 EDT
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    Corporations Plan To Pull Plug On The Free Internet
    Web users naive about agenda to turn Internet into regulated cable TV model
     
     

    The Internet is the last true unregulated outpost of freedom of speech but moves are afoot to stifle, suffocate, control and eventually pull the plug on the world wide web as we know it. These threats are not hidden nor are they hard to deduce and yet a significant number of Internet users remain naive as to their scope.

    Despite many questioning the authenticity of a report that claimed ISP's had resolved to restrict the Internet to a TV-like subscription model where users will be forced to pay to visit selected corporate websites by 2012, while others will be blocked, the march towards regulation of the web is clear and documented.

    We have been warning about the plan to let the old Internet die and replace it with a restricted and controlled Internet 2 for years. In 2006, we published an article about how the RIAA were attempting to broaden intellectual property distinctions to a point whereby merely linking to external content is judged as copyright infringement.

    At the time, the article was met with a mixed response. Many were aware of the imminent dangers that threaten to change the face of the Internet but others were more hostile to the supposition that the world wide web could be devastated by landmark copyright case rulings as well as plans to develop "Internet 2."

    Some accused us of yellow journalism and scaremongering yet the warning that the Elektra vs. Barker case could criminalize the very mechanism that characterizes the Internet was not concocted by Alex Jones or Paul Joseph Watson, it was a statement made by the very lawyer fighting the case, Ray Beckerman.

    It was a danger also reported on by one of the UK's biggest technology news websites, the Inquirer, which also highlighted the frightening development in an article entitled, RIAA wants the Internet shut down.

  5. McCain on Iraq's Human Toll: "That's Not Too Important"

    03.Jul.08, 02:19 EDT
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    McCain on Iraq's Human Toll: "That's Not Too Important"

    By Laila Al-Arian, Huffington Post. Posted June 12, 2008.

    The man who says we could be in Iraq for 100 years shows his lack of concern for U.S. troops -- and callous disregard of Iraqi civilians.
     
     

    Sen. John McCain was asked in an interview yesterday when U.S. forces should begin withdrawing from Iraq. "That's not too important," McCain responded dismissively. "What's important is the casualties in Iraq," he continued, referring to the more than 4,000 American troops killed since the invasion. While the Republican nominee has said he would maintain the U.S. occupation of Iraq for 100 years if necessary, he now seeks to soothe a war-weary American public by pledging to keep U.S. casualties at a minimum if he becomes commander-in-chief.

    In an interview with David Letterman last April, McCain conceded that the Iraqi death toll was "in the hundreds of thousands." In fact, according to a survey by the well-regarded British polling agency, Opinion Research Business, more than 1 million Iraqi civilians have been killed since the occupation began, a figure significantly higher than previously reported. Even after acknowledging the horrendous toll the occupation has exacted on Iraqi civil society, McCain insists that withdrawal is "not too important." The only factor that McCain deems worthy of concern is American military casualties -- and even the prospect of more dead troops has not deterred him from his war cheerleading.

    The impact of the occupation on Iraqi society is a subject that has been overlooked by not only McCain, but by most of his peers as well. The topic of US atrocities against Iraqi civilians is too sensitive, meanwhile, for the mainstream American media to touch. Thus essential questions remain largely unexamined: What do ordinary Iraqis whose lives have been upended by the violence of the occupation want? Do they want American soldiers to remain garrisoned in their cities, indiscriminately raiding their homes, and manning dangerous checkpoints in their neighborhoods? Perhaps the withdrawal of our troops from their country is important, after all.

    Six months ago, veteran war reporter Chris Hedges and I embarked on an intensive project to answer these questions. We wanted to document and reveal the ugly, under-acknowledged underbelly of the occupation. To do this, we interviewed more than 50 Iraq war combat veterans on the record about their experiences with Iraqi civilians. Many of them described witnessing, and even participating in, atrocities against unarmed Iraqis. Chris and I discovered that war crimes against Iraqi non-combatants have been far more widespread than is commonly known.

    We reported our findings in a new book, Collateral Damage: America's War Against Iraqi Civilians. Our sources comprised the largest number of named eyewitnesses from within the U.S. military to have spoken on the record. In vivid detail, they revealed to us that the U.S. military is not the stabilizing force politicians like McCain have insisted it is. The Iraqis they encountered came to see our military as simply another armed group among many beating a path of bloodshed and misery everywhere it goes to advance its own narrow mission.

