MPG'S DAILY RAPSHEET AND BLOTTER  ON THE "GREAT GAME"  - links page

@ www.reficultnias.org
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Editor's note : From now on each weekly blog page will have several items culled from the past called  "9/11 - From The History File" : It's for those who didn't know, and also for those who forgot....or are trying to forget.

Editor's note - War Update, War Alert, War Warning, Red War Warning and War Imminent - refer to articles regarding the upcoming war with Iran.  In the order they appear as shown above, they  represent less serious to more serious possible threats of war. - mpg
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Tuesday May 6th 2008 - links page

Iron Man and the Merchants of Death  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker97.html
A quote...."The phrase Merchants of Death takes center stage in the movie Iron Man, which is a spectacular expose of a subject that dominates the American economic landscape but about which Americans have very little knowledge. The phrase and the movie deal with the odd juxtaposition of capitalism and war as found in the weapons industry. Here we have innovations and efficiency of the type we associate with the private commercial sector but serving ends that are the very opposite of capitalism. The industry serves war, not peace, depends on coercion, not human volition, and profits from destruction, not creation."
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War funding would break Dem promises  ---  http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=BB9F56AF-3048-5C12-0064FDC724B0CAD0
A quote...."House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is about to lead her party into a major showdown over Iraq funding by violating two Democratic campaign pledges in one fell swoop. -- To the critics, whether anti-war activists or House Republicans, Pelosi has made her feelings clear: Get over it." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/06/8750/
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Democrats Prepare Sell-Out on Telecom Immunity: House Leaders to Give White House a Blank Check to Spy on Americans
  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43799&s1=h1
A quote...."As revelations of the Bush administration’s illegal surveillance programs continue to expose the criminal nature of the regime in Washington, new reports suggest that House Democrats are preparing to capitulate to the White House on warrantless wiretapping and amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms."
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Executive or Imperial Branch?  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/050608a.html
A quote...."More memos recently have surfaced that were written early in the Bush administration by John C. Yoo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel -- the man who gave us the administration's horrifyingly narrow definition of torture."
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NYT Again Excludes Critics From Iraq War Discussion  ---  http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3363
A quote...."The New York Times' May 4 Week in Review section featured a discussion of the state of the Iraq War with advocates of that war—-the same advocates who prompted a FAIR action alert on March 17. The following letter was sent to New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt, Op-Ed page editor David Shipley and Week in Review editor Sam Tanenhaus. Their contact information is listed below, as is FAIR's earlier alert."
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As New York Times cites anonymous officials on Iran intelligence, Iraqi government fires back
  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/As_New_York_Times_cites_anonymous_0505.html
A quote...."As anonymous American officials continue to leak information suggesting Iran's involvement in Iraq to the New York Times, even Iraq has begun fighting back. A top Iraqi official said Sunday there was no conclusive evidence that Shiite extremists have been directly supplied with some Iranian arms as alleged by the United States."
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Mission Impossible  ---  http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080506_mission_impossible/
A quote...."Sunday’s New York Times had a  series of articles  marking the fifth anniversary of President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished”  victory speech on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. The title of the collection, “How to See This Mission Accomplished,” seems fit more for a motivational-speaking seminar than a critical intervention in the discourse of war. It gestures to the inadequacies that riddle the mainstream media’s analysis of the war in Iraq." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/06/8758/
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Hezbollah Is in Iran, Michael Gordon Says American Officials Say
  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-bromwich/hezbollah-is-in-iran-mich_b_100513.html
A quote...."There is a child's game all Americans know called Simon Says. Consecutive commands are shouted by a leader to a group with the legitimating prefix, "Simon Says." "Simon says raise your right hand; Simon says jump up and down; Simon says wave your arms; Simon says nod your head;--wave your arms!" If you wave your arms the second time, you are out. Monotony lulls the listener, and the aim of a clever leader is to jerk a mindless response from the listener who is attuned to the rhythm and not the prefix."  --  For more on this issue see....Fake Intell/Propaganda - Michael Gordon
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#GORDON
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Corruption Eats Into Food Rations  ---  http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/33215
A quote...."FALLUJAH, May 2 (IPS) - Amidst unemployment and impoverishment, Iraqis now face a cutting down of their monthly food ration – much of it already eaten away by official corruption. Iraqis survived the sanctions after the first Gulf War (1990) with the support of rations through the Public Distribution System (PDS). [But they're not going to survive the US's "help"] The aid was set up in 1995 as part of the UN's Oil-for-Food programme." -- For more on this issue see....The Method - 05-07-07 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/themethod-blog-mpg-050707
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Assassins of Peace  ---  http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12784
War Update - A quote...."CNN reports that George W. Bush, with his disapproval rating shooting past 70 percent, is the most unpopular president in modern American history, or as long as they've been polling the question – less beloved than Richard Nixon in the weeks prior to his resignation, and, I'd guess, more despised than George III in 1776. Bush II is identified primarily in the public mind with the bane of his presidency, the Iraq war, and support for that, too, has reached a new low at 30 percent. Enthusiasm for our Iraqi misadventure hasn't cracked 35 percent in many months, in spite of all the malarkey about the "success" of the recent escalation. The domestic accompaniment of the "surge" in Iraq is the rising tide of sheer hatred directed at the War Party and all its works and minions."
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Newspaper reports military mum on destination of 6-ship convoy  ---  http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=54574
War Update - Some quotes...."On Sunday, 5,500 sailors and Marines left San Diego on a six-ship convoy, though no one would say where they were headed, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune." -- "Led by the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, the convoy comprises the amphibious ships Pearl Harbor and Dubuque, the cruiser Cape St. George and the destroyers Halsey and Benfold, the paper wrote."
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USS Peleliu (LHA-5)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Peleliu_%28LHA-5%29
USS Dubuque (LPD-8)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Dubuque_%28LPD-8%29
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD-52)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pearl_Harbor_%28LSD-52%29
USS Cape St. George (CG-71)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cape_St._George_%28CG-71%29
USS Halsey (DDG-97)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Halsey_%28DDG-97%29
USS Benfold (DDG-65)  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Benfold_%28DDG-65%29
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Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Tuesday round-up - 5 articles - [ Day 43 ]

