St. Patrick's Day and the Lost Lessons of Empire  - posted at ICH
A quote...."March 17, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- - Another Saint Patrick's Day is here, with its tacky kegs of green beer, leprechauns, lucky charms, fake plastic hats and all imaginable variety of gaudy faux-Irish...um..."charm." But it needn't be so. The holiday offers up an incredible opportunity to expose children (and adults, of course) to the history of struggle of a courageous people--England's first and last colony--and, by extension, to shed light on the legacy of colonization and imperialism and the universal nature of popular resistance."

Rotted From the Head: High Crimes and Continuity in the American Imperium
A quote...."The recent emergence of the 2007 report by the Red Cross confirming, in copious detail, the widespread, systematic use of criminal torture by the Bush Administration is a welcome development. Although its facts will doubtless be drowned, or at least waterboarded, by the usual diversions -- faux shock in the Beltway over Wall Street fat cats paying themselves big bonuses with the free money that Washington knowingly gave them, for example -- it is still good to see the long-known record of this belching of filth by the nation's leaders dragged out into the light momentarily again. Every small nugget of truth that makes it through the heavy mesh of obfuscation that surrounds the workings of the Empire is to be lauded, hoarded and added to the fragments we have shored against our ruins. Every piece that gets out remains out, somewhere, for someone to find again and make use of. That's the hope anyway, and I think it is a substantive one."

The U.S. is Leaving Iraq but Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?
A quote...." By the fall, ordinary aspects of Fatin's life had become punishable by death. The "misery gangs," as Fatin calls them, were routinely killing women for wearing pants, appearing in public without a headscarf, or shaking hands and socializing with men. -- As the occupying power, the U.S. was legally obligated to stop these attacks. But the Pentagon, preoccupied with battling the Iraqi insurgency, simply ignored the militias' reign of terror. -- In fact, some of the most treacherous armed groups belonged to the very political parties that the US had brought to power. By 2005, the Pentagon was giving weapons, money and military training to these Shiite militias, in the hope that they would help combat the Sunni-led insurgency." -- also posted at CommonDreams & WarInIraq -- For more on this sort of issue see....The Method - 05-07-07 - mpg
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Obama™ Updates

U.S. To Sign UN Gay Rights Declaration
Special Note - Obama™ Update -- The US-NRE won't abide by the Geneva Conventions, Magna Carta, US Constitution, Posse Comitatus Act, and the rules as set forth in the Nuremberg Tribunals. It won't join the ICC, it tore up the ABM treaty, wouldn't even attend the UN conference on racism (with a "black" president no less) still allows rendition, torture, illegal surveillance of it's own citizens, illegal wars, illegal occupations, murder and mayhem, stood idly by while Gaza was needlessly slaughtered, un-constitutional presidential signing statements, unlawful imprisonment, violates Habeas Corpus and basically refuses to take a single step as outlined in the Thirty Five Acts to Restore Americans' Rights - 11-10-06 - mpg to undo any of the harm that's been done so far to what once used to be called the United States of America....but it will sign the "gay" rights declaration. Guess the wealthy elites do have to set their priorities in order. -- Welcome folks, to the New Roman Empire. - mpg - For more on this issue see.... Mommy Pelosi and Daddy Bush Obama - 11-18-06 - mpg

America Is Really Angry - Obama Aides Still Fretting About Elite Opinion
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."The crack reporting team at the New York Times gives us a huge scoop [1]: Newsflash - America is really really angry at a government that keeps giving away taxpayer cash to banks while telling us we need to solve a deficit problem by potentially slashing Social Security. What a shocking scoop...only, ya know, a few months late (but hey, better late than never). -- What I find newsy about this story is the subtext highlighted in this excerpt:" -- "The Obama administration is increasingly concerned about a populist backlash against banks and Wall Street, worried that anger at financial institutions could also end up being directed at Congress and the White House and could complicate President Obama's agenda... "

Obama Received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org. The two biggest Congressional recipients of bonuses from the A.I.G. are - Senators Chris Dodd and Senator Barack Obama."

US [Obama] considers expanding covert operation area in Pakistan: Report
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Obama admin is considering expanding the covert US operations in Pakistan far beyond the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan, report said."

Obama Follows Bush on Detainees
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Human rights activists and constitutional law experts were virtually unanimous in their condemnation of the positions taken on prisoner detention and treatment in federal court last week by President Barack Obama's Department of Justice, which one group described as "a case of old wine in new bottles."

Obama Faces Flak From Antiwar Movement Over Iraq Withdrawal Timing
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Add another problem to President Obama's growing list of concerns. Members of the antiwar movement, which was instrumental in helping him win the Democratic presidential nomination last year, are expressing increasing concern about the pace of his plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. -- Obama promised during the campaign to remove combat troops within 16 months of taking office. That has now slipped to 19 months, and Obama, on the advice of the military, says he will maintain a residual American force there as long as is necessary after that. All U.S. troops are to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011, a deadline set by Iraq and the United States under an agreement made during George W. Bush's administration."

Obama Undercuts Whistle-Blowers, Senator Says
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."WASHINGTON — A leading Republican senator maintains that President Obama is violating a campaign promise with his claim that he can bypass whistle-blower protections for executive branch officials who give certain information to Congress."

President Obama, Why Did You Pay Blackwater $70 Million in February?
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Obama may keep the company on the government payroll months after its Iraq contract expires. Not bad for a firm supposedly going down in flames."

Appeals Court Refuses To Revisit Decision Ordering Defense Department To Release Prisoner Abuse Photos
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."NEW YORK – A federal court rejected a Bush administration request to reconsider a decision that ordered the Department of Defense to release photographs depicting the abuse of detainees by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit rejected the government's request to have the full appeals court rehear a decision from last September ordering the release of the photos as part of an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit seeking information on the abuse of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas. -- The Obama administration, which has not taken a position on the litigation, has 90 days to appeal to the Supreme Court if it chooses to challenge the September order."

Obama, growing on me like a colony of E. coli (satire?)
Obama™ Update -- Some quotes..."Two months in and the best thing I can say about Barack Obama is that he’s not George Bush. Granted, he may be better than that banal skin sack Bush, but if the outcome is the same, does it really matter? -- Is a knife in your back better than one through your heart? -- What ever happened to change?" -- "That’s right kids; Obama seems content to continue with George W. Bush’s economic program of ‘no greedy wall street bastard left behind.’ " - bold by website editor
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Torture Team
Book Review -- "Torture Team – Deception, Cruelty and the Compromise of Law" Philippe Sands. Allen Lane, Penguin. New York. 2008. [GuardBkShp, Penguin, Readings, Abbeys] -- A quote...."Only a few pieces of paper can change the course of history. On Tuesday, 2 December 2002 Donald Rumsfield signed on that did." From such a singular beginning Philippe Sands writes the history of U.S. attempts to abrogate international laws and conventions on the use of torture and the inhumane treatment of prisoners of war. This is the memo Rumsfield approved with the sarcastic comment about standing: “However, I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” Perhaps Rumsfield should have been subjected to the other seventeen “techniques” that accompanied the memo to see if his limits for them were any better."

Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation
A quote...."Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century - the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia's infamous "Killing Fields" during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda - Iraq Deaths

Washington Post Shows Its Hand
A quote...."The Washington Post is apparently losing lots of money and may close in the foreseeable future, barring a deus ex machina intervention by some foreign billionaire such as saved the New York Times. While the decline of newspapers worldwide is regrettable, the Post's troubles are really good news, and bankruptcy would be a richly deserved fate for a rag that has been an enabler of every neocon fantasy for the past 20 years. Imagine no longer having to enjoy Charles Krauthammer, Fred Kagan, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Robert Kaplan with your morning coffee."

Why Pakistan cares about Chaudhry
A quote...."Iftikhar Chaudhry became a supreme court judge in 2000 and was appointed as the youngest ever chief justice in June 2005. -- He was sacked from the position by Pervez Musharraf, who led Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, and the campaign for his reinstatement, which has seen multiple street protests, became a popular cause in Pakistan."

POLITICS:  Five Days That Changed Pakistan
A quote...."KARACHI, Mar 16 (IPS) - A late night meeting between Pakistan’s army chief, President and Prime Minister led to the dramatic announcement in the wee hours of Monday morning that Iftikhar Mohammed Choudhry would be restored as Chief Justice." -- also posted at CounterCurrents

The Afghanistan seldom seen
Contains Video - Special Note -- A quote...."Beyond Taliban attacks and the opium trade, there is another side to Afghanistan that is rarely reported. From the Uzbek border in the north to the deep south, there's a hidden world of stunning contrasts; of beauty and poverty, of young women getting educations and musicians playing what couldn't be heard under the Taliban. These are forgotten areas, untouched by the billions of reconstruction dollars that have poured into the nation."

