January 2 & 9, 2006
Whole Body Health
January 16, 2006
January 23, 2006
January 30, 2006
Nearly 2 million veterans or their widows are missing out on up to $22 million in pensions from the U.S. government, and the Department of Veterans Affairs has had only limited success in locating them, leaving millions of federal dollars unclaimed.
Widows are the hardest hit. The VA estimates that only one in seven surviving widows who likely qualify for a pension actually get the monthly checks. And participation in the program is declining, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of VA records.
The reason for the low participation, a VA study found, is that poor veterans generally "are completely unaware that the program exists." And the government certainly is not locating and informing them about it.
"Veterans simply don't know about it," said Despina Hatton, who runs a senior law program for residents of Washoe County, Nev., that helps veterans or their widows obtain the benefit.
Rose Davidson, 72, is the widow of a World War II sailor who lives in Sparks, Nev., on $9,732 a year in Social Security benefits. She is frail, legally blind, suffers from dementia and is in need of regular assistance at home. She could be eligible for $1,608 more a year under the VA's formula - an income boost of 17 percent.
But her daughter said neither she nor her mother had ever heard of the VA pension. "I didn't have a clue," Linda Doty, Mrs. Davidson's daughter, told Knight Ridder. "And at one time, when her thoughts were altogether, my mom was pretty good at learning all the options that might be open to her. When you make so little, $100 a month is a lot of money."
Those vets and widows who believe they may be eligible for the pension can contact the Veterans Administration toll free at (800) 827-1000.
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
James P. Tucker Jr.,
an AFP correspondent, is a veteran journalist who spent many years
as a member of the "elite" media in Washington. since1975
he has won widespread recognition here and abroad, for his pursuit
of the on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global
power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission.
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A Michigan congressman introduced a strongly worded resolution (H. Res. 636) on dec. 18, calling on Congress to censure the president and vice president for lying to the American people and for abuse of power.
The resolution, sponsored by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich), came after he produced a 250-page report, providing evidence of White House wrongdoings. The document, entitled "The Constitution in Crisis," cites substantial evidence for many violations of federal law by top administration officials, including the president and vice president.
"I have introduced a resolution creating a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush administration with regard to the Iraq war and report on possible impeachable offenses, as well as resolutions proposing both President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be censured by Congress based on the uncontroverted evidence of their abuse of power," said Conyers in a statement released in late December.
Conyers called on congressmen to take action when they return after the Christmas break.
Conyers also blasted the administration for its "arrogance, hubris and wrong-headedness," highlighting the dangers of one-party rule and a lack of checks and balances on the executive branch "It is important that we as a nation say ‘never again' to going to war under false pretenses and to covering up official wrongdoing," said Conyers, who has been a strong advocate for getting to the bottom of allegations that President bush doctored intelligence reports to justify the illegal invasion of Iraq.
In the lengthy report submitted to Congress and being distributed widely across the United States for citizens' signatures, Conyers said he took his drastic action to "save the country." He said he did this after bush arrogantly refused to respond to a letter submitted in July by 122 members of Congress and more than 500,000 Americans, asking him whether information in the infamous Downing Street memo, alleging that the White House doctored intelligence, was accurate.
Since Bush failed to acknowledge the letter, Conyer's staff prepared the resolution. In the executive summary of the document, which calls on Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings, Conyers wrote:
There is a prima facie case that these actions by the president, vice president and other members of the Bush administration violated a number of federal laws, including committing a fraud against the United States; making false statements to Congress; violation the War Powers Resolution; misuse of government funds; violating federal laws concerning retaliating against witnesses and other individuals and violation federal laws concerning leaking and other misuse of intelligence.
While the resolution raises charges meriting Bush's impeachment, it asks that special investigative powers be established by legislation since the Republican-controlled legislative and executive branches have blocked a fair and honest search for the truth, using their power to protect an out-of-control president and vice president.
"As a result, we recommend that Congress establish a select committee with subpoena authority to investigate the misconduct of the Bush administration with regard to the Iraq war and report to the Committee on the Judiciary on possible impeachable offenses." said Conyers.
Greg Szymanski
is a freelance investigative journalist and feature writer based
in Ventura, California. A law school graduate from Glendale University
College of Law, he also specializes in constitutional issues and
judicial injustice. Visit Szymanski's news web site at arcticbeacon.citymaker.com. Szymanski has
also assembled a report on 911 which includes information not
yet published in American Free Press. AFP hopes to publish the
report in the near future and make it available to all AFP readers.
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As Iraq voted on Dec. 15, an Iraqi woman speaking to a mainstream reporter praised the fact that Iraqi elections were now like American elections. Her comparison was more apt than she realized.
Despite the fact that all of the votes were hand-counted in the polling stations on Dec. 15, the electoral commission said it would take several weeks to tally the results. The delay results from the fact that local tally sheets were sent to the "national tally room" in the U.S. controlled Green Zone in Baghdad. Critics have charged that it is clearly not the counting of the votes that will take weeks, but the manipulation of the results to shape a government that will be amenable to the occupying power and its agenda in the region.
Occupied Iraq has held three elections in the past year, and while pundits in the controlled media have lavished praise on the "growth of democracy" in Iraq, American Free Press has critically examined the electoral process and revealed how the polling in Iraq is fundamentally flawed and lacking in transparency in precisely the same way as elections in the United States.
It is built into the electoral system which has been imposed on Iraq by the Anglo-American occupiers and the internationalist organizations that work hand-in-hand with them.
Elections in Iraq and the United states are both stolen through insider manipulation of the results that are processed through a central computer system. In Iraq, the results from each polling station are kept secret until they are manually entered into 80 computers in the Green Zone. In the United States, most electronic voting machines are directly linked to a central computer that processes the data automatically.
American Free Press sent numerous written requests to the media department of the IECI asking if the local results would be posted or published, and if not, why not. No answer was forthcoming, although Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations told AFP in February 2005 that the local results would not be posted.
Asked why this fundamental step in transparent elections was being avoided, Haq said he did not have the answer to that question.
Christopher Bollyn is
a much-travled international journalist currently based in Chicago,
serving as AFP's Midwest bureau chief. He has written extensively
on a wide variety of subjects including computerized vote fraud,
the Arab-Israeli conflict and 9-11.
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Recent revelations that the National Security Agency has conducted broad surveillance of American citizens' emails and phone calls raise serious questions about the proper role of government in a free society. This is an important and healthy debate, one that too often goes ignored by Congress.
Public concerns about the misnamed Patriot Act are having an impact, as the Senate refused to reauthorize the bill for several years. Instead congress will be back in Washington in January to consider many of the act's most harmful provisions.
Of course most governments, including our own, cannot resist the temptation to spy on their citizens when it suits government purposes. But America is supposed to be different. We have a mechanism called the Constitution that is supposed to place limits on the power of the federal government.
Why does the Constitution have an enumerated powers clause, if the government can do things wildly beyond those powers - such as establish a domestic spying program? Why have a Fourth Amendment, if it does not prohibit government from eavesdropping on phone call without telling anyone?
We're told that Sept. 11 changed everything, that new government powers like the Patriot Act are necessary to thwart terrorism. But these are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media.
