Global
Congressman John Conyers, still in the thick of his hearings on the firing of US Attorneys, is preparing a new target for investigation: Vultures.
We're not talking about the feathered birds of prey, but predators with allies in the White House and Swiss bank vaults full of untraceable currency. These speculators buy up the debt of the poorest nations on the planet for pennies on the dollar -- then use legal extortion or less-than-legal bribery to extract payments from these nations - payments equal to five, ten or twenty times what the vultures "invested."
Conyers has personally informed George Bush that he expects the President to join the other G8 leaders to put the vultures out of business. "I'm counting on the President to do the right thing," Conyers told BBC reporter Greg Palast. But if the President doesn't, Bush can expect another set of investigations and hearings on the Administration's inaction and ties to vultures.
We're not talking about the feathered birds of prey, but predators with allies in the White House and Swiss bank vaults full of untraceable currency. These speculators buy up the debt of the poorest nations on the planet for pennies on the dollar -- then use legal extortion or less-than-legal bribery to extract payments from these nations - payments equal to five, ten or twenty times what the vultures "invested."
Conyers has personally informed George Bush that he expects the President to join the other G8 leaders to put the vultures out of business. "I'm counting on the President to do the right thing," Conyers told BBC reporter Greg Palast. But if the President doesn't, Bush can expect another set of investigations and hearings on the Administration's inaction and ties to vultures.
I looked up when Ed pointed to the butte that loomed suddenly in the bend of the mountain road and said, “See. That’s where they should go, right there.”
And for an instant I imagined them towering against the big sky over Los Alamos, N.M.: two white granite “peace obelisks” 30 feet high, signaling to everyone entering or leaving the Atomic City, birthplace of The Bomb and home for 60-plus years of the national weapons lab that bears its name, that a counter-consciousness has staked its claim in the heart of the nuclear weapons industry. Their inscription begins:
“Welcome to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the United States of America, the city of fire. Our fires are brighter than a thousand suns. It was once believed that only God could destroy the world, but scientists working in Los Alamos first harnessed the power of the atom. The power released through fission and fusion gives many men the ability to commence the destruction of all life on earth. . . .”
And for an instant I imagined them towering against the big sky over Los Alamos, N.M.: two white granite “peace obelisks” 30 feet high, signaling to everyone entering or leaving the Atomic City, birthplace of The Bomb and home for 60-plus years of the national weapons lab that bears its name, that a counter-consciousness has staked its claim in the heart of the nuclear weapons industry. Their inscription begins:
“Welcome to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the United States of America, the city of fire. Our fires are brighter than a thousand suns. It was once believed that only God could destroy the world, but scientists working in Los Alamos first harnessed the power of the atom. The power released through fission and fusion gives many men the ability to commence the destruction of all life on earth. . . .”
The only way for Rudolph Giuliani to protect his status as the Republican Party's leading presidential aspirant is to distract his party's primary voters from the long list of issues that divide them from him. So he constantly seeks to balance his moderate record on abortion, homosexual rights, gun control and immigration, which the Republican base abhors, with his authoritarian style and his grim enthusiasm for war, which the base admires.
But the war in Iraq is increasingly unpopular, so lately Giuliani is talking more about supply-side economics -- and about Hillary Rodham Clinton, who irritates Republicans almost as much as taxes. During a campaign visit to California's Silicon Valley on May 30, he resorted to familiar rhetoric in attacking his old rival.
But the war in Iraq is increasingly unpopular, so lately Giuliani is talking more about supply-side economics -- and about Hillary Rodham Clinton, who irritates Republicans almost as much as taxes. During a campaign visit to California's Silicon Valley on May 30, he resorted to familiar rhetoric in attacking his old rival.
Join us in standing with the people of Venezuela and their democratically elected President Hugo Chavez, and condemning Washington's propaganda campaign against the Venezuelan government, carried out with the complicity of the U.S. corporate media. Sign the petition online at:
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International Action Center / Centro de Acción Internacional
Founded by / Fundado por Ramsey Clark
5C - Solidarity Center - 55 West 17th Street - New York, N.Y. 10011
212-633-6646 - fax 212-633-2889
IACenter@action-mail.org; En Español: IAC-CAI@action-mail.org
www.IACenter.org
Petition
International Action Center / Centro de Acción Internacional
Founded by / Fundado por Ramsey Clark
5C - Solidarity Center - 55 West 17th Street - New York, N.Y. 10011
212-633-6646 - fax 212-633-2889
IACenter@action-mail.org; En Español: IAC-CAI@action-mail.org
www.IACenter.org
This week, the House is expected to pass the first-ever bill regulating electronic voting. But will the legislation unleash new election treachery in American elections?