Iraqi forces surround PMOI in Diyala
A quote...."CAMP ASHRAF, Iraq, March 16 (UPI) -- Iranian dissidents residing at the Camp Ashraf enclave in Iraq's Diyala province said national forces have them surrounded following efforts to close the camp. Camp Ashraf is home to the People's Mujahedin of Iran, which opposes the clerical regime in Iran. It has an acrimonious relationship with some lawmakers in Baghdad due in part to its ties to the former regime of Saddam Hussein."

The Americans need to apologize
Interview -- Omid Memarian interviews Dr Kazem Jalali, Iranian member of parliament -- A quote...."BERKELEY, California - Dr Kazem Jalali, an influential conservative member of Iran's parliament, the Majlis, and rapporteur of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, sees possibilities for a thaw with Washington, but believes that many Arab states in the Gulf "see their interests in keeping the current state of continual conflict among the West, the US and the Islamic Republic of Iran”.

Brazil urges US not to interfere in Lat America
A quote...."Brazil has called on the US to open a new chapter in its relations with Latin American countries by not interfering in their affairs."

Argentina Nationalizes U.S.-Owned Defense Plant - link posted at ICH
A quote...."BUENOS AIRES – Argentina will re-nationalize a military-aircraft factory that was acquired by U.S. defense titan Lockheed Martin in the 1990s, President Cristina Fernandez said on Tuesday."

El Salvador election: Former guerilla party FMLN wins presidency
A quote...."A moderate former journalist has brought his left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) party of former guerillas to power for the first time since the end of El Salvador's brutal civil war.  -- This is the happiest night of my life, and I want it to be the night of El Salvador's greatest hope," said Mauricio Funes, 49, after his party took more than 51 per cent of the vote, ending nearly two decades of conservative rule in El Salvador."

L American countries congratulate Funes for winning El Salvador's presidential election
A quote...."MEXICO CITY, March 16 (Xinhua) -- Some Latin American countries on Monday congratulated Mauricio Funes for winning the presidential elections in El Salvador. -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the victory of Funes, candidate from the left-wing Farabundo Marti Front for the National Liberation (FMLN), represented a moment of change in the Latin American region."

Nations Line up to Slam Big Powers' UN Veto Rights  - link posted at ICH
A quote...."UNITED NATIONS - African and other developing nations joined several European powers at the United Nations to denounce the veto rights of the five official nuclear powers on the U.N. Security Council, diplomats said. -- The chorus of criticism began on Monday and continued on Tuesday at a closed-door session of the General Assembly on reforming and expanding the most powerful U.N. body."

ECONOMY-CHINA:  Chance to Reform IMF in EU-US Split?
A quote...."BEIJING, Mar 18 (IPS) - Differences between the United States and Europe over how to restore global economic growth have given rise to speculations here on whether a failure to agree on a grand strategy at the upcoming G20 summit might create room for China to assert its national agenda."

Russia announces rearmament plan
A quote...."Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president, has ordered a large-scale rearmament of the country's military forces in response to Nato plans for expansion into former Soviet states."
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Dismantling the Killer Elite
A quote...."A more pointed version of the same sentiment, delivered without a particle of comic irony, was expressed by both Tom "Turk" Cowan (Robert DeNiro) and his long-time partner David "Rooster" Fisk (Al Pacino) in Righteous Kill, a formulaic cop thriller released last year. -- "You don't become a cop because you want to `Serve and protect'; you do it because you want respect," explains Cowan. "Most people respect the badge. Everybody respects the gun." -- Fisk, who by all appearances plays Damon to Cowan's Pythias, is even more direct: "The badge is nice, as long as it comes with a gun."

Diebold Admits ALL Versions of Their Software Delete Ballots Without Notice - Ha, Ha, Haaa, it's just too funny.
Special Note - A quote...."Even the audit log system on current versions of Premier Election Solutions' (formerly Diebold's) electronic voting and tabulating systems --- used in some 34 states across the nation --- fail to record the wholesale deletion of ballots. Even when ballots are deleted on the same day as an election. That's the shocking admission heard today from Justin Bales, Premier's Western Region manager, at a State of California public hearing on the possible decertification of Diebold/Premier's tabulator system, GEMS v. 1.18.19." -- True democracy,  you can vote for whomever you want, whether it's counted or not is a completely different story. - mpg
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Israel to Worsen Prisoner Conditions to ‘Pressure Hamas’
A quote...."The primary change is likely to be a ban on all visitors to imprisoned Hamas members. Other changes may follow too, but the ability to significantly worsen the already harsh conditions faced by most of the nation’s detainees may be seriously hampered by considerations of international law. -- Moreover, the tactic appears to have an inherent flaw: worsening the conditions of detainees after the government has already made it clear it has no intention of releasing many of them is just perplexing: even if Hamas is appalled by the treatment of their members they have no route to rectify the situation for those they’d consider the most important." -- also posted at WarInIraq

Israel to Gaza: A ghetto you will remain
A quote...."Israel vows to continue its imposition of collective punishment on the 1.5 million residents of Gaza until its captive soldier is released." -- also posted at WarInIraq

MIDEAST:  Gazans Struggle for Clean Drinking Water
A quote...."RAMALLAH, Mar 17 (IPS) - As environmental experts, NGOs and government officials gather in Istanbul this week to attend the Fifth World Water Forum, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has drawn attention to the critical water situation in Gaza."

How many nakbas?
A quote...."I don’t know if it is possible to keep track of the thousands of nakbas experienced by palestinians. if I were creating a blog today I think I would call it nakba watch. I would keep track of all the murders, massacres, land theft, and political prisoners. here are some of the most recent nakbas palestinians are experiencing this week alone:"

Rachel's E-mails
A quote...."March 16, 2009 marked the sixth anniversary of the killing of the American peace activist Rachel Corrie. She was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah on March 16, 2003, a few days before the United States attacked Iraq. The twenty-three-year-old student from Olympia, Washington went to Gaza with the International Solidarity Movement. She was crushed to death by a US Caterpillar bulldozer that was run by the Israeli military. She had been trying to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home near the border with Egypt when she was killed. Eyewitnesses say she was wearing a fluorescent orange vest and in full view of the bulldozer’s driver." -- also posted at Uruknet

Israel Guilty of War Crimes; Palestinians are Winning the Legitimacy War:
Interview -- An Interview with UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk -- A quote...."Professor Richard Falk is the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. He is world-renowned as an authority on international law and has authored and co-authored 20 books. Recently, Professor Falk has focused much of his attention on the Israeli massacres in Gaza, alleging that Israel's actions are constitutive of both violations of the laws of war and indicative of crimes against humanity. This is the transcript of a phone interview with him from his home in Santa Barbara, California."

Documentary films about Palestine and her people
A quote...."The narrative of displacement and experiences in exile of the modern Palestinians remains relatively unfamiliar to most Westerners and especially to the majority of Americans. By contrast, Israel’s narrative of rebuilding a homeland for the Jews has been deeply imbedded in the Western psyche and continues to dominate the political discourse regarding the Palestinian / Israeli conflict. The documentary films we create at SittingCrow Productions explore the personal narratives and artistic expressions of Palestinians."

Israel: A monument to Anti-Semitism
A quote...."The Palestinian refugees will find their place in the diaspora. Those who can resist will live thanks to natural selection. The others will simply crumble. Some of them will persist, but the majority will be a human heap, the scum of the earth, and will sink into the lowest levels of the Arab world," -- *Near East Department of the Israeli government*, 1948.

PALESTINIANS: WHO ARE THEY? ~~ WHERE ARE THEY??
MAP - A quote...."Click on image to see who they are, where they came from, and where they are today…"

Another victim of Israel by ~Latuff2
Cartoon - Click on the image to enlarge. - mpg

The Tesco 2: stop the killing, stop the crime, Free Free Palestine!
Police State Alert - (Police thugs acting on behalf of the state of israel....in Britain) -- A quote...."So what was all that about? It took us some time to realise that the police, in several vans and cars, were from Bridgend, not Swansea. Apparently there was a minor incursion at the Bridgend Sainsburys, during which a couple of boxes of Israeli peppers were sprayed with red paint and a ‘Boycott Israel’ slogan spray-stencilled on the floor. The police, or whoever set them up, took the word ‘Israel’ as racist, and it was assumed that the Bridgend and Swansea actions were co-ordinated, or conspired, by some sort of organisation or command. -- I’m angry, as is my wife, at the racist slurs, because about ten policemen and women spent a couple of hours going through every nook and cranny of our house, and because I was arrested and whisked away to a police cell in Bridgend - as was a woman who was with me leafletting outside the Swansea Sainsburys last Saturday."