    MORE HERE:  http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/88008/

  6. BIG MEDIA TAKE-OVER!! =STOP THEM=

    03.Jul.08, 02:16 EDT
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    Racial and ethnic minorities make up
    34 percent of the U.S. population

    Yet they only own
    7.7 percent of full-power radio stations
    3.15 percent of television stations< p>

    The FCC's Dec. 18th decision to relax media ownership rules will make this situation even worse.
    Tell Congress to Intervene»

  7. Retired General: "The Current Administration Has Committed War Crimes"

    03.Jul.08, 02:14 EDT
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    Retired General: "The Current Administration Has Committed War Crimes"

    By Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, Democracy Now!. Posted June 23, 2008.

    As Congress pieces together the White House torture program, former Army General Antonio Taguba condemns Bush's "systematic regime of torture."
     
     

    Last Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an eight-hour hearing that exposed the role of top Bush administration officials in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Meanwhile, Retired Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib, has accused the Bush administration of committing war crimes. "The commander in chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture," Taguba said.

    Juan Gonzalez: Retired General Antonio Taguba, who led the U.S. Army's investigation into the Abu Ghraib abuses, has accused the Bush administration of "a systematic regime of torture" and war crimes. Taguba's accusations appear in the preface to a new report released by Physicians for Human Rights. The report uses medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of eleven former prisoners who endured torture by U.S. personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.

    Taguba writes, "There is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

    Amy Goodman: The report was published in the midst of two days of congressional hearings on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held an eight-hour hearing that exposed the role of top Bush administration officials in authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. The committee released a series of previously classified documents detailing how the Pentagon and the CIA transformed the military's SERE resistance training program into a blueprint for interrogating terrorist suspects. Committee Chair Senator Carl Levin explained the timeline of implementing the SERE, or Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape, techniques and the role of military psychologists in devising these routines.

    <blockquote>Sen. Carl Levin: On October 2, 2002, a week after John Rizzo, the acting CIA general counsel, visited Gitmo, a second senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, went to Guantanamo, attended a meeting of Gitmo staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist and psychiatrist from Gitmo, who a couple of weeks earlier had attended that training given at Fort Bragg by instructors by the SERE school.</blockquote> <blockquote>While the training -- excuse me, while the memo remains classified, minutes from the meeting where it was discussed are not. Those minutes clearly show that the focus of the discussion was aggressive techniques for use against detainees.</blockquote> <blockquote>When the Gitmo chief of staff suggested at the meeting that Gitmo "can't do sleep deprivation," Lieutenant Colonel Beaver, Gitmo's senior lawyer, responded, "Yes, we can -- with approval." Lieutenant Beaver added that Gitmo, quote, "may need to curb the harsher operations while the International Committee of the Red Cross is around."</blockquote> <blockquote>Mr. Fredman, the senior CIA lawyer, suggested that it's, quote, "very effective to identify detainee phobias and to use them" and described for the group the so-called "wet towel" technique, which we know as waterboarding. Mr. Fredman said, quote, "It can feel like you're drowning. The lymphatic system will react as if you're suffocating, but your body will not cease to function," close-quote.</blockquote> <blockquote>And Mr. Fredman presented the following disturbing perspective of our legal obligations under our anti-torture laws, saying, quote, "It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong."</blockquote> <blockquote>"If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong." How on earth did we get to the point where a senior U.S. government lawyer would say that whether or not an interrogation technique is torture is, quote, "subject to perception" and that if, quote, "the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong"? The Gitmo senior JAG officer Lieutenant Colonel Beaver's response was: "We will need documentation to protect us."</blockquote>

    Juan Gonzalez: The Pentagon's former general counsel William Haynes was repeatedly questioned at Tuesday's hearing about his role in authorizing the interrogation techniques. During two hours of testimony, Haynes responded to dozens of questions by saying he could not recall or remember details about the process of approving the interrogation techniques. Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island blasted Haynes's role in authorizing torture.