This is a nation that expelled the British, saw the White House burned in 1814, fought two world wars, and faced down the Soviet Union. Sept. 11 does not justify ignoring the constitution by creating broad new federal police powers. The rule of law is worthless if we ignore it whenever crises occur.
The Administration assures us that domestic surveillance is done to protect us. But the crucial point is this: Government assurances are not good enough in a free society. The overwhelming burden must always be placed on government to justify any new encroachment on our liberty.
Now that the emotions of Sept. 11 have cooled, the American people are less willing to blindly accept terrorism as an excuse for expanding federal surveillance powers. Conservatives who support the Bush administration should remember that powers we give government today will not go away when future administrations take office.
In late December, some senators complained that the Patriot Act is misunderstood. But it's not the American public's fault nobody knows exactly what the Patriot Act does. The act contains over 500 pages of detailed legalese, the full text of which was neither read nor made available to Congress in a reasonable time before it was voted on - which by itself should have convinced members to vote against it.
Many of the surveillance powers authorized in the act are not clearly defined and have not yet been tested. When they are tested, court challenges are sure to follow.
It is precisely because we cannot predict how the Patriot Act will be interpreted and used in future decades that we should question it today.
Ron Paul, a medical
doctor, is a Republican member of the U.S. congress who represents
the 14th district of Texas. Often called "Dr. No" because
he bucks his party establishment, refusing to support policies
contrary to traditional constitutional principles. Paul was the
Libertarian Party presidential candidate in 1984. Call his office
toll free at: 1-888-322-1414 or visit his website at www.ronpaul.org.
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If I said you could have great-looking skin by eating skin
cream, you'd think I was crazy. However, that's exactly what dentists
are telling you when they say people should ingest fluoride in
order to improve the health of their teeth.
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Warning Poison "A family-sized tube of fluoride toothpaste contains enough fluoride to kill a small child." __Proctor & Gamble, the makers of Crest |
Fluoride is a topical treatment. When natural mineral fluoride is placed onto the surface of your tooth enamel, it helps remineralize that enamel, thus improving your resistance to cavities. But to swallow fluoride in order to treat your teeth is a lot like swallowing hair coloring chemicals to change the color of your hair. If you're going to treat the area with the topical treatment, you're not supposed to swallow it. You're supposed to put it in contact with the surface needing treatment. |
With the fluoridation argument, a few people in authority want to force every single citizen of this country to be medicated on a psychoactive, biologically active substance without having any medical diagnosis with no public warnings of side effects, and with no real studies to back up its efficacy.
But that's just the beginning of this story.
To make matters even worse, it's not that municipalities are actually adding genuine fluoride into the water supplies - they're largely using fluorosilicic acid, which is a toxic waste product produced in the smokestacks of various industrial chemical producers. If they weren't selling this substance to cities, they would have to pay a lot of money to have it handled as an environmental hazard and buried in EPA-approved landfills.
It is illegal to take this fluorosilicic acid and bury it in the ground or dump it in rivers or streams in this country. However, it is perfectly legal to sell it to cities that drip it into the water supply with the intended purpose of it being ingested by human beings. And those human beings, of course, eventually pass the fluoride through their bodies and directly into the rivers and streams.
Thus, it brings us to this bizarre reality of fluoridation: this environmentally hazardous, toxic substance is illegal to dump into rivers and streams unless it passes through the bodies of human beings firs, in which case it's not only perfectly legal, it's actually demanded by ADA dentists. That's a pretty bizarre situation.
Of course, these are the same people who are still putting mercury into people's mouths, so what did you expect?
I'll hand it to the dentistry community on this one: they sure have come up with a creative way to get rid of toxic waste chemicals without using landfills - just sell ‘em to cities and call it a "public health policy." Brilliant marketing.
If we used tha ADA approach of eating everything that's supposed to be a topical treatment, then we could revolutionize the cosmetic industry. Women could eat lipstick to make their lips turn red. People could eat deodorant to stop body odor. And we could just eat shampoo instead of actually washing our hair.
Let's take a different tack and follow the line of thinking of the ADA - let's mass medicate the entire population with lots of other drugs. Why stop at fluoride? Why don't we drip antidepressants into the water supply? That way we can have more people committing violent acts and suicide, which are documented side effects of antidepressants.
Why don't we drip statin drugs into the water supply so that we can lower the HDL Cholesterol of every citizen in this country? Believe it or not, that has actually been suggested by some doctors.
They believe wh should mass medicate the entire population with a number of biochemically active drugs, with or without their consent. Fluoride could be just the beginning. The public waterways could be a genuine chemical cocktail - that is, if they weren't already.
All this demonstrates how arrogant and ignorant organized dentistry is today. These prople want to force drugs into the bodies of people, and they want to do it through a system of subterfuge that drups these drugs slowly into the water supply. That way people ate taking these drugs whether they know it or not, and they don't even need a prescription.
Finally, given that drinking fluorosilicic acid helps industrial
companies get rid of a toxic waste product, shouldn't you get
paid for helping them dispose of this EPA-regulated substance"
If you're going to feed poison to the American public, at least
offer to pay them something for it. Right now, cities are bing
charged for this stuff. Frankly, industrial companies should be
paying cities for their help in getting rid of it. Then those
cities should turn around a pay the citizens for being willing
to swallow it.
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In a recent eight-to-one vote, an FDA panel recommended approval of the diabetes drug Pargluva, despite concerns that it could cause potentially serious heart problems. Astoundingly, the decision was made without the help of a cardiologist, since the panel's lone heart expert declined to participate due to a potential conflict of interest.
The vote marked the second time a one-week period that questions arose over conflicts of interest at the FDA. Prior to the advisory panel's recommendation on the Bristol-Meyers Squibb drug Pargluva, a separate panel, with some of the same members as the Pargluva panel, voted to approve Exubera, an inhaled form of insulin made by Phizer in partnership with Snaofi-Aventis and Nektar Therapeutics.
Following the Exbera recommendation, an analysis by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) showed three of the panel's nine voting members had previously conducted with or spoken for Pfizer or Nektar Therapeutics, and the panel chairman - although he voted against approval of the drug - held stock in Pfizer.
Some of these same members participated in the panel that approved Parguva and despite their vested interest in the drug industry, One of the panel members was given a waiver that allowed him to vote on Pargluva. Two other panel members were granted waivers to vote on both Exubera and Pargluva, according to the CSPI analysis.
In addition to those who received waivers, another member of the Pargluva advisory panel declined to participate because of a potential conflict of interest.
Dr. Jorge Plutzky, the Pargluva advisory panel's sole cardiologist, opted out of the approval process because he had conducted extensive research on PPAR-agonists, the type of drug subject to approval.
However, while Dr. Plutzky may have removed himself to avoid problems with conflict of interest, the fact that a conflict of interest existed in the first place posed problems, since his absence meant the panel lacked the expertise of a heart doctor. This is particularly troubling since the main argument against Pargluva is that it might double the risk of Cardiovascular disease in diabetics.
An Oct. 20 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, by Drs. Steven E. Nissen, Kathy Wolski and Eric J. Topol, points to the significant cardiovascular risks posed by Pargluva. After reviewing the same briefing documents presented to the advisory panel, the article's authors concluded that the drug more than doubled the risk of potentially fatal heart attacks. Some 2.11 percent of diabetic patients taking Pargluva experience cardiovascular problems like congestive heart failure, stroke, heart attack and death, compared to 0.81 percent of patients taking a placebo. The nature of these risks make the absence of a cardiologist in the drug's approval process a significant concern.
