U.S. terror Laos

BANGKOK, Thailand -- After a U.S. Justice Department undercover agent displayed a Stinger air-to-surface missile in a bugged Hilton Hotel room in Sacramento, California, paranoia began to spread.

A mysterious woman named Lisa -- "last name unknown" -- was allegedly tasked to find out who the man with the Stinger really was, and if a gang of desperate Americans in California, and ethnic Hmong from Laos, was about to be busted.

The furtive Americans and Hmong allegedly boasted that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency "was standing by and ready to roll" to ensure success for their clumsy coup attempt in Laos.

They didn't realize their California restaurant meetings, anxious telephone conversations, and hurried chats in urban parking lots would appear in a 90-page affidavit on June 4 by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Weapons and ammunition, bought for 100,000 U.S. dollars, were to be smuggled into Bangkok next Tuesday (June 12), followed by delivery of at least two Stinger missiles designed to shoot down aircraft, the ATF affidavit said.

Action Alert—Support efforts to protect Ohio public lands from corporate abuse

There's still time to contact your state representatives. The Buckeye Forest Council (BFC) applauds Representative Mike Foley (D-Cleveland) for addressing the abuses of clear-cutting along utility easements through public property. The BFC helped shape a proposal with Representative Foley that would give Ohioans the opportunity to formally voice concerns over clear-cutting and pipeline maintenance activities occurring on state lands. We need your help right away to build support for this effort.

Representative Foley’s memo calling for co-sponsors announces: “I will soon be introducing legislation that will require the Director of Natural Resources to hold a public hearing before entering into a lease or granting an easement for any of specified purposes or allowing clear-cutting of trees on lands owned, controlled, maintained, or administered by the Department of Natural Resources.

Shhh

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Conyers challenges Bush for G8 action on vultures, Palast reports from London on BBC Newsnight

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.

The conscience of Los Alamos

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. . . .”

Reaganite Rudy's bad memory

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.

Stop the U.S. destabilization campaign against Venezuela!

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:
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

Will electronic voting reform create new ways to steal elections?

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."

Ritter's repudiation ritual

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.

Speak FOR legal immigration. Speak AGAINST illegal immigration.

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.

Any form of amnesty sends a big big signal to millions of aliens that

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