    <blockquote>Sen. Jack Reed: You said the Geneva Convention doesn't apply, and they honestly ask, "What does apply?" And the only thing you sent them was: these techniques apply -- no conditions, nothing. So don't go around with this attitude of you're protecting the integrity of the military. You degraded the integrity of the United States military.</blockquote>

    Juan Gonzalez: A major McClatchy newspaper series investigating the detention of terrorist suspects names Haynes as one of a group of five lawyers at the White House, Pentagon and Justice Department who called themselves the "War Council" and reinterpreted U.S. and international laws about accountability and the treatment of prisoners. Other members of the War Council included Vice President Cheney's former legal adviser and current chief of staff, David Addington; former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo; and former deputy to Gonzales, Timothy Flanigan.

    MUCH MORE TO READ HERE:  http://www.alternet.org/rights/89141/

  8. Lying on the Bench =Scalia Used False Information in Gitmo Dissent=

    03.Jul.08, 02:13 EDT
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    Scalia Used False Information in Gitmo Dissent

    By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. Posted June 24, 2008.

    "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield," the belligerent judge said. This is a lie.
     
     

    To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false.

    According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN. CNN, in turn, named the DoD as its source. The '30' number, however, was corrected in a DoD press release issued in July 2007, and a DoD document submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim entirely."

    The largest possible number of detainees who could have "returned to the fight" is 12; however, the Department of Defense has no system for tracking the whereabouts of released detainees. The only one who has undisputedly taken up arms against the United States or its allies, "ISN 220," was released by political officers of the DoD against the recommendations of military officers.

    Scalia bolstered his hysterical claim that the Boumediene decision "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed" with stale information that was proven to be false one year ago. Professor Mark Denbeaux, director of the Seton Hall Center, said, Scalia "was relying uncritically on information that originated with a party in the case before him."

    The Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 decision that the Guantánamo detainees were entitled to file petitions for writ of habeas corpus to challenge their detention. More than 200 men who have been held for up to six years and have never been charged with a crime, will now have their day in court. Many were snatched from their homes, picked up off the street or in airports, or sold to the U.S. military by warlords for bounty.

    Scalia, who sits on the highest court in the land, has acted as a loyal foot soldier for the executive branch of government.

    This article first appeared at www.marjoriecohn.com.

  9. General Accuses White House of War Crimes =TORTURE=MUST READ=

    03.Jul.08, 02:11 EDT
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    Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government
    19 Jun 2008
    All items are here:

    General Accuses White House of War Crimes 18 Jun 2008 The two-star general who led an Army investigation into the horrific detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib has accused the Bush administration of war crimes and is calling for accountability. In his 2004 report on Abu Ghraib, then-Major General Anthony Taguba concluded that "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees." He called the abuse "systemic and illegal." Now, in a preface to a Physicians for Human Rights report based on medical examinations of former detainees, Taguba adds an epilogue to his own investigation. The new report, he writes, "tells the largely untold human story of what happened to detainees in our custody when the Commander-in-Chief and those under him authorized a systematic regime of torture. This story is not only written in words: It is scrawled for the rest of these individual's lives on their bodies and minds... In order for these individuals to suffer the wanton cruelty to which they were subjected, a government policy was promulgated to the field whereby the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice were disregarded. The UN Convention Against Torture was indiscriminately ignored. . . . After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." [See: 'I saw ___ fucking a kid...' (Graphic) Source: The "Taguba Report" On Treatment Of Abu Ghraib Prisoners In Iraq, statement by Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, Detainee #151108, 1300/18 Jan 2004, as published by The Washington Post.]

    Torture 'is basically subject to perception.' CIA Played Larger Role In Advising Pentagon 18 Jun 2008 A senior CIA lawyer advised Pentagon officials about the use of <s>harsh interrogation techniques</s> torture on prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in a meeting in late 2002, defending waterboarding and other methods as permissible despite U.S. and international laws banning torture, according to documents released yesterday by congressional investigators. Torture "is basically subject to perception," CIA counterterrorism lawyer Jonathan Fredman told a group of military and intelligence officials gathered at the U.S.-run detention camp in Cuba on Oct. 2, 2002, according to minutes of the meeting. "If the detainee dies, you're doing it wrong." ...By the time of the meeting, the CIA already had used waterboarding on at least one terrorism suspect and was holding high-level 'al-Qaeda' detainees in secret prisons overseas -- actions that Bush administration lawyers had approved.