Iraqi militia commanders harden stance toward U.S.
  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/mideastemail/la-fg-commander6-2008may06,0,2150134.story
Video - A quote...."May 6, 2008 -- BAGHDAD -- It was sunset, and a pair of Iraqi soldiers were sitting in a roofless house by the Iranian border, awaiting orders. Suddenly, Abu Baqr recalls, his friend let out a gasp and fell silent, a sniper's bullet in his forehead. Abu Baqr couldn't help him, couldn't move for fear of being shot. He lay beside his friend's corpse until morning."
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In Iraq, U.S. walks tightrope with Sadr  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-militia7-2008may07,0,6282442.story
A quote...."May 7, 2008 -- BAGHDAD -- The U.S. military has tied itself into a verbal knot as it tries to avoid further inflaming tensions with Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr while confronting members of his Mahdi Army militia.
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Iraq: Stop the massacre in Sadr City…  ---  http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2008/05/07/iraq-stop-the-massacre-in-sadr-city/
A quote...." Wednesday, May  7th,  2008 @ 00:18 UTC -- In the weeks following the high profile attack on Basra by the Iraqi army and its high profile failure something of a low-level war has been going on across Iraq much behind the scenes of the mainstream media. Yet now the situation seems to be coming to a head. -- Al-Ghad issued a statement giving an urgent warning that an imminent massacre of the people of Sadr City is being planned:"
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Iraqi civilians flee fighting in Baghdad militia stronghold -- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq;_ylt=A9G_R3CTsSBIGRYAqhGs0NUE
A quote...."Tue May 6, 4:34 PM ET -- BAGHDAD - A rocket slammed into Baghdad's city hall and another hit a downtown park Tuesday as more frightened civilians fled a Shiite militia stronghold where U.S.-led forces are locked in fierce street battles."
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Policemen arrested as Iraq battles upsurge in violence  ---  http://news.scotsman.com/world/Policemen-arrested--as-Iraq.4055491.jp
A quote...."Published Date:  07 May 2008 -- IRAQI soldiers yesterday detained dozens of policemen and closed down a hospital suspected of treating Shiite militiamen in a Baghdad stronghold of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Tuesday round-up  - [ Day 43 ]
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Doubting the Evidence Against Iran  ---  http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1737543,00.html?xid=rss-world
A quote...."American circles in Baghdad and Washington are probably not pleased with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's plan for a special panel to investigate allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq. Many U.S. officials are already convinced of the worst and, for years, U.S. officials have aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq's violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason." -- Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19876.htm  ---  For more on this issue see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - IED's & EFP's   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#IEDS__EFPS
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Russia, China Criticize Britain Over Remarks On Iran  ---  http://www.rttnews.com/FOREX/politicalnews.asp?date=05/06/2008&item=6
A quote...."5/6/2008 2:49:39 AM The British ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, John Duncan, came in for some sharp criticism from Russia and China for distorting reports about the decisions of G5 plus Germany on Iran's nuclear program. -- Chinese and Russian permanent representative at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva said Monday that the statements by the British envoy do not reflect the views of China and Russia."
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PJB: Is It Jaw-Jaw or War-War?  ---  http://buchanan.org/blog/?p=986
A quote...."Is war with Iran inevitable, even imminent? Or is peace at hand? - From the public diplomacy of the administration, either conclusion may be reached. Consider."
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Former President Carter has Done it Again. What the Hell he thinks he is? HERTZ?  ---  http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/163701
A quote...."Former President Carter has done it again. He dared to meet with Hamas leaders in Syria and talk about how to come to an end of violence and war. Who does he think he is? How could he advocate actually talking to the other side in a long-standing dispute? Never mind that Hamas was an overwhelming winner in the Palestinian elections (held early at our insistence)."
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Palestinian Unit Battles Gunmen In Test for U.S.-Funded Program
  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/06/AR2008050602085.html
A quote...."JERUSALEM, May 6 -- At least three people were wounded Tuesday as Palestinian security forces who were trained in a U.S.-funded program battled gunmen in a northern West Bank town long known for its lawlessness. -- The operation marked the first major test for a group of Presidential Guard officers who are at the forefront of a $28 million U.S. effort to bolster the Palestinian Authority's security capabilities through training and equipment." For more on this issue see....US Sponsored Civil Wars - Palestine http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussponsoredcivilwars-weblist-mpg-101107#PALESTINE
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Newly Unredacted Report Confirms Psychologists Supported Illegal Interrogations In Iraq and Afghanistan
  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=58793
A quote...."NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union announced today the release of newly unredacted documents from the Defense Department's internal investigations into charges of detainee abuse. Uncensored documents from the Church Report, obtained as a result of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include new details exposing the role of psychologists in military interrogations. The documents also uncover new information about the failure of military medical personnel to report abuses at Abu Ghraib, the military's use of unlawful interrogation methods subsequent to a directive that was ostensibly meant to end such practices, and detainee deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq."
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Pentagon Secretly Goes To War With The Internet  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/060508DARPA.htm
A quote...."The Pentagon is to spend $30 Billion building a super secret "National Cyber Range" in order to prepare for all out cyber warfare by using it to conduct mock online battles with realistic info-warriors." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - Stop The Net
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#STOPTHENET
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Kurtz: Media won’t cover Pentagon propaganda ‘because they are embarrassed.' http://thinkprogress.org/2008/05/05/kurtz-media-won%e2%80%99t-cover-pentagon-propaganda-%e2%80%98because-they-are-embarrassed%e2%80%99/
A quote...."In a washingtonpost.com online chat today, the Post’s media critic Howard Kurtz was asked why the television news media have largely failed to report on the Pentagon propaganda operation revealed recently by the New York Times. Kurtz said the media is too embarrassed to report the story:"
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Investigate the Pentagon Pundit Program  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_john_ker_080506_investigate_the_pent.htm
A quote...."Like me, I know you'll be following the election returns today - but it's imperative that we not lose focus on some of the issues in play that may be obscured by the election - and I can tell you that if you're watching the returns on television news, there's one story you're almost guaranteed not to see tonight." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - NYT Article
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#NYT_ARTICLE
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Damascus in the Crosshairs - The Syrian Affair  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hallinan05052008.html
A quote...."A “very odd affair” is how the Financial Times (FT) characterized the Bush Administration’s release of intelligence charging that the Syrian building bombed by the Israelis last Sept. 6 was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor just weeks from being operational. - Indeed it was “odd,” and sorting through the motives behind the whole business is a little like trying to scope out the politics of Byzantium."
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Roads blocked in Beirut anti-gov't protests  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=54606&sectionid=351020203
A quote...."Demonstrators have blocked roads in and around Beirut with burning tires, protesting against the govt's economic and social policies."
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It's Not the First Time - U.S. is Promoting Secession in Bolivia  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05062008.html
A quote...."Having avoided any meaningful coverage of Bolivia since the election of Evo Morales in December, 2005, the international media is now obliged to play catch up.  Yesterday, the Andean nation of 9.1 million held a crucial vote which could pave the way for secession of the resource-rich Santa Cruz region."
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Bolivia nationalises four energy firms, takes control of telecom operator news - http://boliviarising.blogspot.com/2008/05/bolivia-nationalises-four-energy-firms.html
A quote...."May 2 - Bolivian president Evo Morales has announced the nationalisation of four global energy companies operating in the country even as the state took absolute control of the National Telecommunications Company (Entel), in a continuation of the country's nationalisation policy."
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US Navy resurrects Fourth Fleet to police Latin America  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/navy-m07.shtml
Special Note - A quote...."Washington announced at the end of last month that it is resurrecting the long-ago moth-balled Fourth Fleet to reassert US power in the Caribbean and Latin America. Created at the time of World War II to combat German submarines attacking merchant shipping convoys in the South Atlantic, the Fourth Fleet was seen as no longer necessary after the Second World War and was disbanded in 1950."
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Georgia says "very close" to war with Russia  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0616183020080506
A quote...."BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russia's deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war "very close", a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday."
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Power struggle as Medvedev takes office  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/power-struggle-as-medvedev-takes-office-822164.html
A quote...."The eight-year presidency of Vladimir Putin will come to an end today according to a carefully scripted scenario as his successor Dmitry Medvedev is sworn into office. Mr Putin is almost certain to be named as Prime Minister tomorrow, and many analysts expect him to continue calling the shots."
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Russia enacts law on foreign investment in strategic industries  ---  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080507/106764813.html
A quote...."MOSCOW, May 7 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's law on foreign investment in strategic industries, clarifying the rules of investing in Russia, came into effect on Wednesday. -- The bill was passed by the State Duma, the country's lower house of parliament, on April 2, and approved by the upper house two weeks later. It was signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 29."
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Britain: Labour’s electoral meltdown continues to worsen  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/elec-m07.shtml
A quote...."The meltdown suffered by the Brown government in last week’s local elections, coupled with Ken Livingstone’s defeat by Boris Johnson in the contest for London Mayor, is a major staging post in the ongoing collapse of New Labour. -- The party’s share of the vote fell to a 40-year low of just 24 percent, compared with 44 percent for the Conservatives and 25 percent for the Liberal Democrats. But its eclipse by the Tories is only part of the picture. Turnout was just 35 percent, confirming the widespread alienation from all the major parties."
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Hope fades over EU role for Blair - Hip Hip Hooray !! - mpg  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/hope-fades-over-eu-role-for-blair-822163.html
A quote...."Tony Blair received an unwelcome 55th birthday present from France yesterday. President Nicolas Sarkozy has abandoned his efforts to push the former prime minister's claim to be the first permanent president of the European Union Council from next year." -- It was like watching an impending car crash, you didn't want to look but you just couldn't avert your eyes and at the very last minute, Europe avoided going into the ditch. - mpg
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Can you spot the corrupt officials in this story?  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/05/can-you-spot-th.html
A quote...."Sorry folks, I have been on deadline. Now, some very strange news today that I have no idea what to make of and since it is by way of Foxified WSJ, it really provides me with little ability to even speculate as to why this happened:"
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Bernanke's Nightmare Chart  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north624.html
Special Note - A quote..."In this report, I introduce you to an amazing chart. It is getting zero attention from the mainstream financial media. The information it conveys is at the heart of Bernanke's looming problem. I have decided to post a link to this chart on a permanent basis in the "Free Materials" section of my website."
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Europe Producer-Price Inflation Accelerates in March  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ajR_S0Q..vys
A quote...."May 6 (Bloomberg) -- European producer-price inflation accelerated more than economists forecast in March, intensifying pressure on the European Central Bank to keep interest rates on hold."
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UBS axes jobs after plunging £5.5bn in the red  ---  http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3878357.ece
A quote...."UBS is to cut 7 per cent of its workforce, or 5,500 jobs, as it struggles to deal with the impact of the global credit crunch. - The Swiss banking giant said this morning that conditions in financial markets “remain difficult” as it unveiled an SwFr11.55 billion (£5.55 billion) first quarter loss, compared with a net profit of just over SwFr3 billion (£1.44 billion) in the first quarter of 2007. - UBS also confirmed that it is to sell $20 billion worth of sub-prime debt to the fund manager Blackrock."
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Bankruptcies on the Rise
  ---  http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/may2008/sb2008056_484858.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_news+%2B+analysis
A quote...."More businesses filed for bankruptcy in April, 2008, than in any month since new bankruptcy laws took effect in 2005, according to a company that tracks federal court filings."
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Monday May 5th 2008 - links page

Christianity in Eclipse  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance141.html
Must Read - A quote...."The Christian attitude toward the state and its leaders, it military, its wars, its imperialism, and its interventionism should be a no-brainer: contempt, disdain, disgust, revulsion, abhorrence, repugnance, loathing – take your pick. Yet, among Christians one continues to find some of the greatest apologists for the state, its leaders, its institutions, and its evil doings." -- Just to let all you Neo-Roman so-called "Christians" out there know....Mr. Reficul is delighted with what you've done -- you belong to him now. - mpg
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Twilight of American Empire  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/05/twilight-of-american-empire.html
A quote...."The fall of the American empire resembles that of Rome in several areas but primarily --military and economic. The economies of the US and Rome ultimately depended on conquest. To this end, the US was sold to the Military/Industrial complex for whom 'conquest' is both an addictive drug and a life's blood. By the time the Roman Empire was sold at auction to one Didius Julianus, Rome's currency had already collapsed, as the dollar is likewise endangered. The smart money had already dumped sestercius for Greek Drachmas and the sale of the empire was concluded in Greek currency --not Roman."
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The Last War and the Next One Descending into Madness in Iraq -- and Beyond  ---  http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174927/endless_war
A quote...."The last war won't end, but in the Pentagon they're already arguing about the next one." -- Also posted at CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8714/  ---  & AsiaTimes   ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE06Ak04.html  ---  & Lew Rockwell  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt333.html
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General Petraeus: Zionism’s Military Poodle - From Surge to Purge to Dirge  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19865.htm
A quote...." 05/05/08  ICH" -- - -     When President Bush appointed General David Petraeus Commander (head) of the Multinational Forces in Iraq, his appointment was hailed by the  New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the  Washington Post as a brilliant decision:  A general of impeccable academic and battlefield credentials and a warrior and counter-insurgency (terrorist) intellectual.  The media and the President, the Republicans and Democrats in the Senate and Congress, described his appointment as ‘America’s last best hope for salvation in Iraq’.  Senator Hilary Clinton joined the chorus of pro-war politicians in praise and support of Petraeus’ ‘professionalism and war record’ in  Northern Iraq. In contrast, Admiral William Fallon, his predecessor and former commander, had called Petraeus’ briefings ‘a piece of brown-nosing chicken sh-t’."
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TV News Blackout on Pentagon Pundits  ---  http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3361
A quote...." Two weeks after a New York Times story (4/20/08) revealed a Pentagon propaganda campaign that had been feeding talking points to TV military analysts, many of whom also had ties to military contractors, the cable and broadcast networks that employed these analysts have almost entirely failed to report this crucial news story. Fox has even continued to feature commentary by two Pentagon-affiliated ex-generals without disclosing their conflicts of interest."
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Pentagon Uses Propaganda Illegally To Sell Iraq War NYTimes - (YouTube - 10 min 45 sec - April 25, 2008)
  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Abve61mdc3Q&feature=related
Must View - Related article - A quote...."PBS carefully reviews and analyzes the Sunday, April 20, New York Times two year investigative report on how the Pentagon recruited retired generals "to sell" the Pentagon side of the Iraq War to TV media news outlets as "objectives analysts. -- This is a story you need to know -- how an illegal effort to promote a government point of view on the Iraq War was orchestrated and delivered to an unsuspecting American public. Another sad side to how the Pentagon sought "to spin" in a positive direction the mismanaged Iraq War." -- For more regarding the two articles shown above see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - NYT Article  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#NYT_ARTICLE
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Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Monday round-up - 6 articles - [ Day 42 ]  