If history is a guide, political machinations will outsmart the latest efforts to bring accountability to America's newest voting machines. Recent books on how American elections have been stolen - from the founding of the country to 2004 - suggest voting machinery may change over time, but sleazy partisan tactics do not: they adapt to the newest way of counting votes. And when grassroots election integrity activists add their experience of wrestling with new electronic voting to this continuum, it seems doubtful that American elections will be cleaned up.
"It is the same game," said Rebecca Mercuri, one of the country's top electronic voting experts and an opponent of the House bill. "They will just now do it electronically. The bill makes it seem like something will be done. It will cause the public to be complacent. That is very scary. People will not be watching. They will not be looking at elections."
If history is a guide, political machinations will outsmart the latest efforts to bring accountability to America's newest voting machines. Recent books on how American elections have been stolen - from the founding of the country to 2004 - suggest voting machinery may change over time, but sleazy partisan tactics do not: they adapt to the newest way of counting votes. And when grassroots election integrity activists add their experience of wrestling with new electronic voting to this continuum, it seems doubtful that American elections will be cleaned up.
"It is the same game," said Rebecca Mercuri, one of the country's top electronic voting experts and an opponent of the House bill. "They will just now do it electronically. The bill makes it seem like something will be done. It will cause the public to be complacent. That is very scary. People will not be watching. They will not be looking at elections."
In March 2006, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter posted an article online proposing that the antiwar movement learn techniques from warriors. Ritter developed the article into the recently released book "Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement." At the same time, Ritter has just posted online a new provocative article urging the impeachment movement to advocate instead for "repudiation." There is some reason to hope that this new article will not come back as a book in 2008.
Whatever Ritter writes about peace and impeachment, he has already done tremendous service through his truth telling about Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction. Ritter spoke up prior to, as well as during, the occupation of Iraq. He and I have spoken on panels together, and I find him a much better speaker than writer. While the peace movement is very far from victory, it has made more progress than Ritter believes, and he himself has been a significant part of that.
Whatever Ritter writes about peace and impeachment, he has already done tremendous service through his truth telling about Iraq's lack of weapons of mass destruction. Ritter spoke up prior to, as well as during, the occupation of Iraq. He and I have spoken on panels together, and I find him a much better speaker than writer. While the peace movement is very far from victory, it has made more progress than Ritter believes, and he himself has been a significant part of that.
Seems simple to me.
Americans ought to speak out FOR legal immigration.
Americans ought to speak out AGAINST illegal immigration.
This is not a racist thing. This is not bigotry.
It is a matter of fairness to those who are legal, who play by the rules.
And it is a matter of being fair to working Americans who find that it is hard to get ahead, often due to a downward pressure on wages and benefits...due to the competition from so many illegal workers.
And it is a matter of protecting our country. We can argue all day long about the war in Iraq. But surely...all of us, those for that war, those against that war, can all agree...that if we are trying to protect our country, then it is silly to go fight over in Iraq while allowing millions of people to wander across our borders. If we want to protect our borders, there is much to be done. Part of it is: no amnesty.
Any kind of amnesty is a way of breeding contempt and disrespect for efforts at protecting and enforcing our borders.
Americans ought to speak out FOR legal immigration.
Americans ought to speak out AGAINST illegal immigration.
This is not a racist thing. This is not bigotry.
It is a matter of fairness to those who are legal, who play by the rules.
And it is a matter of being fair to working Americans who find that it is hard to get ahead, often due to a downward pressure on wages and benefits...due to the competition from so many illegal workers.
And it is a matter of protecting our country. We can argue all day long about the war in Iraq. But surely...all of us, those for that war, those against that war, can all agree...that if we are trying to protect our country, then it is silly to go fight over in Iraq while allowing millions of people to wander across our borders. If we want to protect our borders, there is much to be done. Part of it is: no amnesty.
Any kind of amnesty is a way of breeding contempt and disrespect for efforts at protecting and enforcing our borders.