In the wake of these and other FDA decisions that have brought conflicts of interest to light, the fiscal year 2006 Agriculture/FDA appropriations bill will allow for advanced public notice when a scientist with a conflict of interest is to serve on an advisory panel.
According to an Oct. 27 DSPI press release, the bill will require the public be given 15 days notice when the FDA wants to put an individual with a potential conflict of interest on one of its 30 advisory panels. Waivers granted to scientists, along with their potential conflicts, must be published for public viewing. These items had been kept secret from the public for years.
Although the CPSI hails the provisions of this new bill as a "step in the right direction," it also recognizes that it is not enough. While public disclosure gives the public the power to evaluate FDA activity more carefully, many argue that what the FDA needs is a group of scientists free from all conflicts of interest.
The CSPI continues to push for this, saying in the press release, "CSPI believes the FDA can find qualified scientists without conflicts of interest to serve on all of its advisory panels. That's why the waivers should be disallowed entirely. At the least, the present disclosure bill could have been made stronger by forbidding scientists with waived conflicts of interest from voting at the conclusion of a committee's deliberations."
After the Vioxx scandal left so many individuals questioning the legitimacy of the FDA's drug approval procedure, it is clear that the FDA has a long way to go in smoothing out this process. When advisory panels are tainted with conflicts of interest, it becomes difficult to trust the decisions these panels make, and this has major implications for public health.
The bottom line is there should be a divide between the individuals approving drugs and the companies making those drugs. Individuals with financial ties to the drug industry should not be approving drugs for public use.
It should be important to all of us that the taxpayer funded
FDA find honest, independent scientists and researchers who work
for the public, not the pharmaceutical industry.
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It is time to recognize that Americans can no longer afford the escalation costs and inefficiencies of the medical care system. But there is hope. Important legislation, titled the Access to Medical Treatment Act (H.R. 1792), which was introduced in the first session of the 109th Congress, could change all that if legislators would only take action and pass it.
The bill, which was introduced by Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) And has 10 sponsors, states, in part:
"An individual shall have the right to be treated by a health care practitioner with any medial treatment (including a medical treatment that is not approved, certifies, or licensed by the secretary) that such individual desires, or that the legal representative of such individual authorizes...."
The stipulations for treatment are fairly simple. The patient must be made aware of the contents of the treatment and, if the treatment has not been approved by the FDA, the patient must be informed.
In addition, the Health Freedom Protection Act (H.R. 4282), is a big step forward to your health freedom, and deserves the support of all Americans.
It is co-sponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Dan Burton (R-Ind.), Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Rob Bishop (R-Utah), Hohn J. Duncan (R-Tenn.), Roscoe Barlett (R-Md.), Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), butch Otter (R-Idaho) and Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.).
If enacted, H.R. 4282 would:
amend the drug and health claim provisions of the Food, Drug and cosmetic Act to permit truthful disease treatment claims for foods and dietary supplements.
* Require the FDA to permit health claims to be made unless
FDA proves there to be no scientific evidence to support the claims
and no misleading disclaimers;
* Require FDA to consider studies of the treatment effect of nutrients
in evaluation of nutrient-disease prevention claims.
* Reverse the FDA's denial or restriction of the following beneficial
nutrient associations preventing and reversing certain diseases,
such as: saw palmetto treating benign prostatic hyperplasia; omega-3
fatty acids and coronary heart disease, omega-3 fatty acids and
sudden death heart attacks; glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate
treating osteoarthritis; and calcium reducing the risk of bone
fractures.
UNHEALTHY TREND
Medical cost are adversely affecting businesses and their ability to provide jobs. Some people have to choose between buying food and buying prescribed medications. Additionally, Medicare and Medicaid programs have big problems. At the same time medial care is reported to have deteriorated to third world levels in some areas of the country.
Many advancements in medical science have been achieved, which promised to benefit patients at reduced cost. Invariably their developers have been given a hard time. Some of them have been forced to leave the country.
The biggest impediment to the introduction of non-conventional medical science has been the medical establishment which, in effect, is a monopoly. It has been very effective, for many years standing in the way of freedom of choice of both enterprising physicians and patients.
Since 1996 the Access to Medical Treatment Act has been introduced and has died - probably because powerful interests who supply large sums of money for reelection campaigns were opposed.
But it is votes which ensure reelection. If enough voters get together and make their desires known, their "servants" in Washington will pay attention. Voters have a lot of power, but it is useless unless properly employed.
So write, email, fax or telephone elected officials and make
sure to mention that you want to know how the vote on this bill.
Encourage your friends and family to do the same.
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A recent study of newborn babies in the United States found startlingly high levels of chemicals in blood taken from their umbilical cords, indication that developing babies while still in utero, gestate in a toxic soup that can result in birth defects, childhood cancers and other developmental disorders.
A team of scientists with the Washington-based Environmental Working Group (EWG) found high levels of mercury and other pollutants typically found in gasoline, bleach and other common items, all of which have been linked to cancer and birth defects.
The researchers note: "This study represents the first reported cord blood tests for 261 of the targeted chemicals and the first reported detections in cord blood for 2 09 compounds. Among them are eight perfluorochemicals used as stain and oil repellants in fast food packaging, clothes and textiles - including the Teflon chemical PFOA, recently characterized as a likely human carcinogen by the EPA's Science Advisory Board - dozens of widely used brominated flame retardants and their toxic by products; and numerous pesticides."
According to the World Socialist Web Site, a news and commentary Internet site, which looked in depth at the study: "Of the more than 400 chemicals tested for, 287 were detected in umbilical cord blood. Of these, 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain or nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animals."
For years, doctors have related their concerns to mothers about the effect large amounts of alcohol can have on developing fetuses. Also, many researchers have schooled Mothers who are breast-feeding babies about the likelihood of passing toxins on to their babies.
This new study, however, should concern all mothers and fathers as it demonstrates that the mother's biological processes do not shield the baby from toxins.
This authors of the study write:
Not long ago scientists thought that the placenta shielded cord blood - and the developing baby - from most chemicals and pollutants in the environment. But now we know that at this critical time when organs, vessels, membranes and systems are knit together from single cells to finished form in a span of weeks, the umbilical cord carries not only the building blocks of life, but also a steady stream of industrial chemicals, pollutants and pesticides that cross the placenta as readily as residues from cigarettes and alcohol. This is the Human "body burden" - the pollution in people that permeates everyone in the world, including babies in the womb.
The study notes that developing babies are especially susceptible to toxins for a number of reasons, namely:
* Rapid development and incomplete defense systems make them vulnerable;
* A developing infant's exposure is greater pound-for-pound than for that of an adult;
* An immature and porous blood-brain barrier allows chemicals to travel to the developing infant's brain more easily than an adult's, and
An infant's system of detoxification is not fully developed so toxins are more readily stored in fat, tissue and organs.The researchers conclude that "fetal exposure to industrial chemicals is contributing to adverse health effects in the human population. This is cause for concern."
EWG provides suggestions for ramping up government testing and enforcement of laws regarding polluters.