Competing visions of Iraq  ---  http://www.gulfnews.com/opinion/columns/region/10210996.html
A quote...."Published: May 06, 2008, 00:12 -- The recent confrontations in Iraq are informed by competing visions for the future of Iraq: On the one hand the US-backed coalition government accepts the vision of an Iraq that is essentially fragmented and weak, collaborating with and owing its existence to an open-ended occupation; on the other hand, a vision of Iraq that is united, strong, master of its own destiny and owner of its resources, and free."
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Mahdi Army fighters grateful for sand storm standstills in Sadr City  ---  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3868043.ece
A quote...."May 4, 2008 -- On a bare patch of ground outside the entrance to Sadr general hospital, 15 women clad from head to foot in black squatted in a sandstorm, wailing and waiting for their dead. - Lightning flashed, thunder rolled and the women’s robes were spattered with mud falling from a sky filled with rain and sand, but they did not notice." -- Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19864.htm
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Iran says new talks with U.S. on Iraq meaningless
  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL0528762620080505?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
A quote...."Mon May 5, 2008 11:26am EDT -- TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Monday dismissed any prospect of new talks with the United States on Iraq, accusing U.S.-led forces on Monday of a "massacre" of the Iraqi people."
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Iran: No talks until U.S. stops Iraq attacks  ---  http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/05/iran.us/?iref=mpstoryview
A quote...."May 5, 2008 -- Updated 1826 GMT (0226 HKT) (CNN) -- An Iranian official says the government wants the United States to stop its "savage attacks" in Iraq before its envoys hold more talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, Iran's Fars News Agency reported."
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Baghdad's Sadr City death toll mounts
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1443&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-05+12%3A35%3A30
Video - A quote...."Monday May 5th, 2008 -- In continuing violence in Baghdad's Sadr City, 10 people, including two children were killed on Sunday. Over the past 5 weeks, the US military and Iraqi forces have been cracking down on the Mahdi army militia in this densely populated neighborhood. Since the offensive's inception, over 925 have been killed, and 2,600 have been wounded."
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What is Next for Muqtada al Sadr?  ---  http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/84328/
A quote...."Posted May 5, 2008. -- While U.S. casualties continue to mount -- and many Iraqi troops lay down their arms -- the Mahdi Army is waging a war of survival."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Monday round-up - [ Day 42 ]  
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Iraqis forced to abandon farming  ---  http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/F9923461-3DF7-4256-82DD-C402F8FE01E0.htm
Special Note -- A quote...."Iraq has started to import vegetables for the first time in its modern history despite ample water, fertile land and a rich farming heritage stretching back to 6,000 years. --  The war, lack of resources and new market realities in post-Saddam Iraq are to be blamed for this break from tradition." - bold by website editor -- For more on this issue see....The Method - 05-07-07 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/themethod-blog-mpg-050707
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Kurdish rebels threaten suicide attacks against US  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_kurdish_rebels
A quote...."QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq - Kurdish rebels could launch suicide attacks against American interests to punish the U.S. for sharing intelligence with Turkey after Turkey bombed rebel bases, a spokeswoman for a wing of a rebel group warned." -- It just keeps getting better and better. - mpg
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Somali fighters threaten revenge against U.S. after airstrike  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=58542
A quote...."MOGADISHU, Somalia – Islamist fighters in Somalia threatened Friday to avenge the death of a reputed al-Qaeda commander killed in a U.S. airstrike and warned Americans to stay out of the Horn of Africa nation." -- Ain't it grand?  The never ending, self-perpetuating war-machine. - mpg
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Iraqi alleges Abu Ghraib torture, sues US contractors - link posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_us/abu_ghraib_lawsuit;_ylt=ArllvElPM8HcOG9_tYBQA3.s0NUE
A quote...."LOS ANGELES - An Iraqi man sued two U.S. military contractors Monday, claiming he was repeatedly tortured while being held at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for more than 10 months."
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Released al-Jazeera journalist describes Guantanamo "most heinous"  ---  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-05/06/content_8113633.htm
A quote...."KHARTOUM, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The U.S.-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp is the worst prison ever, Sudanese al-Jazeera journalist Sami al-Haj who was released from the prison days ago said Monday."
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It’s the Profits Stupid!  ---  http://thewip.net/contributors/2008/05/its_the_profits_stupid_the_ris.html
A quote...."How sad. Exxon Mobil, the universe’s largest publicly traded company, which also happens to be enjoying some of its biggest profits ever thanks to the almost doubled price of oil during the past year, didn’t quite live up to Wall Street expectations this week. In fact, its stock fell nearly 4% the day it announced its first quarter of 2008 earnings." -- Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/05/8722/
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Death's Factotum: Michael Gordon and the Times Pour Pentagon Poison into Nation's Ear  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1502/135/
A quote...."Judith Miller might have been the poster child for the corporate media's collaboration with the Bush Administration's war of aggression against Iraq -- but her New York Times colleague and co-writer, Michael Gordon, was every bit as culpable and complicit, happily playing stovepipe to the bloodthirsty bullshit gurgling up from the White House and Pentagon cesspits." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - Michael Gordon
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#GORDON
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War Stenography  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/05/war-stenography.html
A quote...."Michael "Judy In Drag" Gordon today re-earned his place as the Bush administration's stenographer-in-chief with an anonymously-sourced report alleging that Iran is using Hizbullah as a proxy to train other proxies among Iraq's Shiite militants. Glenn Greenwald writes:"
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'NYT' vs McClatchy on Iran's Link to Iraqi Insurgents  ---  http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003798525
A quote...."NEW YORK Michael Gordon, the military writer for The New York Times who contributed several false stories about Iraqi WMD in the runup to the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2002, has written several articles in the past year about Iran’s alleged training of Iraqi insurgents -- or supplying them with weapons to kill Americans. He produced another major report on this subject for today’s Times – based solely on unnamed sources -- which is at odds with an account from McClatchy’s Baghdad bureau."
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More scary stories on Iran from the NY Times  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_richmond_080505_more_scary_stories_o.htm
A quote...."The NY Times passes on a report that's, on first read, very scary. It charges that "four Shiite militia members" (From what country? From which militia?) have provided details on training camps in Iran that have taught Iraqi insurgents such subjects as "how to fire rockets and mortars, fight as snipers or assemble explosively formed penetrators, a particularly lethal type of roadside bomb made of Iranian components, according to American officials."
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Iraq Says No Hard Evidence of Iran Support For Militia  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19863.htm
A quote...." 04/05/08 -- - BAGHDAD (AFP) - Iraq said on Sunday it has no evidence that Iran was supplying militias engaged in fierce street fighting with security forces in Baghdad. -- Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said there was no "hard evidence" of involvement by the neighbouring Shiite government of Iran in backing Shiite militiamen in the embattled country."
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Iraqi government distanced itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8900
A quote...."Iraq backs off allegations on Iran as violence continues apace -- The Iraqi government seemed to distance itself from U.S. accusations towards Iran Sunday saying it would not be forced into conflict with its Shiite neighbor. And Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the formation of a committee to look into foreign intervention in Iraq."
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Top U.S. officer says would prefer no war on Iran -- http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0570215820080505?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
A quote...."JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq would make it difficult to mount any attack on Iran, the Pentagon's top officer said in remarks broadcast on Monday, adding that he would prefer to avoid a new regional war." -- For more on this issue see....Predictable Outcomes
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/predictableoutcomes-blog-mpg-020407.html
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Gunmen kill Iraqi journalist  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSCOL43141120080504?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews
A quote...."MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead an Iraqi reporter on Sunday after hauling her out of a taxi in Mosul, a notoriously violent city in northern Iraq where journalists are often targeted and live in fear of their lives."
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Shell, Repsol seek way out of Iran gas deal: report  ---  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080503175120.p8ap3gab&show_article=1
A quote...."European oil groups Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol YPF are under pressure from the United States to end talks with Iran about a multi-billion dollar natural gas deal, the Expansion newspaper reported Saturday. -- It said that Russia's Gazprom, Indian Oil Corporation and Chinese groups could be waiting to move in if British-Dutch group Shell and Spain's Repsol pulled out." -- For more on this issue see....The US is After Europe Too! - 03-23-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/theusisaftereuropetoo-blog-mpg-032308
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Energized Iran builds more bridges  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE06Ak01.html
A quote...."The spin could be given that at its latest meeting in London on Friday, the "Iran Six" - the five permanent members of the United Security Council and Germany - in grappling with the Iran nuclear problem, advanced in unison the demand for the cessation of uranium-enrichment activities by Tehran. But this would be an untruth. The reality is that the "Iran Six" process looks tired and repetitive. The reality is also that the "Iran Six" is "to try to lure Iran into nuke talks", as the Associated Press reported. The six's other members are the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. "
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Pentagon Targeted Iran for Regime Change After 9/11  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/porter/?articleid=12795
A quote...."Three weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld established an official military objective of not only removing the Saddam Hussein regime by force but overturning the regimes in Iran, Syria, and four other countries in the Middle East, according to a document quoted extensively in then Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's recently published account of the Iraq war decisions." -- Also posted at ICH,   ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19872.htm  ---   IPS,  ---  http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=1446  ---  CommonDreams   ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/06/8741/  ---  & AsiaTimes  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE07Ak01.html
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High-Level Officials Warn of Fake Terror & If We Don't Learn Our History, We're Doomed to Repeat It
  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2008050274831375
A quote...."A variety of current and former high-level officials have recently warned that the Bush administration is attempting to instill a dictatorship in America, and will itself carry out a fake terrorist attack in order to obtain one."
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Military and Homeland Security Dictate Who Lives And Who Dies In A Pandemic  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/050507Pandemic.htm
A quote...."A new report compiled by a medical "task force" comprising physicians from prestigious universities, medical groups, the military and government agencies has outlined that specific groups of people should not be treated and be left to die should a flu pandemic or other deadly disease disaster infect millions throughout the USA."
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Net Neutrality  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050508R.shtml
A quote...."The Federal Communications Commission has recently encountered mounting scrutiny in response to its broad deregulatory practices. Public frustration regarding the FCC has peaked at a time of fierce debate on net neutrality. -- In a memo obtained Tuesday by The Washington Post, 30 current and former commission employees complained about the leadership of FCC Chairman Kevin Martin." -- For more on this issue see....The Last Bastion of Freedom is Falling - 05-30-06 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/lastbastionoffreedom-essay-mpg-053006
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The Bonsey Business of One Nation Under Corporate Rule  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_pamela_d_080504_the_bonsey_business_.htm
A quote...."If you've crossed my path often, the odds are pretty good you've seen a comment about the Bonesmen. It's a topic rarely mentioned in either traditional or alternate media. Many have no clue the group exists; others have the sense that the entire subject is mired in wild conspiracy theory."
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Landowners’ Rebellion: Slavery and Saneamiento in Bolivia  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=58674
A quote...."In recent weeks, cattle ranchers and landowners in Bolivia’s Cordillera province, located in the south of the department of Santa Cruz, resorted to blockades and violence in order to halt the work of Bolivia’s National Institute for Agrarian Reform (INRA – Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria). As a referendum on Departmental Autonomy for Santa Cruz draws near, the conflict calls into question the central government’s ability to enforce the law in the Bolivian lowlands."
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Autonomy Vote Threatens to Pull Bolivia Apart  ---  http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/05/18497155.php
Related article - A quote...."Monday, May 5, 2008 :In Bolivia, President Evo Morales has rejected an autonomy vote by the country's richest region of Santa Cruz, calling the poll "illegal and unconstitutional." The proposals voted on Sunday include giving Santa Cruz more control over land distribution - and rich oil and gas reserves."
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Bolivia faces separatist challenge
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1439&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-05+12%3A45%3A00
Video - Related video - A quote...."The Real News Network Analyst Pepe Escobar says the autonomy referendum in the rich lowland province of Santa Cruz on Sunday is unconstitutional. Escobar says "it's a dagger in the heart of South American integration. It is a classic battle between a rich white minority and a poor indigenous majority, and its not surprising which side the US government is on."
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More U.S. Kids On Anti-Psychotic Drugs  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6462
A quote...."American children take anti-psychotic medicines at about six times the rate of children in the United Kingdom, according to a comparison based on a new U.K. study. -- Does it mean U.S. kids are being over-treated? Or that U.K. children are being under-treated? -- Experts say that's almost beside the point, because use is rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And with scant long-term safety data, it's likely the drugs are being over-prescribed for both U.S. and U.K. children, research suggests."
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Banks squeezing credit to consumers, businesses
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/banks-squeezing-credit-consumers-businesses/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7BB449EDEF%2D0D14%2D48BF%2DAE62%2D1FB693529F31%7D
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Consumers and businesses found it harder to borrow money over the past three months, the Federal Reserve reported Monday, a sign that the historic credit crunch now hitting the economy is still worsening despite Herculean efforts by the Fed."
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Countrywide loses $893 million in 1Q on rising loss reserve  ---  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7ceutg-wJBodBAWBkQ1j4dDlCMwD90BP1M00
A quote...."LOS ANGELES (AP) — Countrywide Financial Corp. said Tuesday it lost $893 million in the first quarter, as rising loan defaults amid a deepening housing downturn forced the nation's largest mortgage lender and servicer to sharply increase its provision for loan losses and book other credit-related charges."
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Countrywide Rating Cut to `Junk' By Standard & Poor's (Update4) -- http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNssWctbuukA&refer=home
A quote...."May 2 (Bloomberg) -- Countrywide Financial Corp.'s credit rating was unexpectedly cut to junk by Standard & Poor's Corp., which cited doubt about whether Bank of America Corp. will back the home lender's debt after a pending takeover is completed."
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Oil holds above $120 a barrel on supply worries
  ---  http://www.examiner.com/a-1376637%7EOil_holds_above__120_a_barrel_on_supply_worries.html?cid=rss-Business
A quote...."SINGAPORE (Map, News) - Oil futures held steady above $120 a barrel Tuesday in Asia after surpassing that mark for the first time in the previous session on threats to supply and a weakening of the U.S. dollar."
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Sunday May 4th 2008 - links page
Must View
From the history file - just a reminder. - mpg
Bush Administration's 935 Lies to Iraq War Part 1 of 3 - (YouTube - 10 min 6 sec -  January 27, 2008)
  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz9Ew1UBBj0
Bush Administration's 935 Lies to Iraq War Part 2 of 3 - (YouTube - 5 min 42 sec - Added:  January 27, 2008)
  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQMmLiCScZ4&feature=related
Bush Aministration's 935 Lies to Iraq War Part 3 of 3 - (YouTube - 5 min 7 sec - Added:  January 27, 2008)
  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D81JxE20MRs&feature=related