Boycott Israel Action
Video -- (In French, but it's self-explanatory.  Viva la France!! - mpg) -- A quote...."Palestine solidarity activists go boycott shopping in France and hold a teach-in on Israeli-made products." -- For more on how to Boycott Israel see the upper-left-corner of the "Front Page" on this website. - mpg
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Who's Calling the Shots Now: The Death of American Empire
Special Note - A quote...." It may not be obvious today, and certainly it’s not how the corporate media reported it, but future historians are likely to look back at March 13, 2009 as the day that American imperialism began it’s inexorable decline. That’s the day that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced that his country was “worried” about its holdings of over $1 trillion in US treasury securities, and warned that he wanted the US to assure China that it would maintain its good credit and “honor its promises” and “maintain the safety of China’s assets.” -- There is no way that the US can accommodate Premier Wen and still finance and operate a global military system with over 1000 overseas bases, massive aircraft carrier battle groups, and with hundreds of thousands of men and women armed to the teeth with the latest high-tech military hardware, not to mention fight endless wars on the far side of the globe."

Wall Street’s and the City’s Attempt to Destabilize the EU Banking System and the Euro
A quote...."According to LEAP/E2020, there are only two options left for the G20 leaders who gather next April 2nd in London: either they rebuild a new international monetary system, creating the conditions for a new global system that involves all the main global players, and reducing the crisis to a maximum of 3 to 5 years; or they strive to prolong the current system, thrusting the world into a decade long tragic crisis starting at the end of 2009."

Leading Analysts Slam Fed's Posture Towards Credit Default Swaps
A quote...."Four leading analysts - a former long-time Fed veteran, an economics professor and former high-level S&L regulator, former managing director at Soros Funds Management and chief economist of the Senate Banking Committee, and a professor of political science  - are slamming the Fed's treatment of credit default swaps in general, and AIG's CDS obligations in particular:"

Will the Stewart/Cramer Battle Be the Death of CNBC?
A quote...."Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart has struck again, this time perhaps landing a mortal blow on the ratings-troubled NBC financial cable network, CNBC. The Daily Show host has carried on a war against CNBC for the past two weeks. The war began with a devastating and hilarious March 4 segment compiling some terrible prognostications by CNBC talking heads over the past two years."
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John Perry Online: The U.S. of A.I.G. - (YouTube - 3 min 8 sec - March 17, 2009)
Video - A quote...."Isn't it interesting that when we're talking about the people at AIG getting bonuses none of them deserve, we're a nation of laws and contracts that we must honor. But when we're talking about a president and vice president who have publicly admitted to violating the laws they were sworn to uphold, as Bush and Cheney have both done with illegal spying and torture, we're a nation that needs to "look forward instead of back." Anybody who can't see what's really happening in this country is not looking."

Business collapse can end union contracts, but not AIG bonus contracts
A quote...."Contracts guaranteeing bonuses to executives at collapsing businesses — like American International Group (AIG) — are held inviolable, while labor union contracts regularly get voided or reneged-on when corporations declare (or even threaten) bankruptcy. Labor experts say it’s the law of the land."

New York Times columnist who demanded concessions from auto workers, “makes case” for AIG bonuses
A quote...."New York Times columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin "made the case" Tuesday for paying American International Group (AIG) executives some $165 million in bonuses. In the face of a public outrage that he acknowledges, Sorkin suggests: "Maybe we have to swallow hard and pay up, partly for our own good."

The Real Scandal of AIG
A quote...."The real scandal of AIG isn't just that American taxpayers have so far committed $170 billion to the giant insurer because it is thought to be too big to fail -- the most money ever funneled to a single company by a government since the dawn of capitalism -- nor even that AIG's notoriously failing executives, at the very unit responsible for the catastrophic credit-default swaps at the very center of the debacle -- are planning to give themselves $100 million in bonuses. It's that even at this late date, even in a new administration dedicated to doing it all differently, Americans still have so little say over what is happening with our money." - Amen! - mpg - bold by website editor

Cuomo: 73 AIG Executives Got $1 Million Bonuses or More
A quote...."NEW YORK, March 17 -- Seventy-three employees of troubled American International Group received more than $1 million in bonuses under contracts that guaranteed them 100 percent of their 2007 pay in 2008 regardless of performance, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said."

US to "Wind Down AIG in an Orderly Way and Protect the American Taxpayer" ... Why Didn't That Happen From the Start? -- Special Note - Looks like AIG is gone, along with $180 BILLION dollars worth of tax-payer bail-out. - mpg -- A quote...."Geithner just told Congress he would:  ---   "Work with" AIG chief executive Edward Liddy "on measures to wind down AIG in an orderly way and protect the American taxpayer."  ---  That's great, but why didn't that happen from the start?"

Citi, Morgan Stanley look to sidestep bonus caps: report
A quote...."(Reuters) - Anticipating restrictions on bonuses, officials at Citigroup Inc and Morgan Stanley are exploring ways to sidestep tough new federal caps on compensation, the Wall Street Journal said."
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Global trade collapsing - Commentary: U.S. exports falling at 49% pace as customers fade away  link posted @ICH
A quote....A quote...."Over the past five months since the credit crunch intensified, real exports have plunged at a 49% annual rate, while real imports have fallen at a 30% pace."

US industrial production falls sharply as economic crisis deepens
Chart - A quote...."Industrial production in the US fell by 1.4 percent in February, marking the fourth consecutive month that the figure has fallen. Output has contracted in ten out of the last twelve months, according to figures released Monday by the Federal Reserve."

Dollar Crisis in the making Part 3 -- China inoculates itself against dollar collapse
This article concludes a three-part report. ---  PART 1: Before the stampede  ---  PART 2: The not-so-safe haven
A quote...."There is mounting evidence that China's central bank is undertaking the process of divesting itself of longer-dated US Treasuries in favor of shorter-dated ones."

"There Was a Stampede by Foreign Investors to Exit Their U.S. Dollar Investments”
A quote...."An article in Bloomberg includes the following quote:  --  “There was a stampede by foreign investors to exit their U.S. dollar investments,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “Everyone wants to bring their money home. It’s not about return on capital. It’s whether you can get your capital back.”

Turkey to use lira in trade with Iran
A quote...."Tuzmen said Turkey has completed the necessary structural work to begin trade with Iran and Russia in its local currency, Press TV correspondent in Ankara Mehdi Gholizadeh reported. -- He stressed that the plan will considerably increase Ankara's trade with Tehran and Moscow and that it will solve the problems caused by trade in foreign currencies."

US wholesale inflation brakes to near-zero
Special Note - US wholesale inflation slowed sharply in February, grinding to a near halt in part because of falling food prices as the weak economy sank deeper into recession, government data showed Tuesday. - The Labor Department said its producer price index (PPI) rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent in February, a brusque slowdown from a 0.8 percent increase in January that had snapped a five-month streak of falling prices. - Most analysts had expected a much stronger 0.4 percent PPI rise in February."

Completed Foreclosures Hit New High in February  - link posted at ICH
A quote...."Moratoria what?  Completed foreclosures reached their highest point since the crisis got underway, rising 67 percent from January’s muted total. In February, 121,756 homes were repossessed by banks and lenders, up from 72,694 in January and topping the previous high of 104,243 last September, according to Foreclosures.com. Of course, many will argue that most of these foreclosures were initiated a long time ago, before lenders’ moratoria were in place, but the numbers paint a more troubling picture. Even pre-foreclosure filings hit a new high, rising to 207,703 in February, up 24 percent from 166,860 in January and nine percent from 190,467 in December, the previous high."

10,500 Scottish firms to go bust by end of 2010 - link posted at BuzzFlash
A quote...."MORE than 10,000 Scottish businesses could fail in the next two years, according to the latest grim forecast on the prospects of companies surviving the recession."