However, a better suggestion for parents would be to take control over their food supply by seeking out local family farms from which to purchase their meats and produce and by buying organic food where it is available. Also, consult with wholistic physicians for information about herbs and supplements to take while pregnant which can help to detoxify you and your baby.
It may cost you a little more money to take extra care of yourself and your baby as health insurance rarely covers alternative treatments. But isn't your health and the health of your child worth it?
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| Mercury (Hg) Linked to cancer | Common PCB contaminant Cause liver and kidney damage. |
| Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) Linked to cancer, birth defects, etc. | Organochlorine pesticides (Ocs) Cause cancer, reproductive effects. |
| Polychorinated napthalenes (PCNs) Formed during chlorination of drinking water. | Polybrominated dibenzodioxins Toxic to developing endocrine (hormone) system. |
| Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) Adversely affects brain development and the thyroid. | Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) Cause cancer and nervous system problems. |
Civilian control over the military is a long established democratic tradition in our country. It was the military that was believed by our Founding Fathers to be susceptible to plunging our country into foreign adventure. Presently, however, the boondoggles, crimes and recklessness of draft-dodging George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and former Air Force pilot Donald Rumsfeld, together with their draft-dodging neo-con associates, have turned this expectation upside down. The civilians are now the warmongers.
Probably the least told story of the Iraq war-quagmire is the extent to which the Pentagon military, especially the U.S. Army brass, disagrees with and despises these civilian superiors.
Rumsfeld, one of the most disliked of the secretaries of defense, has spent much energy making sure that high-level dissent in the military is muzzled and overlayered by his loyalists. In late December 2005, Rumsfeld demoted three military service chiefs in the Pentagon hierarchy and replaced them with three loyalists who previously worked for his buddy Cheney.
Right from the beginning the U.S. Army brass opposed the invasion of Iraq for both military and strategic reasons. They believed such an attack would absorb massive human and material resources that would divert from the hunt for 9-11 terrorists and the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They disagreed with the paucity of soldiers that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were to send there. They were appalled by the lack of post-war planning directives by the administration.
At the four star general level, the Army brass knew Saddam Hussein was a tottering dictator, embargoed, surrounded and contained by the United states, Britain, Turkey and Israel. They understood that Saddam was unable to field an army equipped with minimum loyalty and equipment. They also knew that going to Iraq would be the equivalent of batting a gigantic beehive.
To this day Army commanders in Iraq, most recently Gen. George Casey, recognize that the U.S. military occupation is a magnet for more and more terrorists from inside and outside Iraq. CIA Director Porter Goss was more explicit before Congress last February, testifying that occupied Iraq is a recruiting and training ground for more terrorists who will retun to their countries for more disruption.
When Colin Powell was at the Pentagon, he developed what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine - know clearly what your military and political objectives are, follow up with overwhelming force and have a clear exit plan. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld violated this doctrine. Their only objective was to topple Saddam, their former ally in the 1980s. After that, they were clueless and surprised by the insurgency.
To top Army officers, the worst of all worlds is Iraq. Their chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after testifying before Congress abut the need for over 300,000 soldiers for any such invasion, found his retirement accelerated. Draft-dodger Paul Wolfowitz, then number two in the Pentagon, rejected his estimate and recommended less than half that number.
Retired high military officers, diplomats and intelligence officials, with good sources inside the Department of Defense, say that the military is furious with Bush and Cheney. The latter orders torture with thinly veiled instructions and dubious legal memos. Then, when these illegal actions are disclosed, as at Abu Ghraib, the Army takes the rap to its reputation.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld start these so-called commando groups, which included ex-Saddam toughs, and their predictable atrocities against young Sunni men become the U.S. Army's headache to restrain. The idea behind these outlaw death squads, reported in mainstream newspapers, was to enable summary destruction of arbitrary "suspects" and to terrorize the Sunni population. The Army kept telling Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld that such administration-approved mayhem was backfiring and fueling more hatred by the Sunnis against the U.S., its troops, and these hired gangs.
The administration finally responded by telling the Army to assign more men to advise and monitor these gangs, which the United States is equipping and paying.
Another source of irritation within the military is Bush and Cheney making sure that the fallen soldiers and the injured soldiers are returned in stealth fashion at Dover Air Force base and Andrews Air Force base outside of Washington. Bush and Cheney do this for political reasons, knowing opposition to the war increases as U.S. casualties mount.
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld still refuse to count officially U.S. soldiers who are injured outside a combat situation, again for political reason. This keeps the official injury count at about one-third of the real total. Career Army officers do not like their soldiers being used this way.
The Army is also upset over the loss of some of their senior officers and non-commissioned officers to the giant corporate contractors operation in this cost-plus environment of maximum profit for less than maximum service. These companies are hiring away experienced soldiers with offers that double or triple their salaries to do the very privatized jobs which the Army used to do for itself. In a tightly skilled manpower situation, the Army finds this drain to be under mining its mission.
On the surface, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are heavy on their photo opportunities with the troops, heavy with the flattery that these political tricksters heap on the soldiers and alert to any potential public dissent.
There was a recent slip up though. At a Pentagon news conference, Nov. 29, a reporter asked Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what U.S. soldiers in Iraq should do if they witness Iraqi security forces abusing prisoners. The General's reply was: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene and stop it."
Standing next to him, the calculating conniver Rumsfeld tried to distort the words of the forthright Pace by saying that American soldiers only had an obligation to report any mistreatment. In a nutshell, that is the difference between the Pentagon military and their arrogant civilian superiors, who have disrespected their judgment and ordered them to shut up and follow unlawful policies.
Meanwhile the quagmire in Iraq continues to bleed America. Speak up military. Remember the Nuremberg principles.
Ralph Nader is an activist attorney and former
presidential candidate. For more information visit Nader's web
site at www.nader.org
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Judge Samuel Alito is a fine choice for the Supreme Court, an analysis of the views of numerous groups avidly opposed to nomination demonstrates. The Committee for Justice released an analysis in Washington that examines the official positions of numerous ant-Alito organizations that formed the "Coalition for an Independent Judiciary" (CFJ) to fight confirmation.
Member groups oppose public expressions of religious faith, support same-sex "marriage," want homosexuals and transsexuals to serve openly in the armed forces, advocate racial quotas and want to ban the Boy Scouts from access to public facilities other private groups enjoy because it refuses to admit homosexuals as members or adult leaders.
Coalition member organizations include homosexual rights groups, abortion activists, environmental extremists, feminists, anti-religion advocates, the NAACP and ACLU, the report said.
"Among the causes supported by CFIJ members are removal of public Christmas and Hanukkah displays - a campaign pursued through lawsuits across the nation - and deletion of the phrase ‘under God' from the Pledge of Allegiance," the report said. "And the head of one coalition group, the Feminist Majority, complained that Alito's confirmation would result in too many Catholics on the Supreme Court.
"A large majority of Americans oppose ‘gay' marriage, but coalition members are at the forefront of the efforts to see traditional marriage redefined by the courts," the report said. ‘I think it's inevitable now', said an attorney for CFIJ Lambda Legal, speaking of ‘gay' marriage after the supreme Court struck down a Texas anti-sodomy statute. The ACLU defends the rights of individuals to engage in polygamy and believes that laws prohibiting it should be abolished."