For more on this issue see....Fake Intel/Propaganda - The 935 False Statements
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#935LIES
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Saturday May 3rd 2008 - links page

10 ways to blow your tax rebate  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/05/02/notes050208.DTL
Must Read - A quote...."Here's the bad news: Your little recession-deflecting tax rebate? No rebate at all. Not even close. -- It's more like this: You've been continuously mugged and beaten and robbed blind for the past seven years straight, and as you lay there on the cold, hard economic ground, bleeding and gasping and wondering what the hell happened to your vacation time and your health care plan and your mortgage payment, your attackers scoff and leer and toss a couple of bloodstained nickels on your pulverized face and mutter, here sucker, have some bus fare, and then they cackle and stomp away with all your loot and dignity and hope, back to the White House from whence they came."
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United States goes Fallujah on Sadr City: Legal Case for Military Resistance  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1698
Must Read - Must View Video - A quote...."On Saturday, 3 May 2008, United States rockets damaged a hospital in Sadr City. “An AFP reporter at the scene said the district's main Al-Sadr hospital was badly damaged and a fleet of ambulances was destroyed.” - The US military insists that they “destroyed a ‘criminal element command and control centre’ by munitions from a ‘rocket system’,” but hospital staff and residence refute these claims.
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Iraq: U.S. has no claim to oil boom - 'America has hardly even begun to repay its debt to Iraq,' Baghdad official says
  ---  http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-oil-money_slymay01,0,6996714.story?track=rss
A quote...."BAGHDAD — As Congress gears up to debate the Bush administration's latest request for an additional $108 billion in war funding for Iraq and Afghanistan, Iraqis are fuming at suggestions being floated by lawmakers that Baghdad should start paying a share of the war's costs by providing cheap fuel to the U.S. military."
For more on this issue see....Making the Victim Pay  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-030408-031008#VICTIMPAY
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Bush details $70 billion war funding request for 2009  ---  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=4773315
A quote...."Congressional analysts say Bush's request would bring the total spending since Sept. 11, 2001, to fight terrorism and conduct the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to $875 billion."
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KBR first-quarter profit up, shares climb  ---  http://www.reuters.com/article/hotStocksNews/idUSN0246629520080502
A quote...."HOUSTON (Reuters) - KBR Inc (KBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the engineering and construction company, said on Friday its first-quarter net profit more than tripled, helped by an arbitration award, income from energy projects and its work for the U.S. government in Iraq." - bold by website editor -- To all the men and women in the armed forces of the United States.  Keep up the good work, them Texas Boyz are just loving it. - mpg
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Exxon Mobil Profits Soar: Grow 17 Percent  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/01/exxon-mobil-profits-soar_n_99568.html
A quote...."HOUSTON — Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday that record crude prices helped its first-quarter profit climb 17 percent to $10.9 billion the second-biggest U.S. quarterly corporate profit ever." -- bold by website editor - Hats off to the Military Industrial Oil Complex (MIOC)....way to go! - mpg
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Fabricated 'Bioterrorism' Case Collapses  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/ips/fisher.php?articleid=12775
A quote...."After a four-year legal battle, a US federal judge has dismissed all charges against an avant-garde artist who public officials condemned as a bio-terrorist in a case critics are calling "a persecution, not a prosecution."
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Friday May 2nd 2008 - links page

Bush's GOP Legacy: A Third World America  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/2008/05/bushs-gop-legacy-third-world-america.html
Must Read - A quote...."As the US faces a very real prospect of utter collapse where millions may be may be made jobless and homeless, the GOP drags out a tired old lie that goes like this: 'Be happy! Recession is goooood for you!' If that were true, millions would be trying to move to a third world country instead of trying to get out of one. Don't worry about it; the third world is coming to you! Millions have yet to recover from Ronald Reagan's 'recession' of some two years following an improvident tax cut which benefited only the nation's privileged elite. What Reagan failed to achieve was left to Bush Jr to polish off."
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The Iranian Chessboard - Five Ways to Think about Iran under the Gun -- http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174926/pepe_escobar_iran_under_the_gun
Must Read - A quote...."More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how George W. Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq."
Also posted at AntiWar  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=12770, Asia Times  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE03Ak04.html
& ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19857.htm
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Iran moving into the big league  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JE03Ak03.html
Related article - A quote...."Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's three-nation tour of Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India and the welter of agreements and understandings reached between Tehran and these governments serve notice beyond the mere issue of energy security and Iran's expanding role in the sub-continent's energy market; rather, these developments signify a new stage in Iran's foreign policy that is best described as "pan-regionalism"."
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American Culture and the Demise of Empire - Cultural Decay and Motivating Empire. The Grand Chessboard Part 2
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8863
& Part 1   ---  http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8684
-- Must Read - A quote...."A genuinely populist democracy has never before attained international supremacy. The pursuit of power and especially the economic costs and human sacrifice that the exercise of such power often requires are not generally congenial to democratic instincts. Democratization is inimical to imperial mobilization."  -- *Zbigniew Brzezinski* -- bold by article's author
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Democrats Okay Funds for Covert Ops - Secret Bush "Finding" Widens War on Iran  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html
A quote...."Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, "unprecedented in its scope." - Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials.  This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department's list of terrorist groups. -- Also posted at ICH  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19858.htm

For more on the article shown above see....US Support of Terror - MEK - PKK - Others
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/ussupportofterror-weblist-mpg-090306#MEK-PKK-OTHERS
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Cage Match: Criminal Complicity on the Campaign Trail  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1499/135/
A quote...."It is clear -- clear beyond all doubt or dispute -- that our public officials do not believe in democracy and law. They don't want to preserve the constitutional republic. They have no sense of morality or the slightest commitment to justice. If they did, they would already be taking action, standing up, leading the nation out of this blood-drenched cesspit. -- Barack Obama -- whom we are told is performing a transcendent miracle by "changing the very nature of politics" -- doesn't believe in law, or justice, or the republic; he won't fight for them, he won't stand up for them. Neither will Hillary Clinton. Neither will John McCain. Like all of our "leaders," they will talk of such things; they will extol law and justice and the Constitution in the loftiest terms. But when it's time to lay it on the line, to put their professed beliefs into action -- they fold. They shift. They dissemble. When they are confronted with overwhelming evidence of high crimes by the president and his henchmen, they "take impeachment off the table."
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ARREST BUSH - Bush Confesses to Waterboarding. Call D.C. Cops!  ---  http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/
A quote...."NEW YORK--"Why are we talking about this in the White House?" John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft.) - "History will not judge this kindly," Ashcroft predicted. - "This" is torture. Against innocent people. Conducted by CIA agents and American soldiers and marines. Sanctioned by legal opinions issued by Ashcroft's Justice Department. Directly ordered by George W. Bush.
Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/30/8611/
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List of Suicides by whistle blowers or those that knew things
  ---  http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3232050
It's a small list, they're are many others that could be added to it. - mpg
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Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Friday round-up - 8 articles - [ Day 39 ]  

The Insurgent as Counterinsurgent  ---  http://www.washingtonindependent.com/view/the-insurgent-as
Must Read - A quote...."While Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki likely launched the attack to weaken Sadr's rival Shiite party ahead of this fall's provincial elections, his move left Sadr in a commanding position: this week, parliamentarians from Iraq's Sunni and Kurdish blocs joined with Sadr's Shiite followers in a peaceful protest against Maliki's Sadr City crackdown."
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Mahdi Army continues to challenge U.S. occupation
  ---  http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?JServSessionIdr007=ariplbo1k2.app13a&page=NewsArticle&id=9039&news_iv_ctrl=1261
Must Read - A quote...."The Mahdi Army has since played a contradictory role. It has been in a quasi-alliance with the U.S. government and has participated in the ruling government coalition. Moreover, it has taken part in the killings of Sunnis, in line with the U.S. strategy of dividing the population. -- At the same time, with grassroots support from the urban poor Shia population, Sadr and his army have expressed their opposition to the occupation in various forms, including demonstrations."
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Misery Under Siege - Is Sadr City Becoming the Next Gaza?  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri05022008.html
A quote...."They have now completely surrounded Sadr City. The media is talking about Gaza, while we now have a second ‘Rafah Crossing’ in Sadr City. The hospitals are jammed with dead bodies...the occupation forces completely ban and open fire at any convoy trying to deliver humanitarian aid. People here suffer from shortage of food supplies. The occupation forces have burnt the city’s market.” -- *Dr. Maha al-Dori*, Sadrist MP
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Iraq's Shiite clerics trade barbs over US-backed government crackdown on militias http://www.pr-inside.com/iraq-s-shiite-clerics-trade-barbs-over-r569581.htm
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AP) - Prominent Shiite clerics traded barbs during Friday prayers, with one vowing the government will clear the capital's Sadr City slum of militias as an aide to Muqtada al-Sadr demanded the prime minister spearheading the crackdown be prosecuted for crimes against his people. U.S.-backed Iraqi government forces face intensified urban warfare with Shiite."