Cheney's Mission Accomplished
Must Read - A quote...." Dick Cheney: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...." -- What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq? -- # An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes, that is, made homeless. Some 2.7 million are internally displaced inside Iraq. A couple hundred thousand are cooling their heels in Jordan. And perhaps a million are quickly running out of money and often living in squalid conditions in Syria. Cheney's war has left about 15% of Iraqis homeless inside the country or abroad. That would be like 45 million American thrown out of their homes." -- also posted at ICH & CommonDreams

Plan to Split Taliban Lures Obama Deeper Into War
Special Note - War Update - Obama™ Update -- A quote..."WASHINGTON - Advanced reports on the Barack Obama administration's strategy to "peel off" a majority of insurgent commanders from the "hard core" of Taliban suggest that it will be presented as a political route to victory in Afghanistan that would not require U.S. and NATO troops to win militarily. -- But experts warn that the strategy is unlikely to work. And by appearing to provide a political route to victory, the strategy is luring the administration into a renewed commitment to war in Afghanistan and diverting it away from a deal with the Taliban leadership aimed at keeping al Qaeda from having a presence there." - bold/underline by website editor -- In other words Obama STILL supports the The True Axis of Evil - 10-10-08 - mpg, the PNAC protocols and of course al Qaeda. -- For more on this issue see....US Support of Terror -- also posted at CommonDreams

Obama’s Approval Rating Slips With Economy in Polls (Update1)
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."A March 12-15 survey conducted for CNN by Opinion Research Corp. found Obama’s approval rating dropped 3 points from late last month and 12 points from early February. A Pew Research Center poll taken March 9-12 found that Obama’s approval rating slipped to 59 percent from 64 percent last month."

Majority [Britains] 'want Iraq war inquiry'
A quote...."The survey, conducted by ComRes for the BBC, found 72% of those questioned believe there should be an official inquiry into the UK's role in the invasion of Iraq in 2003." -- also posted at WarInIraq
    
Pakistan takes a right turn
A quote...."Gilani also promised that the government would revisit this month's Supreme Court decision that barred former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from holding elected office. He also said that all demonstrators arrested in recent days - including Nawaz Sharif - would be released. -- It appears that Gilani had little choice. Local administrations and police had completely defied the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) government and allowed thousands of marchers to proceed to Islamabad. Significantly, the United States had looked towards the army to intervene, but it was in no position to do so, raising a serious question mark over the US's ability to influence decisions in Pakistan, its chief ally in the regional war theater." -- bold by website editor --  Must have been an attempt to foist more of that US-NRE "freedom and democracy" on the Pakistani people. - mpg

Another attack on NATO logistic terminal
Special Note - A quote...."PESHAWAR: At least 16 trucks and 14 trolleys carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan were torched on Monday in [a] second such attack on a goods terminal in two days. -- Police said around 60 Taliban broke into Al-Faisal Terminal on Peshawar’s Ring Road in Pishtakhara area at around 2am, doused the vehicles parked in the compound with petrol and set them on fire. -- There were no casualties, police official Ihsanullah said. -- Three cranes and two Humvees were also destroyed." - bold by website editor -- also posted at WarInIraq

AFGHANISTAN: Angry mob surrounds official building in Logar
A quote...."PUL-E-ALAM: Angry with reported innocent killing of five persons of a family by the US forces in a raid in central Logar province last night, protestors besieged the building of Charkh district headquarters on Saturday. --
More than three hundreds protesting people, chanting anti-American slogans, called for an immediate trial of the killers. -- Last night, the US-led coalition troops raided a house of one Abdul Rashind in Naw Shar village, killing him and his four sons, officials and residents said Saturday."

Lebanon opens first ever embassy in Syria
A quote...."DAMASCUS: Lebanon on Monday opened its first-ever embassy in Syria in another sign of improving ties between the long-feuding neighbours." -- also psoted at WarInIraq

Juan Cole's "Engaging the Muslim World" A Call for Common Sense
Book Review -- Engaging the Muslim World @ [B&N, ByCm, TwrBks, Amzn, Macmln] -- A quote...."When it comes to Washington's dealings with the so-called Muslim world, common sense rarely enters the equation.  Instead, fear, anger, and  myth dominate the thinking behind those dealings.  All too often, in instances where Washington might otherwise attempt to negotiate a resolution in its favor if the people it was dealing with weren't Muslim it seems that negotiations are not even considered. " -- Other info at....TaylerMarsh & JuanCole

El Salvador ex-rebels win power through ballot box
A quote...."SAN SALVADOR, March 16 (Reuters) - El Salvador's former Marxist guerrillas, who fought one of the bitterest conflicts of the Cold War, finally won power through the ballot box after a tight election victory over their right-wing civil war foes."

China’s Shot Across the Bow
A quote...."The U.S. government is sending heavily armed destroyers to the South China Sea after a standoff between five Chinese boats and a U.S. spy ship operating in the area. Before the destroyers have even arrived, however, the Chinese communist government has sent a shot across their bow, in the form of a not-so-subtle reminder that China is now one of the U.S. government’s principal creditors."

US Missile Shield in Europe Would Cost Billions, Probably Wouldn’t Work
A quote...."Despite the growing harm being done to US-Russian relations by the proposed US missile defense system in Poland, Obama Administration officials maintain that it is vital to defend against the Iranian “threat.” -- also posted at WarInIraq
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Zionism is the problem
Must Read - A quote...."For the last several decades, though, it has been all but impossible to cry out against the Israeli state without being smeared as an anti-Semite, or worse. To question not just Israel's actions, but the Zionist tenets on which the state is founded, has for too long been regarded an almost unspeakable blasphemy. -- Yet it is no longer possible to believe with an honest conscience that the deplorable conditions in which Palestinians live and die in Gaza and the West Bank come as the result of specific policies, leaders or parties on either side of the impasse. The problem is fundamental: Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism." - bold/underline by website editor -- also posted at CommonDreams & ICH

Palestinian Child Prisoners
A quote...."According to the latest figures compiled by DCI-Palestine from sources including the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), the number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory rose sharply in February. -- At the end of February, there were 423 Palestinian children in the custody of the Israeli authorities - including seven girls and six children held without charge or trial in administrative detention. -- This figure represents a 37.8% increase over the corresponding period in 2008."

Justice for Rachel, justice for the Palestinians
A quote...."We thank all who continue to remember Rachel and who, on this sixth anniversary of her stand in Gaza, renew their own commitments to human rights, justice and peace in the Middle East. The tributes and actions in her memory are a source of inspiration to us and to others. -- Friday, 13 March, we learned of the tragic injury to American activist Tristan Anderson. Tristan was shot in the head with a tear gas canister in Nilin village in the West Bank when Israeli forces attacked a demonstration opposing the construction of the annexation wall through the village's land."

GRITtv Interview: Tony Benn
Video

Palestinians to hold elections this year, Hamas expected to win
A quote...."Hamas and their rivals in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah faction agreed on Sunday that general elections for both Gaza and the so-called "West Bank" will be held prior to January 2010."

A Heretic Is Punished in Washington
Must Read - A quote...."A former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and respected Mideast and China expert, Freeman had the audacity to previously say, "left to its own devices, the Israeli establishment will make decisions that harm Israelis, threaten all associated with them, and enrage those who are not." -- Freeman has criticized Israel’s actions on other occasions. He committed the ultimate heresy of warning that close US collaboration with Israel’s right-wing parties was jeopardizing American interests and security, and generating anti-American terrorism."

The Freeman Affair The Rape of Washington
A quote...."THE FULL meaning of this episode should not escape anyone. -- It was the first test of strength of the lobby in the new Obama era. And in this test, the lobby came out with flying (blue-and-white) colors. The administration was publicly humiliated. -- The White House did not even try to hide its abject surrender. It declared that the appointment had not been cleared with the President, that Obama had no hand in it and did not even know about it. Meaning: of course he would have objected to the appointment of any official who was not fully acceptable to the lobby. The portrayal of the power of the lobby by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, has been fully vindicated."
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The False Idol of Unfettered Capitalism
Must Read - A quote...."Turn away from the moral life and you end in disaster. You sink into a morass of self-absorption and greed. You breed a society that celebrates fraud, theft and violence, you turn neighbor against neighbor, you confuse presentation and image with your soul. Moral rules are as imperative to sustaining a community as law. And all cultures have sought to remind us of these basic moral restraints, ones that invariably tell us that successful communities do permit its members to exploit each other but ensure that they sacrifice for the common good. The economic and social collapse we face was presaged by a moral collapse. And our response must include a renewed reverence for moral and social imperatives that acknowledge the sanctity of the common good." -- Too late. - mpg -- also posted at CommonDreams

Kucinich requests investigation into 'executive assassination ring'
A quote...."After comments made by a New Yorker journalist about Vice President Dick Cheney's alleged involvement in a "executive assassination ring" abroad, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) called Monday for a formal congressional probe."

Who Did Cheney Have Murdered?
Special Note - A quote...."There is a kind of hush, that started with a muted gasp, that came from whispers of  Cheney assassination squads, murmured by Seymour Hersh during topic "America's Constitutional Crisis" at the University of Minnesota on March 10, 2009."