Over a century ago, the Supreme court upheld state anti-polygamy laws when challenged by a Mormon family that had moved out of Utah, where it was then still legal . Utah later banned polygamy.
Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, told reporters in Washington on Jan. 4 that Alito's confirmation "would take us back to the days when there were no female firefighters and no females on the police force." Another NOW woman denounced Alito's opposition to racial quotas, saying "racial quotas are code words for affirmative action."
The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a coalition member, asserts that "Judge Alito's appointment would spell disaster for LGBT Americans for decades to come." LGBT stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender"people.
Coalition members also have a long history of advocating racial quotas in employment and education opportunities, using the the euphemism "affirmative action." Alito is strongly opposed to racial quotas.
"What coalition forces really fear is that, with the addition of Alito and other constitutionalist justices to the Supreme Court, the court will be unwilling to create any more new ‘rights' they seek but cannot get from the legislature," the report said. "And in that fear, they are likely correct."
The only negative, in views expressed by such libertarians as Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), is Alito's once arguing that the nation's top law enforcement officials deserve blanket protection from lawsuits when acting in the name of national security, even when those actions involve illegal wiretapping of American citizens, documents released Dec. 24 show.
While a lawyer in the Justice Department under Ronald Reagan, Alito said the attorney general must be free to take steps to protect the country from threats of terrorism and espionage without fear of personal liability. "I do not question that the attorney general should have this immunity," Alito wrote.
However, it is unlikely that a jurist can be found who would contradict Alito and also possess his good qualities, lawyers said. Supreme Courts have ratified Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War and President Franklin Roosevelt's sending Japanese, Italian and German Americans into concentration camps during World War II. In these and other cases, justices cited "war powers" under the Constitution.
James P. Tucker Jr.,
an AFP correspondent, is a veteran journalist who spent many years
as a member of the "elite" media in Washington. since1975
he has won widespread recognition here and abroad, for his pursuit
of the on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global
power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission.
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President Bush's position on Iran is "disturbing" and "dangerous," reads a recent screed written by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Not long ago the bush administration accepted a Russian proposal to allow Iran to continue to develop nuclear energy under Russian supervision and AIPAC is downright angry.
In a letter to congressional allies, mostly Democrats, the pro-Israel organization admitted it was "concerned that the decision not to go to the Security Council, combined with the U.S. decision to support the ‘Russian proposal,' indicates a disturbing shift in the administration's policy on Iran and poses a danger to the U.S. and our allies."
Israel, however, continues to develop a substantial nuclear arsenal, and in 2000 the BBC reported that Israel has most likely produced enough plutonium to make up to 2000 nuclear weapons. So, it is safe to say that Israel's bomb building techniques are light years ahead of Iran's dismal nuclear program. Yet the major U.S. ally in the Middle East still won't admit they have capacity to produce such deadly weapons.
And while AIPAC and Israel pressure the U.S. government to
force the Iran issue to the UN Security Council, dealing with
the occupied territories of Palestine, including UN Resolution
1402, which demands that Israel withdraw its military from all
Palestinian cities at once.
 |
No Dummy; Hillary Clinton is no dummy. If she is in fact readying herself for a presidential run, she knows that the support of the Israeli lobby is vital to her success. So, here she is at an American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. An all-out bashing of Iran was, of course, on her agenda, believing this would play well to average American Jews who, actually, are opposed to more war in the Mideast. |
AIPAC's hypocrisy is stomach-turning, to say the least. The goliath lobbying organization wants Iran to be slapped across the knuckles while the crimes of Israel continue to be ignored. And who is propping up AIPAC's hypocritical position? Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York. As the top democratic recipient of pro-Israel funds for the 2006 election cycle, pocketing over $58,000 as of Oct. 31 last year, Sen. Clinton now has Iran in her cross-hairs. |
As Sen. Clinton embraces Israel's violence, as well as AIPAC's duplicitous Iran position, she simultaneously ignores the hostilities inflicted upon Palestine, as numerous Palestinians have been killed during the recent shelling of the Gaza Strip. Israel continues to mark the occupied territories - they call then "buffer zones" - like a frothing-mouthed dog on the loose.
Sen Clinton's silence toward Israel's brutality implies the senator will continue to support AIPAC's mission to occupy the whole of the occupied territories as well as a war on Iran in the future.
AIPAD's right - even President Bush appears to be a little sheepish when up against Hillary ‘warmonger"" Clinton.
Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out:
How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush, which has just
been published by Common courage Press. You can order a copy at
the web site brickburner.org.
Frank can be readhed at joshua@brickburner.org.
this article appeared on the news web site Counterpunch.org.
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The ongoing ware in Iraq, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and congressional scandals all served to make 2005 a tough year for America. We can hope and pray that 2006 is a happier and more peaceful year for our nation.
All Americans, regardless of their views on the Iraq war, can share the hope that the killing in that country will end in 2006 - and that our troops can begin to come home.
Our goal in Iraq at this point must be self-determination for the Iraqi people, nothing more and nothing less. Nation building doesn't work and we can't afford it. We should seek to get our troops out of the country as soon as possible and remain neutral toward the various factions still vying for power. The ultimate solution may be for Iraq to break up into several countries based on ethnic and religious differences.
Regardless of the outcome, we must have the courage and integrity to admit that our Founders' wise counsel against foreign entanglements was correct. Once the rationale for the war shifted from weapons of mass destruction to installing democracy, our credibility became dependent on true Iraqi sovereignty - even if the government that emerges is not to our liking. True sovereignty for Iraq cannot be realized unless and until we end our occupation and stop trying to engineer political outcomes.
Meanwhile, prosperity at home cannot be achieved if we allow government to engage in the kind of runaway spending that marked the final months of 2005. The fiscal year 2006 budget already bloated with billions of dollars in unnecessary and counterproductive spending, became an 11th hour Christmas grab bag for every group or industry seeking a handout. Several federal agencies and bureaucracies needlessly received even more funding than originally requested by the administration.
Dangerous foreign aid spending also grows next year, sending more of your tax dollars overseas to fund dubious regimes that often later become our enemies - as we've seen in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Congress cannot continue to increase spending each year and expect tax revenues to keep pace. No reasonable person can argue that a $2.4 trillion budget does not contain huge amounts of special interest spending that can and should be cut by Congress, especially when we are waging an off-budget war in Iraq that costs more than $1 billion ever week.
It is easy for us to lose sight of the primary responsibility of our government during troubled times, and many Americans are anxious to have the administration spend any amount and ignore the Constitution to achieve some mythical standard of security.
Yet we should not forget that peace and prosperity are best secured by a government that secures liberty for its citizens. The best formula for securing liberty is limited government at home and a noninterventionist foreign policy abroad.
Americans deserve better from their government in 2006 than
huge deficits, scandals, domestic spying and mindless partisanship.
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While President George Bush is trying to hoodwink Americans about taking a firm position to halt the large numbers of aliens illegally entering the nation, the truth is, according to American Free Press sources, the flow of undocumented immigrants is worsening.
In addition, the crossover of illegals who are classified as "other than Mexicans" (OTMs) has worsened, which is particularly embarrassing for the post 9-11 Bush administration.