Iraqi MPs call Maliki 'depraved'  ---  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7377005.stm
A quote...."Iraqi deputies have denounced the government, using a quotation from the Koran to describe Prime Minister Nouri Maliki as "depraved"."
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Iraq PM criticised by Sadr City crowds  ---  http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iP8_u-US4vfLAM_AlUaJc8b9M1oQ
A quote...."BAGHDAD (AFP) — Crowds of Shiite Muslims launched a tirade against Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki during Friday prayers in Baghdad's Sadr City and urged him to end a stalemate with their leader Moqtada al-Sadr."
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Hundreds killed by US strikes in Sadr City
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1434&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-02+13%3A54%3A04
Must View - Video - A quote...."Pepe Escobar: New strategy to fight resistance--Wall-in a section of the city and bomb it." -- For more regarding this issue see....Paltry result of Iraqi [Nouri al-Maliki's and Cheney's] offensive quiets U.S. withdrawal talk - A Satirical Edit - posted 04-02-08
  ---  http://reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/paltryresultofiraqioffensive-strobel&youssef-mcclatchy-cached-040108
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Sadr snubs Iraq peace overtures  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080501/wl_afp/iraq_080501144040
A quote...."BAGHDAD, Iraq (AFP) - Hardline Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Thursday refused to hold talks with Iraqi lawmakers who had gone to Iran in a bid to end the clashes between his fighters and troops, an aide told AFP."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Friday round-up - [ Day 39 ]
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Those who look the other way are accomplices to Israel's crimes in Gaza - http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=17&article_id=91519
A quote...."The latest slaughter in the Gaza Strip is generating the predictable claims and counter-claims about responsibility for the loss of innocent lives. The Palestinians say a mother, her four children and another youth were killed by Israeli tank fire, while the Israelis insist that explosives belonging to militants were accidentally set off. As is generally the case, though, whatever the immediate cause on this specific occasion, these and the thousands of civilian deaths that have preceded them are the result of the impunity with which the Israeli government is habitually allowed to run roughshod over Arabs."
Also posted at uruknet  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43655&s1=h1
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What's McCain Thinking When He Says Boot Russia From G-8?  ---  http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050208A.shtml
A quote...."Washington - John McCain dropped a little-noticed bombshell into his March foreign-policy address: Boot Russia from the G-8, the elite club of leading industrial democracies whose leaders try to coordinate economic policies. -  One major problem: He can't do it because the other G-8 nations won't let him. - But the fact that he's proposing to try, risking a return to Cold War tensions with the world's second-largest nuclear power after 20 years of prickly partnership, raises questions about McCain's judgment. It also underscores that many of his top foreign-policy advisers are of the same neo-conservative school that promoted the war in Iraq, argue for a tougher stance toward Iran and are skeptical of negotiating with North Korea over its nuclear program."
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Iran, Bahrain Seeking to Boost Mutual Investment  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8702130581
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian and Bahraini businessmen are slated to discuss investment opportunities in their fifth joint meeting in Manama on Saturday, despite heavy pressures by the US on the Arab state to end financial ties with Tehran."
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Iran: Gas-OPEC Formation at Hand  ---  http://www.farsnews.com/English/newstext.php?nn=8702130579
A quote...." TEHRAN (FNA)- Ministers from the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) are expected to discuss an official charter during a June meeting in Russia."
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Call to defend human rights activists in Colombia  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13307&formato=HTML
A quote...."A group of independent United Nations experts have called for urgent measures to protect those defending human rights in Colombia, following a recent surge in violence that includes killings, harassment and intimidation of civil society activists, trade union leaders and lawyers representing victims."
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RIGHTS:  Impunity Reigns in Journalist Murders  ---  http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42209
A quote...."NEW YORK, May 2 (IPS) - Over the last 15 years, at least 500 journalists were killed directly because of their work. But in less than 15 percent of cases have the perpetrators been brought to justice, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)."
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Who attacked Karzai?  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080429/106220409.html
A quote...."MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) - Who stands behind an attempt on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on April 27? - There are many versions of the answer to this question, as it always happens in such cases. It would be naive to think that the Taliban could carry out this assassination attempt on its own."
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Sarkozy's difficult anniversary  ---  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080429/106177385.html
A quote...."MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Fedyashin) - "Kings are not born: they are made by artificial hallucination." George Bernard Shaw's famously caustic comment on royalty succinctly describes French President Nicholas Sarkozy. Almost a year ago, France was under his spell, and elected him president on May 6 of the past year. But by this spring the spell had gone." -- Not only is he the stupidest politician the French people have ever elected to office, not only did he cheerfully and willingly become Bush's "pet poodle" (yech!) but he's also the strangest looking politician on the planet, what's up with the hair?  He gives Kim Jung-Il a run for his money. - mpg
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The Bush Family's Bad Latin Real Estate Investment  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_080502_the_bush_family_s_ba.htm
Some quotes...."Back in late 2006, it was widely reported in the Latin American media that President Bush, or perhaps his old man, had bought a 100,000-acre farm in a remote area of Paraguay." -- "Given that President Bush, once he leaves office on January 20, 2009, will no longer have the diplomatic immunity conferred upon heads of state, or the Constitutional protection against indictment by domestic prosecutors, it makes sense that he would be looking for a safe haven from the long arm of the law."
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Postal Carrier Accused of Warning Customer About 'Mail Cover' Surveillance  ---  http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/04/post-carrier-ac.html
A quote...."Here's a good reason to remember your postal carrier at Christmas time. Apparently, he or she can tell you if the government is secretly monitoring your mail. - Federal prosecutors in Detroit say letter carrier Darlene Cry illegally tipped off a postal customer that he was the subject of a "mail cover" -- a form of warrantless surveillance in which the envelope information on every card and letter received is secretly recorded by the Post Office, then passed to federal law enforcement or intelligence officials."
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Pat Tillman’s mother still not sure she’s being told the truth  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=58505
Video - A quote...."The mother of Pat Tillman is speaking out about her son’s death in her first television interview, to be broadcast this Sunday on 60 Minutes." -- For more on this issue see....Fake Intel / Propaganda - Pat Tillman  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#TILLMAN
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Bush Signs Bill To Take All Newborns' DNA  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/020507DNA.htm
A quote...."President Bush last week signed into law a bill which will see the federal government begin to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months, a move critics have described as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database."
See also the movie Gattaca  ---  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gattaca
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Fed expands auction, accepts wider collateral
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/fed-expands-funding-accept-more/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7BBD25FFE1%2DEF18%2D45C1%2DB984%2D3CD33807727B%7D
Special Note - A quote...."NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- The Federal Reserve, along with other central banks, said Friday that it was increasing the funding it is providing to banks and announced that, for the first time, it was willing to accept bonds backed by auto loans and credit cards." - underline by website editor.
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Fed moves helps boost credit card firms
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/financial-stocks-fed-moves-helps/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B34E84BD9-B3A2-4097-B8A4-E61A2009E975%7D&dist=hplatest
Special Note - A quote...."NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- U.S. financial stocks posted strong gains Friday, moving higher as the Federal Reserve expanded a program to ease liquidity in troubled debt markets and as employment data showed fewer jobs than expected were lost during April." - underline by website editor.
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Fed Joins with European Banks to Battle Credit Crisis  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6440
Special Note - A quote...."WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve announced Friday that it will expand a series of efforts to deal with the global credit crisis, in coordination with European central banks. -- The Fed said it was boosting the amount of emergency reserves it supplies to U.S. banks to $150 billion in May, from the $100 billion it supplied in April. The Fed took this action and several other moves to boost credit in coordination with the European Central Bank and the Swiss National Bank." - underline by website editor

For more on the three articles shown above see....What Ben Bernanke Said - 03-18-08
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/whatbenbernankesaid-blog-mpg-031808
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US mortgages rot deep rooted in German banks  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13301&formato=HTML
A quote...."The European Union on Wednesday approved a German bailout of WestLB, a regional bank that lost billions from US mortgages gone badly. Germany can now put up 5 billion Euros to help the bank ride out its exposure to the subprime banking crisis." -- For more on this issue see....Debt Doesn't Matter When the Rubes Pay 02-29-08 - mpg  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/debtdoesntmatter-blog-mpg-022908
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Why The Yanks Aren’t Buying Huge Cars Anymore  ---  http://watchingamerica.com/News/936/why-the-yanks-aren%e2%80%99t-buying-huge-cars-anymore/
A quote...."Chrysler, Ford and G.M. are registering sales losses in the domestic market – Pickups, SUVs, luxury cars – aren’t selling well. The trend also affects German manufacturers. But producers of small, economical cars have gotten a whiff of opportunity. -- The Big Three are reporting a drop in sales of around 14 percent for April 2008. Americans are letting dealers keep their gas-guzzling pickups and SUVs . ."
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U.S. Factory Orders Rose More Than Forecast in March (Update1)  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=amd5paFpVZBM&pid=20601103
A quote...."May 2 (Bloomberg) -- Orders to U.S. factories rose more than forecast in March, indicating rising demand from overseas may be helping American manufacturers weather a decline in sales at home."
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Job Cuts In April Less Severe Than Feared  ---  http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/business/business-usa-economy.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
A quote...."WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The economy lost jobs for the fourth month in a row in April but at a slower pace than earlier in the year, easing fears that the economy was at a growing risk of slipping into a deep recession."
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U.S. job losses moderate in April - Nonfarm payrolls down 20,000; unemployment rate falls to 5.0%
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/april-us-nonfarm-payrolls-shed/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7BAE16E275%2D93A3%2D4D58%2D8CBE%2D79D7A8A8B15B%7D
Some quotes...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Job losses decelerated in April, suggesting that the nation's economic downturn may be short and shallow rather than long and severe." -- "Factory payrolls fell by 46,000, with the weakness concentrated in the production of durable goods."
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Thursday May 1st 2008 - links page

The collapse of the United States is accelerating: Oil in Euros vs. US dollars  - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=oil_us_dollar_euro
Special Note - A quote...."In the last eight years implementing the plans for the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) designed "to promote American global leadership" has backfired." To accomplish PNAC’s goals, all threats needed to be eliminated. From the onset, the United Sates earmarked two countries as mortal enemies: Venezuela  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=South_America  ---  and Iran.  --- http://www.chycho.com/?q=Iran_Oil_Bourse  ---  With Venezuela, it is well documented that the CIA attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government of Chavez.
 --- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/apr/21/usa.venezuela  ---  And with Iran, the United States continues to use it as a scapegoat for its failures in Iraq.   ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=iran_war  ---  These cold war tactics however are proving to be US’s undoing.
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What an attack on Iran really means: Iran finalizes dumping of US dollar, while US develops new options for attacking Iran
  ---  http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/1693
Special Note - A quote...."On Wednesday 30 April 2008 Iran announced that they had “totally removed U.S. dollars in the country's oil transactions.”  ---  http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/30/content_8083804.htm  ---  For those following the recent developments in the Middle East, this will not come as a surprise. However it should raise your anxiety to levels felt just before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003.
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Feeding Moloch: Last Barriers to War on Iran Come Down  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1498/135/
War Warning - A quote...."Anyone who thinks the Bush Administration does not intend to attack Iran either has rocks in the head or their head in the sand. The warmongers have raised their cacophonous howling of threat and accusation against Iran to entirely new levels. Every day now, some major Administration figure makes fiery charges that Iran is directly, deliberately killing U.S. soldiers in Iraq: a clear casus belli, if it were true, which it almost certainly is not."
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May Day! May Day!  ---  http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/linkframe.php?linkid=58442
A quote...."Will he? Won't he? Yes? No? Oh, my, that Dick Cheney's such a tease. For over two years little fuzzy rumors of Dick's hot desire to kill hundreds of thousands more Muslims - this time in Iran - have been crawling all over the place. CBS says this. NBC says that. Consortiumnews.com and tvnewslies.org and informationclearinghouse.com and rawstory.com and other legitimate (as opposed to Main Stream Media) online news sources try to sort through the lies and smokescreens and feints of this corrupt Bush Crime Family in order to warn us, if necessary, that Dick's going to do it again: He's going to order yet another invasion of yet another country."
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Iran Opens War Avoidance Flank  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8868
A quote...."As threats of military action against Iran continue to issue from various spokesmen of the war party in the U.S., the Islamic Republic has launched an ambitious initiative aimed at preventing war, based on a comprehensive package of economic, political and security measures on a vast regional plane. The package includes proposals to settle remaining questions related to Iran's nuclear energy program, but is not limited to that."
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CIA 'preparing public for Iran war' - posted at CLG  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/#contribute
  ---  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=53925&sectionid=351020101
War Warning - A quote...."The CIA accuses Iran of 'facilitating the killing' of US troops in Iraq in what is seen as another attempt to prepare the public for war."
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Pentagon Expands Propaganda Reach With Foreign "News" Websites  ---  http://infowars.net/articles/may2008/010507Pentagon.htm
Must Read - A quote...."The Pentagon is expanding "Information Operations" on the Internet with purposefully set up foreign news websites that are designed to look like independent media sources but in reality are nothing more than direct military propaganda."
For more on the two articles shown above see....Fake Intel  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206
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Unqualified  ---  http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19854.htm
A quote...."  01/05/08 "ICH " -- - Barack Obama has finally done it.  Obama now claims that statements by Reverend Wright “rightly offend all Americans and should be denounced.” - Well Reverend Wright’s comments don’t offend me.  I would have found them refreshing had his answers and demeanor been less defensive during the question and answer period at the National Press Club.  What I do find disappointing though is Obama’s inability to deal with the issues raised.  He’s afraid that telling the truth will lose him the election.  Maybe it would.  But now we all can see, that for him, winning the election is more important than telling the truth."
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Our Long National Nightmare: Thoughts about Now and 1974  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_andrew_b_080501_our_long_national_ni.htm
A quote...."Back in 1974, Gerald Ford famously began a speech, "Our long national nightmare is over. -  Boy, he had no idea what "long" could be. Try seven and a half years (compared to Watergate's less than two)."
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Dockworkers take May Day off, idling all West Coast ports  ---  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ports2-2008may02,0,474763.story
A quote...."Thousands of dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports took the day off Thursday, effectively shutting down operations at the busy complexes in what the union called a protest of the war in Iraq but employers worried might be a prelude to labor unrest."
Also posted at CommonDreams  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/01/8660/
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The Last Roundup  ---  http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080430182318128
US Coup Alert. - A quote...."For decades the federal government has been developing a highly classified plan that would override the Constitution in the event of a terrorist attack. Is it also compiling a secret enemies list of citizens who could face detention under martial law?"
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Citing Risks, Study Suggests Ways To Ease National Security Handoff
  ---  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/24/AR2008042403624.html
US Coup Alert - Related article - A quote...."The United States is "lurching toward a period of uncertainty and increased risk" in this election year and during the upcoming presidential transition, according to a new Congressional Research Service study that suggests counterterrorism responses that Congress, the Bush administration and its potential successors could take."
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High-Level Officials Warn of Fake Terror  ---  http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/04/high-level-officials-warns-of-fake.html
US Coup Alert - Related article - A quote...."A variety of current and former high-level officials have recently warned that the Bush administration is attempting to instill a dictatorship in America, and will itself carry out a fake terrorist attack in order to obtain one."
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Telecoms and the Bush administration talked about how to keep their surveillance program under wraps.  ---  http://www.newsweek.com/id/134930
A quote...."The Bush administration is refusing to disclose internal e-mails, letters and notes showing contacts with major telecommunications companies over how to persuade Congress to back a controversial surveillance bill, according to recently disclosed court documents."
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Break-ins plague targets of US Attorneys  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Breakins_plague_Justice_Department_whistleblowers_0430.html
A quote...."MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA – In two states where US attorneys are already under fire for serious allegations of political prosecutions, seven people associated with three federal cases have experienced 10 suspicious incidents including break-ins and arson."
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CorpWatch’s Pratap Chatterjee and Ex-Titan Translator Marwan Mawiri on Corporate Cronyism and Intelligence Outsourcing in Iraq
  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/30/corpwatchs_pratap_chatterjee_and_ex_titan
A quote...."CorpWatch Managing Editor Pratap Chatterjee has just returned from Iraq, where he was embedded with the US military and investigating the outsourcing of both military logistics and intelligence gathering. A new CorpWatch report offers a scathing assessment of intelligence contractors L-3 and Titan. We also speak to Marwan Mawiri, who worked in Iraq as a translator with Titan in 2003 and 2004. [includes rush transcript]"
Real Video Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/april/video/dnB20080430a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=44:02
Real Audio Stream  ||  ---  http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2008/april/audio/dn20080430.ra&proto=rtsp&start=44:02
MP3 Download  ||  ---  http://media.switchpod.com/users/democracynow/ftp/dn2008-0430-1.mp3
More…  ||  ---  http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/30/stream
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Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Thursday round-up - 4 articles - [ Day 38 ]  