Claims of British collusion in torture spread to Egypt
A quote...."Allegations of British collusion in torture have widened to Egypt, where a young British man says he suffered appalling mistreatment during a week of illegal detention while being interrogated on the basis of information that he says can only have come from the UK." -- also posted at WarInIraq

Who are 'the worst of the worst'?
A quote...."This is not the first instance of a former prisoner "returning to the battlefield", of course, but an honest debate about the significance of these recidivist prisoners has been scuppered by sensationalism in the media, by a refusal on the part of the Pentagon to back up its regular claims about the numbers of prisoners who have "returned to the fight" and, perhaps most importantly, by the refusal of any of the parties concerned to examine the situation at Guantánamo, and to ask why the Pentagon seems to have such difficulties ascertaining who it has been holding in the prison." - bold by website editor -- For more on this issue see....The Convenient Silence of Guantanamo Bay - 05-31-08 - mpg

Group Smeared As Terror Cell By Feds Runs Soup Kitchens
Police State Alert - A quote...."A member of the Missouri Militia has contacted us to express his outrage over the incident. -- Missouri Militia member expresses outrage that organization which helps police find missing children, sponsors soup kitchens and blood donation campaigns is linked with OKC bombing, domestic terrorism."

New Bill Will Extend Sunset Clauses Of The Patriot Act
Police State Alert - A quote...."The criminal terrorists in the federal government are seeking now to extend sunset clauses  found in the USA Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004. This will effectively extend certain provisions of this bill that were set to expire from 2009 to 2019. Both the USA Patriot Act and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Act of 2004 were widely panned upon their passage for undermining civil liberties and unnecessarily expanding government power."

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey: It Might Take "A Permanent 9/11 Commission" to End the Remaining Mysteries of September 11 -- A quote...."Some of us have been writing for years (see this and this) that the 9/11 Commission Report was unreliable because most of the information was based on the statements of tortured detainees. As I wrote in March 2007:"

Lingering mystery: Congressman calls for probe into 2001 anthrax attacks
A quote...."More than seven years after the first bio-terror attack on the United States, Congress is considering creating a commission to probe the government's response to the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people."
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The sanctity of AIG's contracts - Article also posted at ICH
Must Read - (For the scathing logic of Greenwald's argument) -- A quote...."Apparently, the supreme sanctity of employment contracts applies only to some types of employees but not others. Either way, the Obama administration’s claim that nothing could be done about the AIG bonuses because AIG has solid, sacred contractual commitments to pay them is, for so many reasons, absurd on its face." -- also posted at CommonDreams

AIG Bonuses Total $450 Million and $105 Billion of Their TARP Bailouts Went to Off-Shore Banks
Related Article - A quote...."The Obama administration tried to paint a rosey picture of the economic forecast this weekend, partly because the story of the AIG bonuses had come out. What was originally reported was that $170 million in bonuses had been paid to their CEOs and executives so that these “talented” business leaders wouldn’t take their collective “skills” else-where. But as it turns out, that was only half the story. -- The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that nearly a half a billion dollars was paid out this weekend in bonus money at AIG!"

Before the Fall, AIG Payouts Went to Washington
Related Article - A quote...."As long as everyone's talking today about AIG's payouts to its executives and foreign banks, let's remember the payouts AIG has made over the years to politicians. In the last 20 years American International Group (AIG) has contributed more than $9 million to federal candidates and parties through PAC and individual contributions. That's enough to rank AIG on OpenSecrets.org's Heavy Hitters list, which profiles the top 100 contributors of all time."

Citigroup CEO awarded $10.8 million
Related Article - Well, they ain't stopping, despite all that supposed 'outrage' by Obama they're just gonna keep right on doing it to all you folks out there.  - mpg -- A quote...."NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc awarded Chief Executive Vikram Pandit $10.82 million of compensation in 2008, a year when the government propped up the bank with $45 billion of capital." -- For more on this issue see....Having Fun With Your Tax Dollars
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Jon Stewart's Epiphany - Has a Comedian Just Saved America?
A quote...."Wall Street is supposed to have an early warning system that if something is amiss it will self correct in time to avoid a collapse of the system.  That early warning system is known as price action.  In other words, the trading price of Citigroup, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae and AIG should have begun a downward trajectory years ago as these firms loaded up on leveraged junk.  There is only one possible scenario, in my opinion, to explain why this did not happen: trading in the market was rigged.  Thanks to Jim Cramer, the public now knows how easy it is to get stock prices to move up or down.   (As one more example, see “Wall Street Powerhouses Invested Alongside Madoff.”)

Monetary and Fiscal Failure, Fraud, and Fear of What's Next
Must Read - A quote...."Even the powerful are worried with the IMF on February 7 saying advanced economies are in "depression (and) the worst cannot be ruled out." Forecasting a 2010 recovery is "very uncertain" at this time as further financial turmoil may disrupt it regardless of policies adopted, and trouble is outpacing resources to alleviate it."

The TALF  - Bernanke's Witness Protection Program - posted at ICH
Must Read - A quote...."March 16, 2009 "Information Clearing House" --   Fed chief Ben Bernanke's new funding facility is a real doozy. In fact, if the Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility or TALF, which is set to launch on Thursday, doesn't convince the American people that it's time to take a wrecking ball to the Central Bank and start over, than nothing will. Bernanke and his co-conspirator at Treasury, Timothy Geithner, are planning to revive the shadow banking system by dumping $2 trillion into the same over-leveraged, derivatives-based garbage that blew up the financial system in the first place. All the blabbering about a "good bank-bad bank" remedy appears to have been a diversion. This is how Bloomberg sums it up:"

The Financial Sector: "A House Burning Down" - Ben Bernanke’s False Analogy - Article also posted at ICH
A quote...."What’s false about this analogy? For starters, banking houses are not in the same neighborhood where most people live. They’re the castle on the hill, lording it over the town below. They can burn down and leave the hilltop revert "back to nature" rather than having the whole down gaze up at a temple of money that keeps them in debt. - More to the point is the false analogy with U.S. policy. In effect, the Treasury and Fed are not "putting out a fire." They’re taking over houses that have not burned down, throwing out their homeowners and occupants, and turning the property over to the culprits who "burned down their own house." The government is not playing the role of fireman. "Putting out the fire" would be writing off the debts of the economy – the debts that are "burning it down."

How The World Pimps America -  posted at ICH
Video - A quote...."The US Treasury will borrow no less than one trillion dollars from the developing world in 2009. It will need even more in 2010. Pepe Escobar argues the US is indeed in a privileged position: not only it unleashes a global financial crisis, it then sucks up money from all over the world, based on the fact that the US in fact remains the "manager" of choice of global capitalism. As if this was not hardship enough for the developing world, it now also has to cope with the resurgence of the discredited World Bank and IMF. A certain Tim Geithner has been through this before - during the Asian financial crisis in 1997/1998 - and then he got it all wrong." -- For more on Geithner see....Obama's economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip - Alt - posted 03-15-09
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Credit Default Swap Expert: Lehman Default Caused Much Higher Losses than Previously Admitted
In other words our "authorities" lied again. - mpg -- A quote...."Commonly-accepted wisdom is that the losses from credit default swaps against Lehman were really not that bad. The pundits say that the losses were grossly exaggerated, and that the low loss figures show that the CDS market still works, and does not pose that great a danger."

WRAPUP 1-U.S. credit card defaults rise to 20 year-high
A quote...."NEW YORK, March 16 (Reuters) - U.S. credit card defaults rose in February to their highest level in at least 20 years, with losses particularly severe at American Express Co (AXP.N) and Citigroup (C.N) amid a deepening recession "

WRAPUP 3-U.S. output plummets, manufacturing at record low
A quote...." Analysts said the data dashed hopes that the economic recession, which started in December 2007, is close to finding a bottom. That optimism had been fanned by a report last week showing a modest decline in February retail sales. -- "Hopes that the U.S. recession is close to ending are not supported by these nasty figures," said Roger Kubarych, an economist at Unicredit Markets & Investment Banking in New York. "Several more months of declining industrial production are highly probable."

New York Manufacturing Index [Empire State Index] Slumped to Record Low (Update1)
A quote...."March 16 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturing in New York contracted in March at the fastest pace on record as orders, sales and inventories plunged."

US capital flows negative in January
Special Note - Editor's Note: It's just a one month turn around, but it could spell big trouble if it continues. - mpg -- A quote...."WASHINGTON (AFP) – Foreign investors sold a net 43 billion dollars in long-term US securities in January as the flow of capital turned negative, US Treasury data showed Monday. -- The decline in foreign holdings was the steepest since August 2007."

Britain showing signs of heading towards 1930s-style depression, says [the Bank of England]
A quote...."The country is displaying early symptoms of being trapped in a so-called “debt deflation trap” where families find themselves pushed further and further into the red every month, according to a Bank report published today. -- The stark warning will cause serious concerns, since it was this combination of falling prices and soaring debt burdens that plagued the US in the 1930s."