Dear Mr. President,
From the mind’s prison, I release you – consider your time as served. However, Mr. President, be mindful that your freedom was not earned, nor was it reward for good behavior. Rather, your freedom was granted of my epiphany, after more than six years, that a mind consumed with holding one captive is a mind itself held in captivity.
I, as the jailer, had become as imprisoned as the jailed.
You were taken prisoner when you took the presidency, winning the best out of nine despite the least out of millions. I first considered your release in the days following that bright and terrible blue sky morning in September, when the eloquence of your words and the newfound poise of your presence guided our nation through its grief. Then you misled our grief to war, waged on a people who played no part in our tragedy.
For that despicable deed I condemned you, in the court of my mind, to a life sentence in my mind’s prison, without chance for parole.
I held you in the same manner that you hold your “enemy combatants”, without due process or appeal. Shameful, that, I must now admit.
From the mind’s prison, I release you – consider your time as served. However, Mr. President, be mindful that your freedom was not earned, nor was it reward for good behavior. Rather, your freedom was granted of my epiphany, after more than six years, that a mind consumed with holding one captive is a mind itself held in captivity.
I, as the jailer, had become as imprisoned as the jailed.
You were taken prisoner when you took the presidency, winning the best out of nine despite the least out of millions. I first considered your release in the days following that bright and terrible blue sky morning in September, when the eloquence of your words and the newfound poise of your presence guided our nation through its grief. Then you misled our grief to war, waged on a people who played no part in our tragedy.
For that despicable deed I condemned you, in the court of my mind, to a life sentence in my mind’s prison, without chance for parole.
I held you in the same manner that you hold your “enemy combatants”, without due process or appeal. Shameful, that, I must now admit.
Jonah Goldberg is the living, breathing embodiment of virtually all that is pernicious in the malignant socioeconomic and political structures collectively known as the Americ"an Empire. Yet tragically, this scheming sycophant to the cynical, privileged criminals of the US plutocracy reaches countless millions through myriad corporate media conduits as he weaves his sophistic arguments supporting nearly every morally repulsive aspect of United States foreign policy.
Rising to his position amongst the US mainstream punditry elite through vigorous and shameless self-promotion based on his mother’s involvement in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, young Jonah quickly learned our culture’s ferocious appetite for the sordid, the lurid, and all that validates our collective pathological narcissism euphemistically called the American Dream. To this day, he skillfully crafts malevolent agitprop to convince and reassure us here in the United States that it is our unconditional right to murder, exploit, invade, and oppress as we preserve and advance the "American Way."
Rising to his position amongst the US mainstream punditry elite through vigorous and shameless self-promotion based on his mother’s involvement in the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, young Jonah quickly learned our culture’s ferocious appetite for the sordid, the lurid, and all that validates our collective pathological narcissism euphemistically called the American Dream. To this day, he skillfully crafts malevolent agitprop to convince and reassure us here in the United States that it is our unconditional right to murder, exploit, invade, and oppress as we preserve and advance the "American Way."
This is not a story about a woman who raised four children, sent one off to war, and collapsed one day in a fit of screaming at the news that he was dead.
This is not a piece to describe how that woman tried to stay awake for the next three days so as not to have to scream like that again after waking and then remembering that news. There will be no attempt in this piece to comprehend the maddening indecency of the overgrown frat-boy president who sent her son to kill and die for lies and still had the gall to call her “Mom” and sits day after day-- to this day --as the self-appointed, unrestrained king of the world.
This is not a piece about a woman who exposed her grief and her rawest nerves, who sacrificed a twenty-nine year marriage and time with her remaining children, to a country calloused to the daily loss of life and succeeded in stirring many to their feet, into the streets, and to the tops of their lungs.
This is not a piece to describe how that woman tried to stay awake for the next three days so as not to have to scream like that again after waking and then remembering that news. There will be no attempt in this piece to comprehend the maddening indecency of the overgrown frat-boy president who sent her son to kill and die for lies and still had the gall to call her “Mom” and sits day after day-- to this day --as the self-appointed, unrestrained king of the world.
This is not a piece about a woman who exposed her grief and her rawest nerves, who sacrificed a twenty-nine year marriage and time with her remaining children, to a country calloused to the daily loss of life and succeeded in stirring many to their feet, into the streets, and to the tops of their lungs.