    Report: Exams reveal US electric shock torture of detainees --Report reveals medical evidence of torture, including beatings and electric shock --Study calls on U.S. government to issue a formal apology to tortured detainees 18 Jun 2008 Former terrorist suspects detained by the United States were tortured, according to medical examinations detailed in a report released Wednesday by a human rights group. The Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights reached that conclusion after two-day clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees, who had been held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan. The detainees were never charged with crimes. In a 121-page report, the doctors' group said that it uncovered medical evidence of torture, including beatings, electric shock, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation, sodomy and scores of other abuses.

    U.S. Torture of Detainees Caused Severe Pain, Long-Term Suffering 17 Jun 2008 A team of doctors and psychologists convened by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) to conduct intensive clinical evaluations of 11 former detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay has found that these men suffered torture and ill-treatment by U.S. personnel, which resulted in severe pain and long-term disability. The men were ultimately released from U.S. custody without charge or explanation.

  10. STOP THE KILLING!!! =PLEASE HELP=

    03.Jul.08, 02:06 EDT
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    <p><br /><br /> </p>
    <big>Consider as soon as possible if you can organize a STOP WAR ON IRAN protest in your locality during the weekend of August 2 - 3.  Let us know so that your protest can be listed.</big>
    <big>
    YET ANOTHER U.S. WAR?

    The U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is hated by the people there. These wars have no support at home and are ruining the domestic economy. Instead of pulling out, the Bush administration is preparing for still another war-this time against Iran . This must be stopped!

    AGRESSION TOWARDS IRAN IS ESCALATING

    On June 4, George Bush, with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at his side, called Iran a "threat to peace."  Two days before, acting as a proxy for the Pentagon, Israel used advanced U.S. fighter planes to conduct massive air maneuvers, which the media called a "dress rehearsal" for an attack on Iran 's nuclear facility. Under pressure from the U.S. , the European Union announced sanctions against Iran on June 23.  A bill is before Congress for further U.S. sanctions on Iran and even a blockade of Iran .    </big>

    <big>IRAN "THREATS" A HOAX

    Iran as a "nuclear threat" is as much a hoax as Bush's claim of "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq used to justify the war there. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which inspects Iran 's nuclear facilities, says it has no weapons program and is developing nuclear power for the days when its oil runs out. Even Washington 's 16 top spy agencies issued a joint statement that said Iran does not have nuclear weapons technology!

    U.S. and Israel are the real nuclear danger. The Pentagon has a huge, nuclear-capable naval armada in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, with guns aimed at Iran . Israel , the Pentagon's proxy force in the Middle East , has up to 200 nuclear warheads and has never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Iran did sign it.

    WAR HURTS U.S. ECONOMY

    While billions of dollars go to war, at home the unemployment rate had the biggest spike in 23 years.  Home foreclosures and evictions are increasing; fuel and food prices are through the roof. While the situation is growing dire for many, Washington 's cuts to domestic programs continue.  A new U.S. war will bring only more suffering.

    WHAT WE DO RIGHT NOW CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

    While the summer is a difficult time to call protests, the August recess of Congress gives the White House an opportunity for unopposed aggression against Iran .  We must not let this happen! From the anti-war movement and all movements for social change, to religious and grassroots organizations, unions and schools, let us join forces to demand "No war on Iran, U.S. out of Iraq, Money for human needs not war! "

    This call to action is issued by     StopWarOnIran.org, a network of thousands of concerned activists and organizations fighting to stop a new war against Iran since February  2006.</big>

  11. VIDEO'S YOU MUST WATCH!! =Brave Nation=

    03.Jul.08, 02:02 EDT
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    What an amazing trip this has been! After months and months of hard work, This Brave Nation wraps with its thrilling fifth episode: Tom Hayden in conversation with Naomi Klein. Hayden is, of course, the legendary activist who was a member of the Chicago 7 and who also spent 18 years in the California Legislature. Klein is the author of two best-selling books, the anti-globalization manifesto No Logo, and the recent hit, The Shock Doctrine.

    Watch the full fifth episode

    Together, they cover everything from the tumult of the 1960's to protests in Seattle to what it means to be a true witness of the events around you. Spirited and lively, Hayden and Klein have one of the most compelling conversations of this series, one you won't want to miss.

    Watch the entire episode.

    If you've missed one episode of This Brave Nation, you've missed too many! For a $15 donation to This Brave Nation, you'll receive 2 DVDs of the first five episodes. Remember that the most important part of this series is the ability to share it with everyone you know, including a local school or library! We've already started shipping DVDs of This Brave Nation, so now is the time to get yours.