Obama's economic saviour savaged as Keating lets rip - Article also posted at ICH
A quote...."When Barack Obama announced his champion to rescue the world from economic ruin, it was the first time most Americans had ever heard the name Tim Geithner. -- The initial impression was good. The stockmarket surged and the pundits swooned. "Exactly a decade ago, he was Uncle Sam's golden-boy emissary sent into the stormy centre of what was then the world's worst financial crisis [the Asian crisis]," reported The New York Post."

The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment - Article also posted at ICH
A quote...."In early 1919, Germany put in place a new government to begin rebuilding the country after its crushing defeat in World War I. But the right-wing forces that had led the country into the War and lost the War conspired even before it was over to destroy the new government, the "Weimar Republic." They succeeded."

Dollar Crisis in the Making - Before the stampede - Article also posted at ICH
A quote...."Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what could soon be the perfect storm against the United States dollar and against the present dollar-centric global financial order. -- This is not shaping up to be a storm that anyone is trying to initiate, not even those who are actively driving for a new global financial order that is no longer centered on the dollar. Instead, it will result from a correlation of forces arising out of the deepening global financial and economic crises, coupled with recurring and conspicuous miscalculation on the part of some of the world's political, financial and economic leaders."

Regarding the economic articles posted above see also the video shown below
From the history file....Arron Russo's "Freedom to Fascism" -- (Google Video - 1hr:51min:16sec  - May 5, 2007)
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Continuity and Change -- Forget the latter, and get used to the former
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."As a reward for killing 1,400 Palestinians in the Gaza blitzkrieg, ignoring U.S. demands to stop the building of "settlements" on the West Bank, and vigorous efforts to breach our security and steal highly classified information via its Washington fifth column, Tel Aviv has been reassured by President Barack Obama that $30 billion in aid will not be cut. World financial crisis? Impending US bankruptcy? Obama's newfound sense of fiscal responsibility? Put it out of your mind. All it takes is one phone call from Chuck Schumer, a tête-à-tête with Nancy Pelosi, and an editorial or two in the Washington Post, and – poof! – "change" turns into continuity. Obama will keep Bush's promise, and you can take that to the bank."

US troops to remain active in Iraq after pullback
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."US military: Combat operations won't stop after June pullback to bases outside Iraqi cities." -- But....Obama promised "change", didn't he?  At one point during his numerous speeches on the issue he said something about there being no "combat forces" in Iraq after the "pull back"?  Of course he did, and any Obamatroll who believed him was a deluded fool. - mpg
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WPost Is a Neocon Propaganda Sheet - posted at ConsortiumNews
A quote...."For Americans who hear the name Washington Post and still think of “All the President’s Men” – brave journalists and editors facing down a corrupt President – today’s version of the newspaper would be a sad disappointment, a betrayal of a noble past."

The Miracle of America(from Oct. 2007)
A quote...."By every right this President and his corrupt administration should have been impeached and then incarcerated years ago. But what do you expect from a group of people that we have, by concession, allowed to steal the White House, not once… but twice? -- In Chile in 1973, when Nixon and the Chicago Boys wanted to implement the Friedman Doctrine of savage capitalism as a test case, their candidate also lost the free election to Salvador Allende and therefore they had too resort to a military coup to install the Augusto Pinochet led junta."

Is the Israeli Lobby Running Scared? - Or Killing a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys - Article also posted at ICH
A quote...."Is the Israel lobby in Washington an all-powerful force? Or is it, perhaps, running scared? - Judging by the outcome of the Charles W. ("Chas") Freeman affair this week, it might seem as if the Israeli lobby is fearsome indeed. Seen more broadly, however, the controversy over Freeman could be the Israel lobby's Waterloo." -- also posted at ADS

A warning of creeping totalitarianism in U.S
Book Review - A quote...."This is no political screed. It is a brilliant, nuanced, and detailed dissection of the abject failings of the American political system by one of the nation's preeminent political theorists. It is a work that will rank as one of the most important pieces of political philosophy of the new century. By the time Wolin, who taught political philosophy at Berkeley and Princeton, is finished, it is clear that unless Barack Obama radically restructures corporate and military industrial power, our democracy is doomed." -- "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism" -- [GoglSrch]

Cheney: Obama responsible for next 9/11
False Flag Alert - A quote...."US President Barack Obama's decisions against Bush's "war on terror" policies would cause another 9/11, says former vice president Dick Cheney."
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Militants torch NATO supplies in Pakistan; 20 trucks reduced to ashes - link posted at ICH
Exclusive Images -- A quote...."Peshawar, 16 March, (Asiantribune.com): Militants attacked a NATO supply terminal and set fire to about 20 trucks carrying supplies to Western forces in Afghanistan on Sunday. - Militants attacked the supply depot situated at Ring Road in the jurisdiction of Yakatoot Police Station, Peshawar-- capital of North West Frontier Province. - In a pre-dawn attack the militants used rockets, petrol bombs and also resorted to firing before setting the trucks ablaze."

French Kissing NATO’s Global Mission Creep
A quote...."NATO, the main overseas arm of the U.S. military-industrial complex, just keeps expanding. Its original raison d’être, the supposedly menacing Soviet bloc, has been dead for twenty years.  But like the military-industrial complex itself, NATO is kept alive and growing by entrenched economic interests, institutional inertia and an official mindset resembling paranoia, with think tanks looking around desperately for “threats”." -- Not the obvious ones caused by the US-NRE that is. - mpg

Chief Justice Reinstated in Pakistan; Protest Rally in Capital Cancelled; Crisis subsiding
A Juan Cole Round-Up - Pakistan -- A quote...."The immediate crisis in Pakistan was averted Monday morning when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced that he was going to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice of the supreme court. Chaudhry had been dismissed by dictator Gen. Pervez Musharraf in 2007 in a particularly lawless way."

Top officials urge dialogue with Hamas
A quote...."WASHINGTON - Nine former senior US officials and one current adviser are urging the Obama administration to talk with leaders of Hamas to determine whether the militant group can be persuaded to disarm and join a peaceful Palestinian government, a major departure from current US policy." -- Well, that's nine more US-NRE officials the Jewish Mafia (a.k.a. AIPAC) will have to go after.  To bad they're already retired.  Maybe AIPAC can smear their reputations or those of their relatives? - mpg

Israel to raze 1,700 Palestinian homes
A quote...."The Palestinian Islamic Movement says Israel plans to evacuate and demolish at least 1,700 Arab-owned homes in East Jerusalem (al-Quds)." -- also posted at WarInIraq

US Eyewitness in Gaza: 'As a world, we utterly failed the Palestinians of Gaza. We stood and watched them die and justified our own inaction' -- A quote...."It took me a month to write this email. In that month, I've been through a whirlwind of emotions, trying to find away to process the things that I saw. I still haven't figured it out."

Gaza: World's leading investigators call for war crimes inquiry - open letter
A quote...."Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mary Robinson and Justice Richard Goldstone among signatories "shocked to core" by recent events. -- A 16-strong group of the world's most experienced investigators and judges have today (16 March) called for a full international investigation into alleged abuses of international law during the recent Gaza conflict." -- For more on this issue see....Gaza Invasion of 12/27/08

Left-winger wins El Salvador poll - i.e. "left" of Attila the Hun, Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan...combined.
Oh No!!! Another country the US-NRE will have to bomb back to the stone age and then invade, the list keeps getting longer and longer, what's a poor (and getting poorer all the time) New Roman Empire supposed to do? -- Go invade Iran of course!   Capital idea! -- mpg -- A quote...."Leftist Mauricio Funes of El Salvador's former Marxist rebel FMLN party has won the country's presidential election. - He defeated his conservative rival, Rodrigo Avila of the Arena party - who has admitted defeat."

Mullen sketches out 'US strike' on Iran
A quote...."The top US military commander describes how Washington would engage Iran militarily amid simmering talks of war on the country."

Bolivia passes land from rich to poor
A quote...."LA PAZ (Reuters) - Emboldened by a new leftist constitution, Bolivia President Evo Morales on Saturday handed over ownership of farmland seized by the state from wealthy estate holders to poor indigenous people."

Kremlin shoots down general's musings
A quote...."MOSCOW | A Russian air force chief said Saturday that Moscow could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, the Interfax news agency reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically."
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Great Power divisions persist following G20 summit
A quote...."A summit of G20 finance ministers and central bankers failed to reach any concrete agreement for measures to deal with the growing international finance crisis."