Although the establishment media is giving it little attention, last year there were 88,000 OTMs who were caught in the United States by customs and immigration authorities.
No one knows how many remain in the United States. Of the 88,000 who were caught, about 72 percent were released from custody with a notice to appear in court later for a deportation hearing. Of that 72 percent, 75 percent of them did not show up for their court date, making a mockery of the proceedings.
Ninety-four foreign-born nationals have been arrested or convicted on terror-related charges. Of these, 22 were in the United States legally with student visas, 17 had visitor visas and 13 simply overstayed their visas and no one bothered to look for them.
Along the border, the situation grows worse daily. The Bush administration doesn't seem to care that assaults on U.S. Border Patrol agents have increased in 12 months from 354 to 687 last year. There have been reports that either the illegal aliens or the guides who are paid to take them across the border have been attacking agents with a variety of weapons—everything from slingshots propelling marbles to Molotov cocktails and semiautomatic weapons.
In some cases, drug smugglers are more heavily armed than Border Patrol officers and have been known to carry machine guns, hand grenades and rocket-propelled grenades—weapons usually reserved for the military.
But the Bushites insist placing U.S. troops on the border would be overreacting to the problem. While guarding the borders of countless other countries, the president refuses to use troops to guard the U.S. border.
AFP has learned that in patrol areas in Tucson and San Diego, Border Patrol agents were shot at 43 times last year. Twenty agents were hospitalized for wounds. Military magazine has reported that Mexican troops, who are supporting narcoterrorists, frequently fire across the border at American agents.
AFP reported in 2005 that Mexican troops operating American-made Humvees actually crossed the border and engaged U.S. Border Patrol agents in a gunfight. The Mexican soldiers were captured and briefly held.
However, local agents received orders from Washington to release them and they returned to Mexico.
As far as anyone knows, the State Department did not complain to Mexico about the incident, which constituted an armed invasion of U.S. territory by foreign troops.
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Tales of imminent mushroom clouds figure in the news this week as the U.S. Army War College sets its sights on Israel's stockpile of nuclear weapons. The army's prestigious school says efforts at stopping Islamic states' nuclear ambitions will surely bomb unless Israel disarms, too.
A report recently published by the distinguished U.S. Army War college has publicly targeted Israel's controversial - but officially nonexistent - arsenal of nuclear weapons of mass destruction.
In the wake of a growing American media cacophony about Iran's purported aims of building its own nuclear arsenal - "news" that has largely been stimulated by bellicose rhetoric in Israel itself - the Strategic Studies Institute of the Army War College, which is a training ground for the "best and the brightest" among up-and-coming military officers, has taken quite a different approach.
The college's report - which has never once been publicized in the major media in America - says that neither talk of a military attack on Iran by Israel not ongoing American diplomatic initiatives are likely to stop Iran from pursuing its goals. Either course could result in disaster, said America's military strategists.
Instead, the report, titled "Getting Ready for a Nuclear Ready Iran," says quite in contrast, that it is Israel that should take the initiative.
The American military officers say that Israel should close down its Dimona nuclear reactor, turn over nuclear materiel to a third party, and allow the International Atomic energy Agency to maintain regular inspection of Israel's nuclear operations. The report urges the United States to put pressure on Israel to make this possible.
America's military thinkers believe that if Israel were to curtail its nuclear offensive, the United States would be more easily able to convince other nuclear states in the Middle East to do likewise. It is, in fact, a historic truth that it was Israel's determined push for nuclear weapons p a documented foundation of that nation's geopolitical defense policy - led Arab Nations, Pakistan and Iran to pursue nuclear weapons in response.
For example, although in 2003 Syria asked for a United Nations resolution calling for nuclear arms inspections all across the Middle East - including Israel - few expected that the United states would rally behind Syria's request. This came despite the official U.S. position that, according to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, the United states would like to see the entire region free of weapons of mass destruction. Nevertheless, the United States did not support Syria on banning all nukes.
Even The Washington Post reported, on April 17, 2003, that "Syria's current arsenal of chemical warheads and Scud [Scud-D] missiles to deliver them as started more than 30 years ago to counter Israel's development and possession of nuclear weapons, according to present and former U.S. intelligence officials."
The Post cited an unnamed former senior intelligence analyst as saying that Hafez al-Assad, Syria's former leader and the father of the current Syrian ruler, believed that the military aid that the Syrians received from the former USSR "would never be able to match what Israel developed in the nuclear field and received from the U.S."
Joseph Cirincione, head of the nonproliferation program of the Carnegie endowment for International Peace, told the Post at that time that, ‘You can't get rid of chemical or biological or nuclear programs in Arab countries unless you also address the elimination of Israel's nuclear and chemical programs." Cirincione pointed out that the primary reason for other nations in the region building their own weapons of mass destruction was due to Israel's own initiatives.
What is particularly notable about the recent Army War College report calling for Israel to effectively "de-nuke" is that the co-author of that report is Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for near east Policy (WINEP), a long and well pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
However, WINEP is generally identified with Israel's so called "peace" movement, which has been at odds with the elements in Israel associated with ailing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Sharon and Netanyahu are, in turn, allied with members of the fanatic pro-Israel "neo-conservative" elements who have been direction U.S. Middle East policy in the Bush administration.
All of this suggests that, once again, internal Israeli political conflicts are flowing over into the American political process with - in this instance - the top-notch officers at the Army War college allying with Israel's "left wing."
Thus, the men who are charged with fighting America's wars are taking a public stand that could - if their advice is followed - help defuse the problem of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, if only Israel agrees to go along and the Bush administration sees the logic of what America's military leaders are proposing.
Michael Collins Piper, a journalist in media critique, is the author of Final
Judgment ($25), The High Priests of War (19.95) and
The New Jerusalem 19.95) - all available from First Amendment
Books, 645 Pennylvania Ave., SE, Suite 100, Washington, D.C. 20003.
Piper has lectured on these topics in places as diverse as Malsyia,
Japan, Canada, Moscow and Abu Dhabi. Call 1-888-699-NEWS toll
free to order any of Piper's books and charge to Visa or MasterCard.
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for the first time in 189 years, the Indiana House opened its legislative session Jan. 4 without a formal prayer because a court has ruled such prayers are unconstitutional. Instead, legislators held a bipartisan prayer meeting in the rear of the chamber moments before being gaveled to order. Democrats Peggy Welch invoked the "Holy Spirit" and Republican ?eric turner actually invoked the name of Christ.
Meanwhile, the ruling in favor of the Indiana ACLU is being appealed.
"We will continue to fight this order by every constitutional means available until it is overturned, "Speaker Brian Bosma said. It is being appealed to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and will be appealed to the Supreme court of Appeals and will be appealed to the Supreme Court if necessary, he said.
The controversy began Nov. 30 when District Judge David Hamilton ruled that legislative prayers could not invoke "Christ's name or title or any other denominational appeal." The prayers, said Hamilton, who was appointed by President bill Clinton must be "non-sectarian."
"For the first time in two centuries, the speaker of the House has been placed in the position of seeing to it that only government-approved theology will be offered on the House floor," Bosma said. "Requiring people to pray in accordance with a government-approved theology directly interferes with the freedom of conscience and speech that each of us holds so dearly. By God's grace we shall not faint from this task."