Sadrists: The delegation is “too Iranian”  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43636&s1=h1
A quote...."Now get this surprise, you probably read the NYT report "Iraq Team to Discuss Militias With Iran",  --- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/world/middleeast/01iraq.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin  ---  which in reality they went to negotiate  --- http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2008/05/01/49190.html  ---  with Muqtada al-Sadr, what happened right now is that the Sadrists condemned this delegation saying it is "too Iranian", Sadrists spokesman al-Obeidi told al-Jevar   ---  http://www.aljevar.com/news.aspx?id=1530  ---  that al-Amiri and al-Adeeb are agents of Iran, al-Adeeb holds an Iranian nationality."
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Iraqi Militants Kill Ministry Spokesman's Nephew, Hang Body From Pole in Baghdad
  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Iraqi_Militants_Kill_Ministry_Spokesmans_Nephew_0430.html
A quote...."BAGHDAD — Militants killed the nephew of the Interior Ministry spokesman and hung his body from an electric pole in Baghdad, the prime minister said Wednesday. - The attack Tuesday was in apparent retaliation for the spokesman's role in a government crackdown against Shiite militias."
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Reading The Pictures: American Bombing Of Sadr City: Like Qana, But Without The Attention?
  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-shaw/reading-the-pictures-emam_b_99547.html
A quote...."Now that the U.S. -- desperate to protect the Green Zone, and avoid a Saigon-style evacuation -- is actively bombing Sadr City, what is the difference between what the Americans are doing , and what the Israelis did in Qana during the '06 Lebanon war?"
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CNN graphic video: Aftermath of US rockets in Sadr City  ---  http://rawstory.com/rawreplay/?p=935
Video - A quote...."Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat. - U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Thursday round-up - [ Day 38 ]
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Good for Carter  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13746
A quote...."Things are going from bad to worse in the Holy Land while the international community does what it does best: twiddling its thumbs. - Israel’s blockade of Gaza brings UN aid to a standstill and ensures no ambulances can run. The UN says it is having to suspend deliveries of food and essential commodities to 860,000 of Gaza’s 1.4 million population due to fuel shortages."
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Video: Gazans struggle to survive under Israeli blockade - 1 May 08  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43631&s1=h1
Video - A quote...."Israel's lockdown on Gaza has virtually stopped the flow of vital supplies, the economy is in tatters and even black market goods are becoming hard to find. - Fuel supplies are in danger of drying up completely forcing Palestinians to resort to desperate measures."
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An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?
Part I   ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13740
Part II  ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13755
Part III   ---  http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=13762
Must Read - A quote from Part II....""These fools do not learn from their past mistakes. When they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody. Had they released them when they left Lebanon, there would not now be a ‘prisoner issue’ between Lebanon and the enemy. They opened the door for us." – Hassan Nasrallah, January 2004, during a welcome home ceremony for Lebanese and Arab detainees as a result of a Hezbollah-Israel swap."
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Hamas backs Egypt's ceasefire plan
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1427&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-01+00%3A21%3A39
Video - A quote...."Thursday May 1st, 2008 - Smaller Palestinian militant groups coming on board, but Israel balks at offer - Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Wednesday that an Egyptian-backed ceasefire plan could bring calm to strife-torn Gaza. As signs mounted that smaller militant groups such as Islamic Jihad were coming into line behind Hamas and the Egyptian-backed truce plan.
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Al-Jazeera cameraman freed from Guantanamo after 6 years  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080502/ap_on_re_mi_ea/guantanamo_journalist_freed
A quote...."KHARTOUM, Sudan - An Al-Jazeera cameraman was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment that drew worldwide protests."
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Taliban retake control of region  ---  http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/05/01/taliban_retake_control_of_region/1423/
A quote...."ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 1 (UPI) -- The Taliban reportedly has regained control of Pakistan's Darra Adamkhel region and resumed its activities despite the presence of security forces."
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Is re-colonising the decaying parts of Africa the solution to its woes?
  ---  http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=39&newsid=122358
A quote...."As Africa’s budding democracies like Kenya emerge from ethnic violence, cynics are entertaining the idea of a new scramble for Africa which would entail re-colonisation and loss of sovereignty." -- For more on this issue see....Africa - the Next Target - 02-28-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/africathenexttarget-blog-mpg-022808
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US judge freezes 16 billion in Argentine sovereign bonds  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13312&formato=HTML
A quote...."A United States judge granted on Wednesday a request by bondholders suing Argentina to extend a freeze on as much as 16 billion US dollars in sovereign bonds issued by the country and which now held by the Depository Trust Co. in New York." -- This is what happens when you do "business" with US banksters. - mpg
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Venezuelan ex-general sentenced in 2003 bombings  ---  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/04/30/international/i121740D38.DTL
A quote...."A dissident former general has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for bombing attacks on Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Venezuela's capital. -- The state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported Wednesday that former National Guard Gen. Felipe Rodriguez was convicted of conspiracy and aggravated burning of property for the 2003 attacks."
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The Price-Wage Squeeze - The Fed Sinks the Dollar  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/hudson05012008.html
A quote...."Against the recommendations of most economists and even the Financial Times of London, the Federal Reserve Board yesterday cut its discount rate by yet another quarter-point, to just 2%. Ostensibly, the intention is to try and spur economic “recovery” – as if a cut in the interest rates would do this. At first glance this seems to reflect the Fed’s ideology that manipulating the interest alone can expand or contract the economy – as if it is like a balloon, with its structure is pre-printed on it, to be inflated or deflated at will to control the level of activity."
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Japanese banks see 14.4 bln dlrs in subprime losses: report  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Japanese_banks_see_14_4_bln_dlrs_in_05012008.html
A quote...."Japanese financial institutions together lost more than 1.5 trillion yen (14.4 billion dollars) in the year to March because of the US subprime mortgage crisis, a report said Friday." -- For more on this issue see....Debt Doesn't Matter When the Rubes Pay 02-29-08 - mpg
  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/debtdoesntmatter-blog-mpg-022908
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Bernanke takes one more gamble  ---  http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE02Dj01.html
A quote...."It was in 1978 that Kenny Rogers, the Dylan Thomas of America's trailer parks, sang the song "The Gambler", with wisdom equally applicable to any poker player looking at his cards or any financial market trader looking at his monitor."
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Mobius Sees Fed Rates at 1%, Dollar Is `Bombed Out' (Update1)  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=amj83lwedS54&refer=germany
Special Note - A quote...."Even with continuing U.S. interest rate cuts, the dollar's slide against other currencies may slow and its ``devaluation'' may end, said Mobius. - ``I think probably everybody has discounted it by now,'' said Mobius. ``So the dollar may stabilize at this level or it may go a little lower.''
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Gulf States May End Dollar Pegs, Kuwait Minister Says (Update4)
  ---  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKafZEdY2xF8&refer=worldwide
A quote...." May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Gulf states are considering dropping their pegs to the dollar after the U.S. currency's decline stoked inflation across the region, Kuwaiti Finance Minister Mustafa al- Shimali said. -- ``Yes, there are some'' Gulf Cooperation Council states considering dropping their pegs to the dollar, which has fallen 13 percent against the euro in the last 12 months, al-Shimali said in an interview in Kuwait late yesterday without naming the countries. ``Some countries will do what we are doing.''
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U.S. initial jobless claims surge 35,000 to 380,000
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/us-initial-jobless-claims-surged/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7BA2546EB8%2DD10D%2D47F9%2D9BEB%2DB8B5BC5300BA%7D
A quote...."The level of average initial claims is consistent with a weak labor market, wrote John Ryding, chief U.S. economist for Bear Stearns. Economists say claims readings running consistently higher than 350,000 signal significant weakening in the labor market. Claims have been hovering near that level, albeit sometimes falling below it, for a few months now, exacerbating jitters about recession in the U.S. economy."
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Layoffs Rise 68 Percent in April  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Layoffs_Rise_68_Percent_in_April_0501.html
A quote...."NEW YORK (May 1) - U.S. companies' planned layoffs jumped 68 percent in April from the prior month to the highest since September 2006, pointing to further deterioration in the labor market, a report showed on Thursday. --
Planned job cuts in U.S. companies totaled 90,015 last month, up from 53,579 in March and up 27 percent from a year earlier, employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. reported.
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U.S. Economy: Manufacturing Shrinks for a Third Month (Update2) - http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aTL0J8gmpx0U&refer=home
A quote...."May 1 (Bloomberg) -- Manufacturing in the U.S. shrank for a third month and rising prices eroded consumers' buying power as the six-year economic expansion ground to a halt."
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Construction outlays fall 1.1% in March - Residential spending plunges 4.6%, biggest drop in 26 years
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/construction-outlays-fall-11-march/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B1D2C3771%2D6326%2D4BE2%2DB64C%2D0C625756B909%7D
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Outlays for construction projects dropped 1.1% in March, led by the biggest drop in residential construction spending in 26 years, the Commerce Department reported Thursday."
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Income gains eroded by inflation in March
  ---  http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/income-gains-eroded-inflation-march/story.aspx?
  ---  guid=%7B2A365B33-49FD-42DD-88EC-C18349BC09FB%7D
A quote...."WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Higher prices took away all the income gains U.S. households received in March, the Commerce Department estimated Thursday."
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For more regarding the articles shown above see....
What Ben Bernanke Said - 03-18-08   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/whatbenbernankesaid-blog-mpg-031808
& Effective Fed Funds Rate 03-24-07   ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/cachedfiles/fedfundschart-photopg-cached-032407
& Standard Disclaimer and the Ten Year Cycle  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/blotterminiblogs/disclaimer-blog-mpg-070207
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Wednesday April 30th 2008 - links page

