by Peter Dale Scott
January 7, 2009

Paulson's Financial Bailout

It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.

The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.

According to Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) the bailout bill originally called for a cap on executive salaries, but Paulson changed the requirement at the last minute. Welch and other members of Congress were enraged by "news that banks getting taxpayer-funded bailouts are still paying exorbitant salaries, bonuses, and other benefits."¹ In addition, as AP reported in October, "Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock. `There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders,' he said."²

Even more reprehensible is the fact that since the bailouts, Paulson and the Treasury Department have refused to provide details ...

January 8, 2008

This just in from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, IAVA:

This week reports surfaced that KBR, a military-contracting firm, may have knowingly exposed troops to dangerous toxins in Iraq. Today, I am asking you to take a stand with IAVA, and call for accountability.

In April of 2003, members of the Indiana National Guard were protecting KBR employees at a power plant in Southern Iraq. After their service, some of these troops exhibited signs of cancer, tumors and rashes, and new reports indicate that these injuries may be the result of exposure to toxins present at the site.

Incredibly, CBS News has uncovered evidence that KBR may have known about the risks months before it took any action to inform those soldiers.

Dec 15, 2008
by David Chandler
Architects & Engineers for 911 Truth (AE911Truth.org)

In its draft report, released in August 2008, NIST attempted to cover up evidence that WTC7 fell at freefall, but the coverup was transparent. In its final report, released in November 2008, NIST finally acknowledged freefall, but couched it in a bizarre framework that continues to deny its clear significance. Part I [of this video] chronicles NIST's attempted obfuscation and eventual admission of freefall. Part II demonstrates that their replacement theory is based on fabricated evidence and is a continuation of the coverup. Part III will spell out the significance of NIST's admission of freefall.

Click more for videos:

For nearly five years, 911Truth.org has served as your portal to reliable information about 9/11, its precedents and consequences, as an umbrella for hundreds of local truth activism groups, as a catalyst for national campaigns and new 9/11 truth special interest groups, and so much more. We are at a very critical juncture right now, as monthly donation pledges total about $500. We need to raise $15,000 for this first quarter of 2009 if we are to continue to provide these valuable services.

Please take a moment right now to help.

Don Paul is a writer, musician and activist who was among the first to speak out about 9/11 fraud. His books, including "'9/11': Facing Our Fascist State" and "Waking Up From Our Nightmare (with Jim Hoffman)," have inspired many to seek the truth about 9/11 and other critical issues.

A new compilation of Don's writings is called The World is Turning: "9/11," the Movement for Justice, & Reclaiming America for the World. This new book combines two earlier and much-acclaimed Don Paul books with many articles that are new to print and that extend into late 2008. I was honored to be asked to write the introduction. The book should be available soon though Don's website, http://www.wireonfire.com/donpaul/dphome.html

Today, a new essay from Don, entitled "Becoming Our Government, Making the Future Our Own" is available here: http://www.911blogger.com/files/Becoming.pdf. Many thanks to Don for all his courageous and hopeful work.

Inaugurate Yourself!

Starting: San Diego, CA, on January 10
Ending: Washington, DC on January 20

How will the American people set an agenda in Washington that guarantees deep change?

How can we aim high, and demand the impossible?

How can we guarantee Barack Obama will fulfill the hope and promise he has represented?

(And how deep will the change really be, when you’ve put together a centrist cabinet?)

Inaugurate Yourself! will gather fellow rebels and radicals, spiritual people and political instigators, people who want to speak out and support Sander Hicks'' “Three New Imperatives:”

By award-winning investigative journalist Russ Baker

Revelatory new book on Bush family
publishing January 2009

How did Bush happen? How did George W. Bush, of all people, rise to the most powerful position in the world? This simple question sparked a five-year investigative odyssey by Russ Baker. What he found will force us to rethink virtually everything we thought we knew about the Bush family and its role in shaping recent American history.

In FAMILY OF SECRETS, Baker reveals that Bush, the people around him, and his policies are but an extreme, very public manifestation of what his family and its circle have always been about: an interlocking web of covert and overt machinations on behalf of a small cluster of elites-social, financial, industrial, military, intelligence-that enabled the Bush dynasty and propelled George W. Bush to the top.

by Reprehensor
Sunday, January 04, 2009
911Blogger.com

(James Bamford has done another great deed for the public by revealing the extent of the NSA's wiretapping on U.S. soil, and how the NSA sub-contracts the vast majority of its work to Israeli high-tech firms bristling with "former" Israeli military intelligence agents, and in the case of Verint, a company with serious corruption issues. It was Bamford who popularized the existence of Operation Northwoods in his 2001 book, Body of Secrets. In The Shadow Factory, he sheds light in the secret rooms of Verizon and AT&T, and shows the NSA to be a very poor custodian of the nation's security.)