The U.S. congress opens each day's session with a prayer and each chamber has a chaplain to help members with spiritual problems.
Contrary to widespread belief, the Constitution says nothing about a "wall between church and state." the phrase was actually used by Thomas Jefferson in a letter, dated Jan. 1, 1802, to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut. The Constitution prohibits the government from imposing a religion but does not limit its practice.
Christian ministers, Jewish rabbis and Islamic imams all have opened the legislature in prayer, Bosma said.
"Some mentioned Jesus Christ, some chose not to,"
Bosma said. "Some mentioned faiths other that Christianity,
some did not. Others made reference only to God and others chose
not to mention his name in any way...the point is that we did
not all agree, perhaps, on the theology of those prayers. But
we all agreed and respected the individual's right to pray openly,
freely, without coercion and without censorship."
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Sentiment in the House is growing for legislation making English the official language, which is important to the Untied States bith culturally and financially. The English Language Unity Act (H.R. 997), introduced by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), now has the support of 145 House members from 36 states.
"This milestone is a signal to the House leadership that H.R. 997 merits a hearing and floor vote this year," said Mauro Mujica, chairman of U.S. English. "Official English represents one of the rare pieces of legislation that is widely supported by voters from all walks of life. I am confident that when this bill comes up for a vote, the results will reflect the overwhelming support of congress and the people in favor of this commonsense legislation."
The number of co-sponsors is significant because of the more than 4,400 House bulls introduced in this session, fewer than 60 enjoyed the backing of more than one-third of the chamber. The legislation is pending before the Judiciary Committee (202-225-3951) and the Education and Workforce Committee (202-225-4527). Whether hearings are called and the bill is reported out for a floor vote could depend on voters educating congressmen.
The legislation would require that public documents be printed only in English. At present, federal taxpayers spend big bucks printing laterally trillions of documents in numerous languages. Most such documents are printed in Spanish but in many cases they must be printed in Chinese and other languages.
Today, even voting ballots have to be printed in foreign languages. It is hard to imagine how someone unable to speak or read English becomes a citizen when the law requires applicants to have a knowledge and understanding of American history and culture, which includes language.
U.S. citizens have a huge cultural stake in identifying the official language as English. When people enter the country with no need to assimilate and learn English, the nation becomes balkanized and the United States loses its cultural identity. The wave of immigration at the dawn of the last century found Europeans coming here to work for a better life, not looking for a handout. Europeans learned English and became part of the mainstream society. That does not describe many of today's new immigrants, who seek better paying jobs in the United States and send their paychecks back to their home country.
In 2000, it is estimated that at least 1 million non-citizens cast illegal ballots. This is more directly a result of the "motor voter" law, but having ballots and voting information printed in their own language certainly facilitated it.
If voters succeed in pressing the appropriate committees to hold hearing it will be hard for congressmen not to send it to the House floor and support the measure. For nearly a generation, polls have found support for the legislation among four-fifths of the population. A 2005 Zogby poll showed 79 percent of Americans supporting English-only.
Since 1981, according to U.S. English, more than 500 members of congress representing all 50 states have sponsored, co-sponsored or voted for official English measures and total of more than 2,650 times.
"Support for official English continues to climb because
members of Congress are hearing the strong voices of their constituents,"
Mujica said. "No matter which issues are being debated on
the floor, congress must not forget about the broader issue of
what it means to be a U.S. citizen. As legislative business resumes,
I am hopeful that official English legislation will be a cornerstone
of this important and necessary discussion."
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Major newspapers were full of war-scare headlines when Iran removed UN seals at a facility in the town of Nantanz and announced that it would begin research involving nuclear enrichment - which can produce weapons-grade materiel.
The White House responded sharply: "If the regime in Iran continues on its current course and fails to abide by its international obligations there is no other choice but to refer the matter to the UN Security Council."
The Security council could authorize and invasion of Iran by UN "peacekeepers."
On the same day, a coalition of Israel-first advocates tried to condition the public mind to accept a U.S. military strike against Iran.
If Iran ever had the range to hit the United States, the Persians know they would be bombed into the Stone Age.
"While I support the diplomatic option, negotiations without the threat of force to back up the diplomacy is liable to be perceived by Tehran as weakness...a clash with the state of Israel is a near certainty." said Raymond Tanter, a professor at Georgetown University in Washington.
Tanter provided a copy of a letter he had written a prominent Washington newspaper saying "It is vital to the national security of the United states to do what is necessary to stop Iran's nuclear weapons progress and state sponsorship of international terrorism."
The group, calling itself the Iran Policy Committee, passed out copies of a commentary by Claude Salhani anticipation an invasion of Iran. President bush "has repeatedly stated that he is leaving ‘all options on the table, including the military option;" Salhani wrote. "President Bush is not ruling out military strikes."
Salhani cited reports in the Turkish press claiming CIA Director Porter Goss asked Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to provide support for a possible 2005 air strike against Iranian nuclear and military facilities."
"In return for Turkey's support, possibly by allowing overflight rights to American bombers...the Bush administration would give Ankara the ‘green light' to strike against the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party inside Iran," Salhani wrote. A nuclear weapon in Iranian hands "would be dangerous not only to Israel, but to the security of the entire region."
"Because of long distance, underground location of sites, and dispersal of sites, preventive military strikes by Israel are unlkiely to succeed in destruction of Iran's nuclear sites," Tanter said. "That said, however, military action by Israel remains a live option, despite its difficulty."
On Jan. 11, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assailed those
pressing to attack Iran, saying Iran's nuclear programs were a
"natural and legal right" and that the Iranian government
has started nuclear fuel research and would "in the near
future utilize this energy source completely."
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As many as three dozen state legislatures are lining up to introduce legislation aimed at forcing Wal-Mart, the nation's largest retail store chain, to treat its employees better.
State legislators are pressing the multinational corporate giant to provide health insurance for full-time workers. Wal-Mart, not known for paying its employees well, refuses to indicate how much it spends on its payroll for employee health care insurance.
However, it is believed to be about 7 percent, less than most big corporations. It is known that Wal-Mart pays less than half of its employees in America health care benefits.
Putting further pressure on the corporate giant, a Pennsylvania court has granted class-action status to a lawsuit claiming Wal-Mart forced as many as 150,000 employees at its stores in the state to work through their breaks and after hours.
Wal-Mart, known for moving into a community with one of its huge stores and forcing its competition out of business, has fallen upon hard times in recent days.
The retail giant has been caught using illegal aliens on its maintenance teams, using underage workers on potentially hazardous jobs, showing discrimination against women in the work place and strong-arming local governments to provide special tax considerations when its stores locate in a community.
Wal-Mart is also having trouble in various locations in both the United States and Canada for keeping its employees from organizing into unions.
In the case of forcing its employees to work through breaks and after hours, late last year a California court awarded workers $172.3 million in a class-action case. Wal-Mart settled a similar case in Colorado for $50 million.
On Jan. 11 the Maryland legislature passed a law that would require Wal-Mart stores to increase spending for employee health benefits to at least 8 percent. Although the law pertains to all companies with 10,000 or more employees, it is clearly aimed at Wal-Mart.