War and the Morality of Americans  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/potter5.html
Must Read - A quote...."Yet the liberal tradition gradually abolished the idea of caste and special legal privilege. It asserted, more generally, that no group possesses a special license to lord it over others. St. Augustine might have been the first to observe that the moral status of Alexander the Great's conquests was more egregious than the pirate's depredations. The pirate molests the sea, but the emperor molests the world."  -- *Lew Rockwell*
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It's The War, Stupid  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marc-kusnetz/its-the-war-stupid_b_99411.html
A quote...."We learned today of three more U.S. troops killed in Iraq, making April's total 47, the most lethal month for Americans since last September. We are also watching as U.S. troops become more and more involved in military operations within Sadr City, the Shiite stronghold in eastern Baghdad."
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Hillary and the imperial presidency  ---  http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_boaz/2008/04/hillary_and_the_imperial_presi.html
A quote...."In a speech to newspaper editors earlier this month, senator Hillary Clinton denounced the "imperial presidency" of George Bush and promised to pursue a different course if she becomes president. - But that promise is hardly more believable than her claims to have dodged sniper fire in Bosnia."
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JFK Spins From the Grave  ---  http://www.sott.net/articles/show/154903-JFK-Spins-From-the-Grave
A quote...."One of my favorite stories from recent memory is of a particular French pal of mine. He voted for Socialist candidate Segolène Royal in the last election. Of course, he pretended that he actually liked and had voted for now President Sarkozy, simply because that's what he thought everyone else wanted. He didn't want to stand up for his views and beliefs - he wanted to go along with the crowd. Now that Sarko's approval rating is at a whopping 28%, he has revealed his actual vote, no doubt again to go along with the crowd. You see, that is exactly the problem..."
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Reverend Jeremiah Wright National Press Club
Part I  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lV8x_-Uk2c
Part II  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am50KvOWaaw&feature=related
Part III  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BWWx4Q1VFg&feature=related
Part IV  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0fGH86DPag&feature=related
Part V  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YJW0nevW38&feature=related
Part VI  ---  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWejjxWQWfE&feature=related
(YouTube - aprox 10 min each - April 28, 2008 C-SPAN 2)
Must View -  Reverend Jeremiah Wright at the National Press Club - mpg
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Patriotism and race--Obama disowns Wright
  ---  http://www.therealnews.com/web/index.php?thisdataswitch=0&thisid=1423&thisview=item&renewx=2008-05-01+16%3A54%3A43
Related Video - A quote...."Thursday May 1st, 2008 -- The conflict between Obama and Wright represents two opposing views of America - Part one of our latest interview with Prof. Dwight Hopkins, a member of Chicago's Trinity Church. We discuss the church’s reaction to the Obama-Wright controversy and their contending visions of patriotism, race and America's role in the world."
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The Origins of the Bush Regime in Hitler's Third Reich  ---  http://existentialistcowboy.blogspot.com/
A quote...."Germany may have lost the war but the Bush family transplanted Nazi ideology to American soil where it took root and thrived. The history of the rise of the Bush family is a history of how Nazi ideology rose up like a Phoenix in its new 'homeland' --America. It will be tragic if the final triumph of Nazi ideology should prove to have been the stolen election of George W. Bush."
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Distant Echoes of Vietnam - The Day I Lost My Innocence  ---  http://www.counterpunch.org/oconnor04302008.html
A quote...."When I was nineteen I was stationed in a remote Laotian village on the Mekong River. I was an Irish kid from the Bronx, over twelve thousand miles from home. It had been a twenty-two hour plane ride to get, “in country” and another four excruciating hours strapped to a cloth harness in the perimeter of a cargo plane to get to Nakhon Phenom, a town  Bob Hope called, “the armpit of the world.” My first day in town seems surreal now. I remember walking up a dirt road and gaping at a yak being prodded by a toothless woman in a sarong."
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Brian Williams' "response" to the military analyst story  ---  http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/30/williams/index.html
A quote...."It has now been more than ten days   ---  http://home.comcast.net/%7Ed.leedle/news/  ---  since the New York Times exposed the Pentagon's domestic propaganda program involving retired generals and, still, not a single major news network has even mentioned the story to their viewers, let alone responded to the numerous questions surrounding their own behavior. This steadfast blackout occurs despite the fact that the Pentagon propaganda program almost certainly violates   ---  http://www.prwatch.org/node/7261  ---  numerous federal laws;
  ---  http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/04/29/williams/permalink/1b90822583880a1f372367616a539362.html  ---  both Democratic presidential candidates sternly denounced the Pentagon's conduct;
   ---  http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/316086/clinton_obama_finally_slam_pentagon_propaganda_mccain_silent  ---  and Congressional inquiries   ---  http://utdocuments.blogspot.com/2008/04/letters-from-rep-rosa-delauro-to.html  ---  are already underway, all of which forced the Pentagon to announce -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/washington/26analyst.html?ex=1366948800&en=6a36ee3881246be7&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg  ---  that it suspended its program."
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Pentagon Pundit Scandal Broke the Law  ---  http://www.prwatch.org/node/7261
A quote...."The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week's exposé by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."
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Fox News STILL Featuring Pentagon Pundits  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/fox-news-still-featuring_b_98984.html
A quote...."On Sunday, a week after the Times story broke, Fox was still airing -- without disclosure -- exposed pundit Thomas McInerney. Last Wednesday, they aired another pundit, Robert H. Scales. See them for yourself:"
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Shameful Days: Why Won't The Media Pursue the Pentagon Propaganda Scandal?
  ---  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/shameful-days-why-wont-th_b_99496.html
A quote...."The last ten days have been among the most shameful in the history of American journalism. -- On April 20th, the New York Times published its expose of the Bush administration's use of Pentagon-approved, prepped, and financially-enriched "military analysts" to appear on TV to help sell the invasion of Iraq, and then put a positive spin on the occupation -- even as conditions on the ground deteriorated."
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White House Blacklist Breakthrough: Online media team up for free press victory
  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/White_House_Blacklist_Breakthrough_Online_media_0430.html
with Video - A quote...."I thought it was shameful that 10 days after David Barstow's NY Times article about how the establishment media colluded with the Pentagon to sell the war in Iraq and the "war on terror" to the American people by hiring the Pentagon's "message force multipliers" as military analysts, no one had asked the White House about it. - I'd been trying, but I'd been on Dana Perino's 'blacklist' during my last six visits to the briefing room. - Today she again ignored me (I was sitting in the front row) until the very end of the briefing, when she was forced to call on me thanks to the intervention of Les Kinsolving of WorldNetDaily. Les had noticed at previous briefings that I was being singled out, and he thought it wasn't fair. Today he put Dana on the spot."

For more on the five articles shown above see....
Fake Intel - NYT Article  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/weblists/fakeintell-weblist-mpg-090206#NYT_ARTICLE
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Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Wednesday round-up - 6 articles - [ Day 37 ]

Power Surge: Force Protection with Extreme Prejudice  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1496/135/
Must Read - A quote...."Wednesday, 30 April 2008 -- The picture above shows a two-year-old child killed when American forces fired rockets into a heavily populated area of Baghdad's Sadr City. Pentagon spokesmen said the operation was "force protection;" U.S. forces had come under sniper fire from the neighborhood."
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A lose-lose game  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43610&s1=h1
A quote...."May 1, 2008 -- Fierce clashes between the Shia militiamen of Al-Mahdi Army and US and Iraqi forces continued off and on in Baghdad's Sadr City and other southern towns this week, killing and wounding hundreds in the latest effort by Al-Maliki's government to take control over areas dominated by supporters of the maverick Shia leader Moqtada Al-Sadr. The clashes came despite a call by Al-Sadr on Friday for an end to fighting that unfolded following a nationwide crackdown by Iraqi security forces on strongholds of Al-Sadr's powerful militia few weeks ago."
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Wednesday: 5 US Soldiers, 71 Iraqis Killed; 155 Iraqis Wounded  ---  http://www.antiwar.com/updates/?articleid=12762
A quote...."Updated at 7:40 p.m. EDT, April 30, 2008 -- Although more bodies are stacking up in the aftermath of his security crackdown, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki continues to threaten the Mahdi army. At least 71 Iraqis were killed and another 155 were wounded in the latest round of violence. Five American soldiers were killed in separate events.
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Sadr City bloodshed kills 925 Iraqis  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/iraqunrestsadrcity
A quote...."Wed Apr 30, 12:10 PM ET -- BAGHDAD (AFP) - Clashes between Shiite militiamen and security forces have killed more than 900 people in Baghdad's Sadr City, an Iraqi official said on Wednesday, as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki vowed to keep up the offensive."
Also posted at Democratic Underground  ---  http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3290228
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News Photo Results for Sadr City
  ---  http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search;_ylt=A9j8euwnjhhIShAAnB7RtDMD;_ylu=X3o
  ---  DMTA4Mm84YjJyBHNlYwNzb3J0?ei=UTF-8&p=Sadr+City&c=news_photos&datesort=1&fr=
Photos - From Yahoo News - mpg
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About a photo, about Iraq  ---  http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/11369
A quote...."April 29, 2008 - 3:20pm. -- It's just one more photo   ---  http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/11359  ---  of one more dying child in Sadr City. - Sadr City _ the sterotype of a slum that's been a danger to US troops for years. The stronghold of Iraqi cleric Muqtada al Sadr, so much in the news these days."