A few who got it right -- Commentary: What do those who called the downturn think?
Merket Tech Note -- A quote...."ORLANDO, Fla. (MarketWatch) -- The financial markets are littered with the broken reputations of so-called "experts" who failed to anticipate the global financial crisis, or the recession and bear market that have followed."

Give Bernanke Credit – For Chutzpah
A quote...."In my mind’s eye, I envision a street fair – one of those happy community gatherings at which sellers of handcrafted ceramics, funky clothing, herbal remedies, fresh vegetables, and edible delicacies congregate to display their wares for the strolling customers, who chat amiably with the stall-keepers and with one another. Suddenly, amid horrified shrieks and the roar of a giant engine, a truck plows through this placid setting, scattering twisted debris and broken bodies in its wake. Finally, after wreaking a hundred-yard swath of death and devastation, the truck stops, and the driver, Ben Bernanke, climbs down from the cab. -- “People, people,” he exhorts them in a calm, world-weary voice, “do not panic. I am here to assess the damage and make recommendations for reforms that will prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate and wholly unforeseen act of God.” Whereupon he proceeds to lay out his assessment and recommendations, always speaking in the same quiet, unemotional voice. The stunned and wounded survivors gaze at him in astonishment. “He’s a madman,” one cries out."

The Fed Has Failed By Its Own Terms
A quote...."On the one hand, many people defer to the Fed as the experts on the arcane processes of the economy. -- On the other hand, quite a few people accuse the Federal Reserve of being a private cabal owned by the banks, with the sole purpose of making the elite richer. -- But let's sidestep these black-or-white approaches and instead focus on how well the Fed has done according to its own terms."

Moody's: Anyone Who Believed Us Is an Idiot
A quote...."Moody's - one of the big 3 credit rating agencies with an official government endorsement - helped cause the financial crisis by keeping the ratings of failing companies artificially high. -- Moody's shareholders are now suing in federal court, saying that Moody's misrepresented the fact that its ratings are impartial. Once it became clear that Moody's was gaming its ratings, its share price plunged - 75% since February 2007."

Volcker and the Mother of All Finanical Crises
A quote...."It was a moment of brazen honesty. On February 20, the don of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and former chair of the Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, told a conference at Columbia University’s Center for Capitalism and Society that, in essence, we’re screwed. Volcker said the crash of 2008 might be “the mother of all financial crises… I don’t remember any time, maybe even the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world.”

Britons suffer 17% plunge in wealth
A quote...."THE wealth of households in Britain fell by 17% last year, the biggest drop for at least 40 years, as house prices slumped and the stock market plunged."

£40,000 each: The personal cost of the downturn [in Britian]
Related Article - A quote...."The worst economic slowdown in three-quarters of a century has wiped £40,000 from the wealth of every adult in the United Kingdom, a national total of almost £2 trillion; that is £2,000bn, or £2,000,000,000,000."


It's All Good: Media Reports for Duty as Militarists Plan More Wars
Must Read - A quote...."Surely there is no one who still needs to be apprised of the fact that the New York Times is one of the chief organs of the American Empire, operating in a semi-official fashion to disseminate the intentions and wishes of our rulers. The fact that the paper also publishes some excellent reporting -- and can even, on occasion, assume an adversarial stance against one faction of the elite or another -- in no way undermines its essential function in the imperial power structure. After all, Pravda and Izvestia did the same under the Soviets.  --  [Of course, the dead hand of state censorship was heavier under the Soviets than in our ultra-modern, low-carb authoritarian system. We prefer witless diversion over outright repression, tasers over bullets, and the eager self-censorship of cozy, coddled media dullards over direct intervention by government functionaries -- although, to be sure, if repression, bullets and direct intervention (along with KGB-style torture, rendition, detention without trial, etc.) are deemed necessary, our elites are more than willing to oblige.]" -- Folks, the article about AIG (see below) was funny, this one isn't. - mpg

AIG pays $450 million in bonuses after bailout
(updated from $165 million) after being (updated from $100 million)
Must Read - (For the absolute hilarity of it all) -- Hahhhhh, Hahhhhhh, Hahhhhhh, Ho, ho, ho, heeeeeeeee....(snicker, snicker). You're killing me here folks, I'm rolling on the ground with both arms and legs in the air, heeeeeee, hee, hee.....I’m gasping for breath here folks....oh man this is just beee-you-tea-full...oh this feels good. – mpg -- A quote...."Ailing insurance giant AIG is planning to give out $450 million in bonuses this week to executives who led the firm to a $99.3 billion dollar loss in 2008. -- Although AIG has agreed to cut back on multi-million-dollar bonuses for its highest ranking officers, the firm's lower-ranked employees are still set for a massive pay day. The bonuses are for staff at AIG's London subsidiary, AIG Financial Products, which helped trigger the collapse, the Wall Street Journal reports. -- The payments have dismayed the US government, which has already given the American International Group $170 billion in federal bailout money and now holds an 80% ownership stake in the company." -- Welcome folks....to the "Capitalist System", where every day it's heads they win and tails you lose.  Like a slot machine that NEVER pays off for the "little guy".  Now you know what it feels like to be one of those "little brown people" starving in some third world country after the Maximum Leader receives buco bribes from the banksters backed by the likes of the IMF or World Bank to sign his nation up for loans carrying interest rates that would make a loan shark blush.  -  mpg -- posted 03-14-09-- For more on this issue see....Having Fun With Your Tax Dollars

I called it a corporate coup, they call it looting... either way, we got robbed...
Related Article - A quote...."Now, let me explain the Wall Street scam, subsequent crisis, and bailout in a very brief, but effective way for you: -- A thief breaks into your house, steals everything, and leaves you nearly broke. Law enforcement responds by visiting with the thief and the resellers of the thief's stolen goods in a very friendly setting, perhaps lunch at the Four Seasons. Law enforcement then takes the information to government officials who respond by writing the thief and the resellers a check from what is left of your checking account. They decide this too over lunch, perhaps also at the Four Seasons and on your dime."

Obama at the Business Roundtable
Obama™ Update -- A quote..."On Thursday, President Barack Obama spoke before the Business Roundtable, an organization of leading corporate CEOs. Obama used the opportunity to deliver a paean to American capitalism. -- The speech, delivered in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, had an air of provocation against the American people about it. Not a few of the CEOs assembled at the conference have overseen the ruination of their own corporations. Collectively, they bear responsibility for the economic collapse and the impoverishment of millions of Americans and hundreds of millions the world over."

The Company We Keep…
A quote...."If you think that being concerned about the unwarranted influence the international banker-class has on our government, on our country, and on our lives is nothing more than the conspiracy theory flavor of the month, you are forgetting part of our history. Well, you are not forgetting it… you were never told it...."

Obama's Poll Numbers Dropping
Special Note - Obama™ Update -- A quote..."Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support [who cares] and a good part of his  Independent support, [Oh, Oh!] and the trend is decidedly negative. -- Well that's what happens when people finally discover you're a (redacted)-kissing lackey of AIPAC, The Banksters AND The Military Industrial Complex. - mpg

Gates Carries Over Iraq-WMD Lie - posted at ConsortiumNews
A quote...."Editor’s Note: Officials from the Bush administration continue to excuse their 2003 invasion of Iraq by citing mistaken intelligence on WMD, despite evidence that they had long wanted to oust Saddam Hussein and simply settled on WMD as the most marketable argument. -- In this guest essay, former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman observes that Bush’s last Defense Secretary Robert Gates now has carried that false WMD rationale into the Obama administration because President Obama chose to keep Gates* on:" - *link added -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda

How the U.S. went from 'World's Number One Exporter of Terrorism' to Bankrupt
Special Note - A quote...."The US is the world's number one exporter of world terrorism and, at the same time, sustains, by far, the world's largest NEGATIVE current account balance of $ -568,800,000,000. [See: CIA: The World Factbook] In every area but 'terrorism', the US trails the world. It has not helped America's case that monies 'earned' exporting death and destruction have not helped the US current account balance which remains negative. It is, however, clear that the US makes its living, 'killing'. Fat lotta good that has done the people of the US."
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A message to citizens of the US, heed the warning from Australia and the UK: Do not under any circumstances give up your guns  -- A quote...."In the United States, the right to keep and bear arms is often presented in the context of military service and the broader right of self defense. Whether this right pertains to individuals acting independently or individuals acting collectively was once a matter of debate, and the basis for any right at all hotly contested. However, on June 26, 2008, the Supreme Court of the United States held that Americans have an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense in the case  District of Columbia v. Heller.”

Web founder warns against internet snooping
A quote...."March 13, 2009 (Reuters) - Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday."