    And don't forget to vote in our Brave Nation Young Activist Award contest. We've narrowed the list of incredible nominees down to just five contestants for you to choose from. On July 13th, when we bring you LIVE the final episode of This Brave Nation featuring 2 very special guests, we will announce the winner of the award.

    Vote today and decide who the next Tom Hayden or Naomi Klein could be.

    Sincerely,
    Robert Greenwald and Katrina vanden Heuvel
    Brave New Foundation and The Nation

    <blockquote>"Print married with film. Film and print married with the internet. Internet married with text, audio and video. Text, audio and video married with ACTION. You don't need a user's manual to get the beauty of all this integration." - The Agitator review of This Brave Nation. </blockquote>

    ----
    Brave New Foundation is supported by members like you, please consider making a donation. Our videos are available via email, RSS, YouTube and iTunes here.

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP!! Ron G.

  12. Bush administration is not only reckless but lawless =PLEASE SIGN=

    03.Jul.08, 02:00 EDT
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    It has been said in the past that the Bush administration is not only reckless but lawless.  The extent of this lawlessness was made abundantly clear yesterday.

    In what we could only wish had been an April Fool's Day joke, the Department of Justice declassified and released a 2003 Office of Legal Counsel memo advising the Pentagon that laws and treaties forbidding torture and other forms of abuse did not apply to U.S. interrogators because of the president's wartime power.

    What kind of harm, you might ask, would be prohibited under the standard established by this memo?  Very little, it turns out.  It declared that an interrogation technique must "shock the conscience" in order for it to be illegal.  But it gets even worse.  The memo also asserted, "Whether conduct is conscience-shocking turns in part on whether it is without any justification." 

    Just because one lawyer at the Justice Department wrote a memo asserting that certain conscience-shocking actions were justified and therefore legal does not change the real truth here:  The Bush administration has flagrantly violated domestic law and international treaties.

    The only question now is what should be done.

    Prosecutions may be appropriate.  Impeachment should not be out of the question.  But what is needed immediately is a thorough investigation into the Bush administration's understanding of the extent of the president's power as commander-in-chief.

    Please send an email to your representatives in Congress, urging them to support wide-ranging hearings into the abuses of executive power that have occurred over the past seven years.  Just click here to get started:

    http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=23997

    At this point in history, we must be concerned not only with punishing Bush administration officials for wrongdoing, but also with setting standards for the next administration.  We must establish now that the "war on terror" has NOT created a "wartime president" with unlimited powers.  If we do not, then we can only expect executive power to expand in the future.

    Tell your representatives in Congress you are concerned about excessive executive power by sending an email today:

    http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/2165/t/1027/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=23997

    And after you have sent your email, please use our Tell-A-Friend option to encourage others to do the same.

    Thank you for taking action.

    Best,
    Steve

    Steve Fox
    Campaign Director
    American Freedom Campaign Action Fund

  13. ANIMAL "TORTURE"!! =PLEASE HELP=

    12.Mar.08, 13:16 EDT
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    MONKEY TORTURE =PLEASE HELP=

    FREE THE SIX FLAGS ELEPHANTS!
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Free-the-Six-Flags-7

    Living in an amusement park is no fun for the seven elephants at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. If you visit the Elephant Encounter, notice the bullhooks in the hands of the elephant keepers. Bullhooks are shaped like fireplace pokers with a sharp steel hook at the end.

    NO MORE PRIMATES IMPORTED FOR EXPERIMENTS!
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/no-more-monkeys-imported-for-cruel-false-quotresearchquot

    We feel that the capture and breeding of wild non-human primates from Mauritius for import into the United States or any other nation for the purpose of "scientific research" is an unconscionable abuse and subjects those primates to lives of unmitigating hell. We also feel that the value of such experiments are dubious at best and do not merit the destruction of other living, sentient beings, particularly some of our closest relatives.

    STOP ANIMAL TESTING LAB, COVANCE, FROM OPENING IN ARIZONA
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/470036461

    Covanceis an animal testing lab trying to come to Chandler, Arizona. They have MANY Animal Welfare Acts violations as well as a terrible history of controlling dangerous viruses such as Ebola! The city council and mayor's office have gone behind closed doors to bring this company to the city without any input from local residents. We are trying to stop that! Covance is clearly NOT a company we want doing business near us...or anywhere!