Cheney's and Maliki's new war in Iraq - Wednesday round-up - [ Day 37 ]
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"Hostile" Iran Sparks U.S. Attack Plan  - posted at CLG  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/#contribute
  ---  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/29/eveningnews/main4056941.shtml
War Warning - A quote...."(CBS) A second American aircraft carrier steamed into the Persian Gulf on Tuesday as the Pentagon ordered military commanders to develop new options for attacking Iran. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that the planning is being driven by what one officer called the "increasingly hostile role" Iran is playing in Iraq - smuggling weapons into Iraq for use against American troops."
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Iran dumps U.S. dollars in oil transactions  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8853
War Warning - A quote...."TEHRAN, April 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran had totally removed U.S. dollars in the country's oil transactions, an Oil Ministry official said on Wednesday. -- "The dollar has completely been removed from our oil trade....Crude oil customers have agreed with us to use other currencies (in the trade)," Oil Ministry official Hojjatollah Ghanimifard was quoted as saying by the state television."
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Time to Warn the U.S. Against War on Iran  ---  http://watchingamerica.com/News/921/time-to-warn-the-us-against-war-on-iran/
Special Note - A quote...."If you Google “US”+”War”+”Iran”+”Reports” you should get over three million hits, articles and reports warning of imminent US attack on Iran, including Iranian nuclear facilities. This is the first time that a nuclear facility will be bombed and there is a strong indication that the US will use depleted uranium tipped bunker busters or even a small megaton nuclear weapon. This will be yet another war by a group of criminals running the Government of the United States."
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Redefining Iran as the Enemy in Iraq - posted at Consortium News  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/041608a.html
  ---  http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/042608a.html
A quote...."According to General David H. Petraeus’s progress report to Congress on Iraq, the latest worst threat to the shaky U.S. position is Iranian-backed “special groups.”
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The Tide is High  ---  http://www.chris-floyd.com/content/view/1497/135/
A quote...."When the murderous absurdity of our times swells to high tide, few are those who can cling fast to the rock and sing songs of scorn against the fools. One such rare singer is Arthur Silber, who here demolishes the New York Times' portentous hand-wringing over Iran's release of photos showing its not-so-top-secret nuclear site, giving the world an intimate look at the supposed furnace of evil wherein the cloven-footed Persians are plotting the destruction of all humankind." -- Just when the NYT was starting to do good. - mpg
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Are these Syrian nuclear pictures faked?  ---  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/may/01/syria.nuclear
A quote...."The CIA published three aerial photographs last week purporting to show a Syrian nuclear reactor, bombed by Israel last September. But are the pictures all that they seem? Doubts about their authenticity have been raised by Professor William Beeman, head of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, who has had a long involvement with the Middle East."
See....SYRIA: More questions about alleged nuclear site  ---  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2008/04/syria-more-ques.html
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The Great Syrian Nuclear Menace  ---  http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis107.html
A quote...."PARIS – Last week, US intelligence released a dramatic video that purportedly showed a Syrian nuclear reactor under construction and North Korean personnel helping in the project. The video and still pictures were evidently taken by Israeli agents."
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US Navy re-establishes fleet for Caribbean, Latin America  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080424/pl_afp/usmilitarynavylatam_080424190103
A quote...." WASHINGTON (AFP) - The US Navy said Thursday it has re-established the US Fourth Fleet to direct an increasing American naval presence in the Caribbean and Latin America. -- The move comes as popularly elected leftist regimes, including that of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, pose a growing challenge to US influence in Latin America." -- The growing Neo-Roman Empire. - mpg
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Israel: Soldiers didn't know they were firing at journalist  ---  http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_mi_ea/israel_palestinians_cameraman
A quote...."Just before his death, Shana was filming an Israeli tank in the distance, and his final footage shows it firing a shell in his direction. - Other cameramen who rushed to the scene said they saw the Reuters vehicle on fire, and Shana's body lying next to it. They said the vehicle was marked as "press" and that the cameraman was wearing a flak jacket also emblazoned with the word "press."
For more on this issue see....Killing a Messenger  ---  http://www.reficultnias.org/mikesfiles/rapsheetarch/mpgrap-041608-042208#MESSENGER
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Pakistan’s new coalition government close to breakup  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/paki-m01.shtml
A quote...."The dynastic leaders of Pakistan’s two principal political parties—Pakistan People’s Party chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Nawaz Sharif, head of the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz)—held crisis negotiations in Dubai yesterday, with the fate of Pakistan’s new “national consensus” coalition government apparently hanging in the balance."
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Iraqi expert accuses West over antiquities trade
  ---  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraqi-expert-accuses-west-over-antiquities-trade-818775.html
A quote...."A senior Iraqi official has accused the West of not doing enough to stop the thriving trade in antiquities smuggled out of the country's depleted archeological sites and sold in auction houses across Britain, America and Europe."
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War Profiteers: The Bush Baghdad Bubble  ---  http://www.uruknet.de/?p=m43606&s1=h1
A quote...."Just as the blind devotion to deregulation of the financial markets can be blamed for much of the current meltdown on Wall Street, the war profiteers have enjoyed a Baghdad Bubble as a result of the Bush administration’s refusal to hold them accountable.Not far from Wall Street, a little-known company called L-3 held their annual meeting today. It was sparsely attended, according to proxy-holding activists who called me to say that the company used a technicality to keep them out."
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Civilians gunned down in Somalia  ---  http://www.gnn.tv/headlines/17388/Civilians_gunned_down_in_Somalia
A quote...."Another massacre in the "war on terror" -- At least 12 civilians have been shot dead by Ethiopian troops in an apparent revenge attack in the town of Baidoa, say eyewitnesses. - Reports say the Ethiopians opened fire indiscriminately in a crowded street. Several other people were wounded. - It followed the deaths of two soldiers who were killed by a roadside bomb. - The Ethiopians intervened in 2006 to help government forces oust Islamists who had taken control of much of southern Somalia."
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Extra Russian troops arrive in Georgian rebel zones: agency  ---  http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Extra_Russian_troops_arrive_in_Geor_05012008.html
A quote...."Extra Russian troops deployed Thursday in the Georgian separatist zone of Abkhazia, despite Georgia's objections, Interfax news agency quoted the Russian Defence Ministry as saying. - The soldiers "are completing their deployment at their positions in the Tkvarcheli district of Abkhazia," Interfax quoted the ministry press office as saying. -
The deployment came as NATO warned Russia Wednesday to stop undermining Georgia's territorial integrity, after Moscow announced it would send more peacekeepers to two rebel Georgian regions." - underline by website editor -- Sort'a just like Kosovo....no?? - mpg
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The Power of Toxic Energy  ---  http://www.prwatch.org/node/7271
A quote...."A recent Wall Street Journal editorial claimed that a landmark environmental liability case against Chevron was being judged by "Ecuador's kangaroo courts."
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Aviation companies blame FBI, CIA and terrorists for 9/11 - posted at CLG  ---  http://www.legitgov.org/#contribute
  ---  http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/30/america/Sept-11-Lawsuits.php
A quote...."In court documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, aviation companies are seeking to force five FBI employees to provide testimony that may help defend against claims the companies share blame in the attacks. -- "The aviation parties anticipate that the FBI witnesses' testimony will demonstrate that the FBI had information before Sept. 11 indicating that al-Qaida may have been about to launch terrorist attacks on civil aviation, which it did not timely pass along to the Federal Aviation Administration," lawyers wrote. -- bold by website editor
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9/11 - From The History File...Verifiable Media Timeline of 9/11
  ---  http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up10pg
Did al-Qaida trainee warn FBI before 9/11?
  ---  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5131524/
FBI says, "No hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
  ---  http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html
Moussaoui Court Documents Show FBI Withheld Evidence in 9/11 Cover-up
  ---  http://www.madcowprod.com/10042006.html
[Sen.] Graham Alleges a 9/11 'Coverup'
  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0512-04.htm
FBI Hides 85 Pentagon Videos And 9/11 Truth
  ---  http://www.rense.com/general69/91185.htm
Another 9/11 Cover-up? Author Disowns Own Documentary
  ---  http://www.roryoconnor.org/blog/2006/09/05/another-911-cover-up-author-disowns-own-documentary/
9/11's Trainer in Terrorism Was an FBI Informant
  ---  http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/9-11.htm
How the FBI protected Al Qaeda’s 9/11 Hijacking Trainer
  ---  http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SCO20061008&articleId=3422
Context of 'January 15, 1993: FBI Informant Connects Plotters to ‘Blind Sheikh’'
  ---  http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a011593wilsonsheikh
Complete 911 Timeline The Phoenix Memo and Related Investigations
  ---  http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&projects_and_programs=phoenixMemo
FBI's 'Phoenix' Memo Unmasked
  ---  http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2002/fortune052202.html
Coleen Rowley's Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller
  ---  http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html
Has FBI promoted 9-11 ball-dropper?
  ---  http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27876
The FBI's Radical Fundamentalist Unit in Washington D.C.
  ---  http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MOO208B.html
Who Is Marion "Spike" Bowman?
  ---  http://www.yourbbsucks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=17135
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The Case of 1,000,000 Missing Votes  ---  http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_greg_pal_080430_the_case_of_1_2c000_2c00.htm
Special Note - A quote...."One million Democrats attempting to vote in this year’s primaries found their names missing from voter rolls. WHERE THE HELL DID THEY GO?"
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Interview With Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman  ---  http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/30/8626/
Interview - with audio - Thom Hartmann interviews Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman -- A quote...."I interviewed former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman for an hour yesterday in the second hour of my radio program on Air America. These are blockbuster allegations of election fraud against Rove and the Bush Justice Department that go way beyond what he said on CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month. Click here   ---  [QT - must listen] for the audio." -- "Thom Hartmann: Joe Wilson, the husband of Valerie Plame, the former US ambassador once issued, once laid out a sentiment that I think many of us share: “At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."Also posted at BuzzFlash   ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/alerts/350
& at-Largely  ---  http://www.atlargely.com/2008/04/thom-hartmann-i.html
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Don Siegelman -- New Travel Restrictions - posted at BuzzFlash  ---  http://www.buzzflash.com/
  ---  http://www.leftinalabama.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=EB2228E1869D27C8C25ED38A85629166?diaryId=1672
Related article - A quote...."Former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman has been out of prison on bond for just about a month.  In that time, he has given interviews to 60 Minutes   ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Siegelman_Karl_Rove_has_accomplished_his_0406.html  ---  on CBS, The Verdict   ---  http://rawstory.com/news/2008/MSNBC_host_interviews_Don_Siegelman__0407.html  ---  on MSNBC, the New York Times,   ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/washington/28cnd-siegelman.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1206756286-qeoxIWsDHKcd9M1CcNqY4A  ---  the House Judiciary Committee, the Tuscaloosa News,  ---  http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20080419/NEWS/79035213/1007  ---  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Ring of Fire   ---  http://writechic.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/rfk-jr-interview-don-siegelman/  ---  and Thom Hartmann's   ---
http://www.620kpoj.com/cc-common/podcast/single_podcast.html?podcast=hartmann_nationwide.xml  ---  radio show.  I probably missed a few, but my point is that Siegelman has been talking, mostly to the national press, about his situation.  If, say, a Washington insider had pulled strings in Alabama to get Siegelman put away, those interviews would be like rubbing salt in the wound of Siegelman's release from prison. What could be done to keep Siegelman away from the press.?"
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Obama repudiates Reverend Wright in bid for support from the political establishment  ---  http://wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/obam-m01.shtml
A quote...."The clash between Senator Barack Obama and his former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, marks another turning point in the protracted contest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Following the media uproar over Wright’s statements at a series of public appearances over the previous four days, Obama clearly calculated that he had to publicly repudiate the minister or face the collapse of his presidential campaign."
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Federal Reserve May Want Inflation  ---  http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=6421
A quote...."We are now importing inflation. This does not only apply to the cost of commodities, such as oil, but also to consumer goods imported from Asia. This is a newer trend as, in our analysis, Asia had been exporting deflation until the summer of 2006; since then, we have seen increased pricing power by Asian exporters."
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US households spending grows the slowest since 2001  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13297&formato=HTML
A quote...."The United States economy expanded at an annual rate of 0.6% in the first quarter of 2008, exceeding analyst expectations of an annualized growth rate of 0.2%."
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Fed cuts rate to 2%; forecasts soft growth in next quarters  ---  http://mercopress.handsoft.com.uy/vernoticia.do?id=13295&formato=HTML
A quote...."The United States Federal Reserve cut on Wednesday its key interest rate 25 points from 2.25% to 2% as it aims to avoid a possible US recession. It is the seventh rate cut since last September, when the rate was cut from 5.25% to 4.75% and in the range of what markets were expecting."
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