Bamford Brings the Goods

On October 14, 2008, James Bamford talked about some of the shocking research in his new book on Democracy Now!, with Amy Goodman ...

by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
Huffingtonpost.com
January 2, 2009

For eighteen months the entire 1.5 million people of Gaza experienced a punishing blockade imposed by Israel, and a variety of traumatizing challenges to the normalcy of daily life. A flicker of hope emerged some six months ago when an Egyptian arranged truce produced an effective ceasefire that cut Israeli casualties to zero despite the cross-border periodic firing of homemade rockets that fell harmlessly on nearby Israeli territory, and undoubtedly caused anxiety in the border town of Sderot. During the ceasefire the Hamas leadership in Gaza repeatedly offered to extend the truce, even proposing a ten-year period and claimed a receptivity to a political solution based on acceptance of Israel's 1967 borders. Israel ignored these diplomatic initiatives, and failed to carry out its side of the ceasefire agreement that involved some easing of the blockade that had been restricting the entry to Gaza of food, medicine, and fuel to a trickle.

Israel also refused exit permits to students with foreign fellowship awards and to Gazan journalists and respected NGO representatives. At the same time, it made it increasingly difficult for journalists to enter, and I was myself expelled from Israel a couple of weeks ago when I tried to enter to carry out my UN job of monitoring respect for human rights in occupied Palestine, that is, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as Gaza. Clearly, prior to the current crisis, Israel used its authority to prevent credible observers from giving accurate and truthful accounts of the dire humanitarian situation that had been already documented as producing severe declines in the physical condition and mental health of the Gazan population, especially noting malnutrition among children and the absence of treatment facilities for those suffering from a variety of diseases. The Israeli attacks were directed against a society already in grave condition after a blockade maintained during the prior 18 months.

Elizabeth Woodworth
December 30, 2008

In a companion essay (reprinted below), I discussed the response of some articles in the mainstream press to the claim, made by some defenders of Israel, that Professor Richard Falk should be removed from his current position of UN rapporteur on human rights abuses in the Palestinian Territories -- a claim that was reflected in the refusal of Israel on December 14, 2008, to allow him to enter the country. I included in this essay a discussion of an article by reporter Joel Brinkley because, although it was published before Israel's action against Falk¹, it could be read as a defense of that action. Brinkley, who had previously worked for the New York Times, argued that Falk did not have the right "frame of mind" for his UN position. In the present essay, I will focus on Brinkley's argument for this charge, suggesting that it shows that he does not have the right frame of mind for his own current position as visiting professor of journalism at Stanford University.

Brinkley's Discussion of 9/11

Brinkley's charge that Falk is unfit for his UN role is quite remarkable, given Falk's stature. He is Professor Emeritus of International Law and Practice at Princeton University and currently Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has had published (as author or editor) over 60 books by academic and other mainstream presses. He is also widely respected and sought after as a speaker and conference participant.

Articles follow:
US gives Israel free reign on whether to invade Gaza
AFP, Friday January 2, 2009

Electronic Intifada: The Electronic Intifada (EI), found at electronicIntifada.net, publishes news, commentary, analysis, and reference materials about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict from a Palestinian perspective. ...

December 29, 2008
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com

Neocon John Bolton claims that "in 100 years," people won't remember two of the biggest stains on Bush's record, Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib:

"In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, he was strong and decisive and that was critical for both the country and for the Western world," believes John Bolton. "In 100 years people aren't going to remember Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib, they're going to remember 9/11 and Bush's reaction to it."

Is he right?

No.

60 years after Hitler, the exact thing which we most remember are his concentration camps.

Do we remember the false threats he drummed up to scare his people? The fake threat from Poland, for example, which is the exact parallel to the Neocon's fake "war on terror"?

Via my Newshoggers colleague Anderson comes this:

By a vote of 180 in favour to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee also approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the Assembly would “consider it intolerable” that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world’s present population. (See Annex III.)

The Bush administration, speaking for the U.S.A., therefore must consider it tolerable that 6 million children die every day - children who could be fed if we weren't wasting billions on stealth fighters, littoral combat boondoggles and non-effective defense against non-existant ballistic missiles from Iran.

(Larnaca, Cyprus, 10:00 am) On Tuesday, December 30, at 5 a.m., several Israeli gunboats intercepted the Dignity as she was heading on a mission of mercy to Gaza. One gunboat rammed into the boat on the port bow side, heavily damaging her. The reports from the passengers and journalists on board is that she is taking on water and appears to have engine problems. When attacked, the Dignity was clearly in international waters, 90 miles off the coast of Gaza.

The gunboats also fired their machine guns into the water in an attempt to stop the mercy ship from getting to Gaza.

As the boat limps toward Lebanon, passengers have been in contact with the Lebanese government who have said the captain has permission to dock and are willing lend assistance if needed. Cyprus sea rescue has also been in touch, and has offered assistance as well. The Dignity clearly flies the flag of Gibraltar, is piloted by an English captain and has a passenger manifest that includes Representative Cynthia McKinney from the U.S. The attack was filmed by the journalists, and the crew and passengers will report on Israel's crime at sea once they arrive in Lebanon. (emphasis added)

On board the boat are doctors traveling to this impoverished slice of the Mediterranean to provide badly-needed relief at the hospitals there. The crew and passengers were also hoping to take wounded out for treatment, since the hospitals are not coping. In addition, the Dignity was carrying 3 tons of medical supplies at the request of the doctors in Gaza.