    REUNITE CHIMP BROTHERS HUNTER AND LYONS!! I'm begging you, can't we please try to get this to target? Let's reunite these poor boys as they have suffered ENOUGH!!
    http://www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/877116649

    Hunter and Lyons

    Hunter and Lyons were removed in 2005 from the Yerkes Primate Facility and sent to separate locations after 21 years together. Your help is vital to see that these two chimpanzees are reunited together in permanent sanctuary - forever.

  14. Cruelty by US Soldiers =5 Video's you need to watch=

    12.Mar.08, 13:12 EDT
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    CRUEL US SOLDIERS =MUST WATCH=

    Puppy.jpgThe Digg story "U.S. Soldier throws puppy off cliff" had, at last count, 5,527 votes. Digg commenters, never a demure crowd, aren't holding back their rage. One comment, itself voted for 540 times, reads "Wow. I hope he got shot in the face later that day." This video exposes something about the dehumanization of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan that most of us don't want to think about. Here are five more videos that show just how far gone our troops are. A warning: These videos are explicit and -- withthe known correlationbetween violence toward animals and violence toward other humans in mind -- savagely disheartening.
     
    PLEASE GO LOOK HERE AT 5 YOUTUBE  VIDEO'S OF CRUELTY:  http://valleywag.com/363325/five-youtube-videos-show-american-soldiers-at-their-worst

  15. HELP STOP THE DRILLING =PLEASE SIGN=

    12.Mar.08, 13:08 EDT
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    <table class="" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" width="600" border="0"><tbody><tr><td class=""></td></tr><tr><td class="">Dear Friend,

    A wildlife refuge in Alaska is at risk of being irreparably damaged by oil drilling.

     

    Please speak up opposing this move by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, before the March 25 comment deadline.

     

    The Yukon Flats National Wildlife Refuge, home to millions of migratory birds as well as grizzlies, wolves and Dall sheep, is under threat.

    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to trade away 110,000 acres of prime refuge wildlife habitat - along with another 97,000 acres of subsurface mineral rights - for oil and gas exploration and development.

    We still have time to stop this ill-conceived plan. Until March 25, Americans can speak out in support of the native people who rely on the land, water, and wildlife resources of Yukon Flats by opposing this unwise use of the refuge's irreplaceable habitat.

    Click here to send a message to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

    Taking action today makes you eligible to win a trip for two to Alaska.

    Your voice is key. Even the Fish and Wildlife Service has admitted in the past that oil drilling is not compatible with the purposes for which this refuge was established.
    But they need to be reminded.

    Drilling means roads, pipelines, oil spills and pollution - all of which will threaten the habitats of the moose, bear, caribou and birds that depend on this place. Native peoples living off of the land could be irreversibly affected by oil production in the area.

    Time is running out. We have only until March 25 to let the Fish and Wildlife Service know that Americans do not support oil production in this Alaskan refuge!

    Click here to send your message.

    These public lands must be protected - and concerned Americans like you and me need to step up to save them. Together we can work to protect wild Alaskan lands from oil development.

    </td></tr></tbody></table>

  16. 2 IMPORTANT ACTIONS =PLEASE HELP=

    18.Feb.08, 16:31 EST
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    Urgent Action Against Killing of California Sea Lions in Pacific Northwest: DEADLINE February 19th

    <div><span color="#810081"><u></u></span></div>- 1 day ago - ga0.org
    The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has proposed a plan that would allow Washington and Oregon to kill (by lethal injection or shooting) as many as 85 California sea lions each year. Please Take Action to oppose the NMFS proposal today!!


    The Standing Proud Project for First Nation People

    The Standing Proud Project is to give an outlet for First Nation people who are on Social Assistance with the drive, skills, talent and experience to run their own business by having an actual opportunity to have access to funding. 
     Support Native People!!!

    <div><span color="#810081"><u></u></span></div>
     
    The Chickamauga have a proud history connected to this country; History shows Dragging Canoe's warriors fought with the British during the American Revolution to try and save our land, yet we are not Federally Recognized. Please sign our petition today!

  17. NIGERIAN CHILDREN =PLEASE HELP=

    18.Feb.08, 16:29 EST
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    They are for the children of Nigeria. They are
    being abused, abandoned and killed because pastors of churches are telling there parents that they are witches.

    Children are targets of Nigerian witch hunt

    Stop