CIA involvement with religious groups not a new charge
A quote...."(WMR) -- Accusations that the CIA is involved with various religious movements, including the Nurcilar movement of Pennsylvania-based Turkish moderate Islamist leader Fethullah Gulen and the Unification Church of one-time Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) operative Reverend Sun Myung Moon, follow a long history of suspicions that the U.S. intelligence agency is deeply involved with some religious movements. The CIA has also been accused of using foreign missionaries as espionage agents."
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US-led troops kill father, four sons in Afghanistan
A quote...."An Afghan police chief said US-led forces on Saturday killed a father and his four adult sons in a raid on their home."

Mr. Iran envisions 'major' war in coming months
War Update - A quote...."Amid lingering talks of war on Iran, Israel's prime minister-designate raises the alarm about a major military conflict in the coming months."

Talha Mujaddidi: Dispatch from Pakistan, March 14, 2009
A quote...."The political deadlock in Pakistan is still going on at the moment. Government is arresting political workers, but no major opposition leaders have been arrested. After an intense round of discussions between various players, namely Prime Minister Gillani, President Zardari, Army Chief Kayani, U.S ambassador to Pakistan Ann Patterson, Richard Holbrooke, and Hillary Clinton, calling in from U.S, the government has announced a plan to diffuse the tensions. This came after some pressure from the Army Chief and Gillani on Zardari. But there are many loopholes in this latest offer from Zardari’s camp office. "

Pakistan clamps down on protests amid fresh fears of a military coup
A quote...."Pakistan's army was put on stand-by yesterday to deal with growing demonstrations against the government, which are due to reach a climax in the capital, Islamabad, tomorrow. Divisions within President Asif Ali Zardari's administration were underlined by the abrupt resignation of a senior minister."

Pakistan opposition leader detained
A quote...."Nawaz Sharif, the Pakistani opposition leader, has been placed under house arrest, a move that is likely to heighten political turmoil in the country."

US Urges Freedom to Protest; Zardari Rejects Reconciliation Plan, Bans Geo; Sherry Rehman Resigns
A Juan Cole Round-Up of Pakistan -- A quote...."The Pakistani government arrested another 200 protesters on Friday, mostly in Punjab province. The Long March demonstrators, in the meantime, reached the outskirts of Lahore."

Nasrallah: “Hezbollah does not have any branch in Gaza”
A quote...."Secretary-general of the Lebanon-based Hezbollah party, stated Friday that his party does not have any branch or formation in the Palestinian territories, especially in the Gaza Strip.  In a televised speech marking the birth of the Muslim prophet Mohammad, Nasrallah said that his party supports the Palestinian resistance but only as “a brother supports his brother”.  He also said that his party does not intervene in the internal Palestinian affairs, as it does not accept any interference it its internal affairs, and added that the Palestinians know what is best for them and act accordingly. Referring to the internal Palestinian talks in Cairo, Nasrallah urged the Palestinian leaders to act in order to end their internal conflicts and divisions, and to achieve national unity."

IDF to draft civilians to maintain bulldozers in battle - Coming to the US-NRE very soon. - mpg
A quote...."The Israel Defense Forces is planning to draft civilian bulldozer-maintenance personnel for reserve duty, marking the first time the army will be conscripting the staff of a private firm in wartime." - bold by website editor."

The End of Israel’s Impunity?
A quote...."The assault on Gaza marks the end of an era for Israel. For the second time in two years its colonial ambition has floundered in the face of determined resistance. It may persist for some time; but the trajectory is clear – it is losing both legitimacy and power. Support for it is dwindling in Washington; its friends are alarmed. Citizens are acting where governments have failed; the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions is snowballing. Apologists are finding it more difficult to justify its persistent criminality. Rifts have emerged in the transatlantic alliance over its recent actions; EU leaders have broken with Israel and the US, questioning the wisdom of continuing to isolate Hamas. Even the pliant Tony Blair will no longer toe the line."

Everyone agrees: War [Slaughter] in Gaza was a failure
Editor's Note: When you possess the fourth largest army in the world supplied and funded by an Imperial power that spends more money on it's defensive armaments than the entire planet combined and you launch a surprise blitzkrieg against an essentially unarmed, un-supported, civilian population, penned up in what amounts to a large Ghetto, that's not a "War", it is in fact a slaughter-fest. It's also a vivd example of just how cowardly craven the Jews of Israel really are.  They had to go ape "big brother's" actions in Iraq against a people who didn't even have the means of defending themselves. - mpg -- A quote...."Gideon Levy examines the Israeli media in the wake of the Gaza massacre and warns us to “get ready for the next treat. They’ve already begun to clamor for a new war in Gaza or Lebanon, whichever comes first.“

George Galloway given Palestinian citizenship
A quote...."Ismail Haniyeh appeared in public for the first time since the Gaza war UK member of parliament George Galloway has received a Palestinian passport from a Hamas leader in Gaza. The passport was given in “deep appreciation” for his support for the Palestinians and their cause."

Destabilizing Mexico
A quote...."KNX News radio station a subsidiary of Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) reported this week that most of the guns that land in the hands of the drug cartel allegedly came from the black market in the United States . Ironically, most of the drugs that enter the United States from Mexico , have been funneled to the Mexican drug lords through rendition flights from Columbia (cocaine) and Afghanistan (opium) to Mexico , then, rerouted to the US through the Mexican drug lords. Per example, On September 24, 2007, a Florida based Gulfstream II jet aircraft, number N987SA, crashed in the Yucatan . As it turns out, not only was the plane used on at least three CIA rendition flights from Europe and the United States to the Guantánamo torture chamber, but it was loaded with tons of cocaine when it went down."

Report: Cuba, Venezuela could host Russian bombers
A quote...."A Russian Air Force chief said Saturday that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered an island as a temporary base for strategic Russian bombers, the Interfax news agency reported."

Down But Not Out: Latin American Right and Its Chávez Fear-Mongering
A quote...."In light of the Salvadoran right’s fear-mongering campaign in advance of the Central American nation’s Sunday presidential election, which has sought to portray leftist candidate Mauricio Funes of the Farabundo Martí Liberation Front (FMLN) as a kind of dangerous foreign agent of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, perhaps it’s instructive to consider the political history of the past four years."

Venezuelan Farmer Rights Organizations Unite to Oppose Assassinations by Landed Elite
A quote...."Mérida, March 13th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Several Venezuelan small farmer rights organizations united forces this week to prevent further assassinations of rural community organizers. The groups also marched to demand that the national government end impunity for those responsible for these crimes, and to support the government’s land reform and food security measures."
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Blue Horseshoe Loves Anacot Steel
A quote...."Wake up, will ya pal? If you're not inside, you're outside, OK? And I'm not talking a $400,000 a year working Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable, I'm talking about liquid. Rich enough to have your own jet. Rich enough not to waste time. Fifty, a hundred million dollars buddy. A player, or nothing." -- *Gordon Gekko*

"In the movie that would serve as a blueprint for the future lives of young turks shat out of the womb of 1980s Reagan eat the poor capitalism a young broker named Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen) engages in a bit of trickery to manipulate stock prices by invoking the magic words “Blue Horeshoe loves Anacot Steel” over the phone to players and media hacks. The movie was Oliver Stone’s Wall Street and the young Fox was in the process of selling his soul to the canny devil in suspenders who would become an iconic cultural figure. The seducer was big time corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) whose amorality and worldview rooted in the dogma that “greed is good” would serve as the role model for the very large scale looters, charlatans, thugs, hedge fund hyenas and money grubbing sociopaths who are responsible for the global financial collapse."

Said without Joy: We Told You So
A quote...."Is it fair to complain about the actions of the financial deregulators?  --  Could anyone reasonably have foreseen the consequences of a decades-long regulatory holiday for the financial sector?  --  In a word, yes."

China Finally Diversifying Out of the Dollar?
A quote...."Everyone knows that China has $2 trillion in foreign reserves. Two-thirds of those reserves are said to be denominated in dollars. -- But - after years of speculation - there are increasing signs that China is diversifying out of the dollar. -- For example, the head of China’s energy bureau said in comments published on Monday “China should use part of its nearly $2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves to buy more gold, oil, uranium and other strategic commodities”. -- Yes, true, IF Bernanke and the Banksters are able to print enough, borrow enough, steal enough and/or start some wars (a.k.a. the Ten Year Cycle) to get themselves out of what appears to be an oncoming Great Depression, commodity prices will scream upward and the dollar and US-NRE bonds will tank....that's a big IF! - mpg

[British] Bailout money is flowing abroad
A quote...."Much of the new money the Bank of England has "printed" to stimulate the UK economy is ending up abroad where it will be of no benefit to UK households and businesses, according to an analysis of the Bank's "quantitative easing" programme."