The legislature's action overrides a veto by Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R). Critics accuse the mega-chain of not paying its employees, who are called "associates," a living wage and not providing health benefits.
Consequently, thousands of Wal-Mart employees are forced to seek health care assistance through the states' Medicaid system, running up the cost to taxpayers.
Wal-Mart hired four lobbying firms to fight the bill in Maryland.
State Sen. Gloria G. Lawlah, who introduced the Maryland bill, called the Wal-Mart lobbying effort "horrendous."
It has been reported that 12 lobbyists were working at the same time to kill the bill, earning them the nickname "the dirty dozen."
Wal-Mart, which is planning to build a distribution center on Maryland's Eastern Shore that would employ some 1,000 workers, threatened to build the center elsewhere if Maryland enacted the health care law.
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A Roanoke, Va., jury has ruled that a housing authority that threatened to condemn a family's property for 20 years owes the owners $281,590 in compensation.
It was also ordered to pay the family's attorney fees, described as "substantial."
The family of Dr. Walter Claytor, 79, has owned a city block since 1910 and argued that the threat of condemnation prevented them from selling the property or finding tenants.
"The case is "revolutionary," Joe Waldo, a lawyer who represented Claytor and 16 relatives, told Budget & Tax News. "This is the first time, in Virginia, someone went after a government agency for messing with someone's property - not taking it, just messing with it."
"I consider it a great victory for Dr. Claytor," Waldo said. "When we started, they were going to pay Dr. Claytor no money and said he didn't even have the right to sue them."
Claytor said, in an interview with AFP, his case has national implications because of the Supreme Court's Kelo ruling that a quasi-governmental planning board in New Haven, Conn., could use eminent domain to condemn people's homes to transfer the property to another private party.
The rationale was that the party receiving the property would develop it commercially, generating more taxes.
In the landmark case, real estate developers are building a hotel, a boardwalk, stores, restaurants and a corporate headquarters for a multinational pharmaceutical company on land that once belonged to U.S. citizens.
In a shocking development to the Kelo case, vindictive local officials are now trying to sue the former homeowners for what they are calling "back rent." They claim the government had owned their land following the first court ruling against local residents, long before they exhausted all of their appeals.
It is a "precedent-setting case" that will fuel the drive to undo Kelo, Claytor said, pointing out that 80 bills have been introduced in the Virginia General Assembly to prohibit such takings in the Old Dominion. Thirty-seven other state legislatures are weighing similar actions.
The Constitution permits condemning private property under eminent domain for "public use" - such as making sure national highways connect at state borders. In Kelo, the Supreme Court permitted the transfer of private property to another, government - preferred private party.
In 1976, city officials marked the neighborhood surrounding Claytor's property for renewal development under federal urban-renewal rules. The Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority notified the Claytors it would use powers of eminent domain to obtain their property.
In 1978, the authority tried to sell the Claytors' 1.07-acre block to a local church and, though the deal fell through, the authority did not abandon plans to condemn the Claytors' land until 1998.
Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Jonathan Apgar said the 20 years between the attempted sale and the end of the threatened condemnation constituted a "temporary taking" by the housing authority.
Claytor testified that once the property was placed under the threat of condemnation, the family was unable to find tenants for a five-unit apartment house, medical clinic, service station and stores.
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The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counter-ambush," a Washington newspaper reports. The warning to border Patrol agents in Tucson comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.
Agents were cautioned to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican unites, to employ "shadows and camouflage" to conceal themselves and to "stay as quiet as possible."
Salvador Zamora, a border Patrol spokesman, confirmed that a "military incursion" warning was given to Tucson agents.
Fafael Laveaga, spokesman for the Mexican embassy in Washington, denied that Mexican military personal personnel are crossing into the United States. He said some drug smugglers headed "both north and south" wear uniforms and drive military-type vehicles and might have "confused" U.S. authorities.
"Give me a break," said T.J. Bonner, a 27-year veteran of the Border Patrol who heads the National Border Patrol Council. "Intrusions by the Mexican military to protect drug lords happen all the time and represent a significant threat to the agents. Why else would they be in the area, firing at federal agents in the United States?" Bonner asked. "There is no other explanation."
He also dismissed claims that Mexican troops had entered the United States by mistake. "Every country's military has a global positioning system nowadays, including Mexico's. If the border is so poorly marked, why don't the thousands of Border Patrol agents working 24-7 along it ever seem to get lost?"
A total of 216 incursions by suspected Mexican military units have been documented since 1996 - 75 in California, 63 in Arizona and 78 in Texas, according to a Department of Homeland Security report.
Foreign troops crossing the U.S. border and firing upon U.S. law enforcement constitute an act of war, yet the feckless U.S. government can only issue "a warning" to its officers who patrol the 2,000 mile border with Mexico.
The reports of incursions come on the heels of legislation passed by Congress in December, which provides $2.2 billion to build 700 more miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, makes illegal immigration a felony and enables U.S. soldiers and police to enforce immigration laws.
The Mexican government has complained about the proposed border fence extension, likening it to the Berlin Wall, and has argued that illegal immigrants from Mexico must have the right to seek jobs in the United States.
However, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Antonio Garza shot back a blunt response, saying: "There is no human right to enter another country in violation of its laws...Illegal immigration is a threat to our system of laws and in affront to the millions around the world, including in Mexico, who play by the rules in seeking to come to the United States."
Garza also dismissed the Mexican government's claim that Americans
are "anti-immigrant." In 2005, he said the United states
issued 36,000 immigrant visas, 80,000 work visas and 940,000 visitor
visas to Mexican citizens who sought to enter the United States
legally. On the other hand, he said, there were over 1 million
reported arrests in the United States of illegal immigrants from
Mexico.
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The Senate hearing regarding the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court demonstrated that few in Washington view the Constitution as our Founders did. The Constitution firs and foremost is a document that limits the power of the federal government. It prevents the president, Congress and the Supreme Court from doing all kinds of things. But judging by last week's hearings, the Constitution is an enabling document, one that authorizes the federal government to involve itself in nearly every aspect of our lives.
The only controversy, it seems, is whether the current nominee will favor the power of one branch over another, or the preferences of one political party over another. Last week's hearings were purely political, because the role of Supreme Court justices has become increasingly political.
Nearly all of the senators, witnesses and Alito himself spoke repeatedly about the importance of respecting Supreme Court precedents. The clear implication is that we must equate Supreme Court decisions with the text of the Constitution itself, giving them equal legal weight. But what if some precedents are bad? Should the American people be forced to live with unpopular judicial "laws" forever? The Constitution itself can be amended are we to accept that Supreme court rulings are written in stone?
Also troubling was the apparent consensus among both the senators and Alito that Congress has no authority to limit federal court jurisdiction by forbidding it to hear certain types of cases. This is completely false: Article III, Section 2, of the constitution plainly grants Congress the authority to limit federal court jurisdiction in many kinds of cases. It is perfectly constitutional for Congress to pass court-stripping legislation to reflect public sentiment against an overreaching supreme Court.
We're being told two very troubling things:
First, Supreme Court decisions are the absolute law of the land, equal in weight to the text of the Constitution itself. Supreme court precedents should never be changes, and all nominees to the court must accept them as settled law or be disqualified.
Second, if the American people don't like any of the ‘laws" created by the Supreme Court, they have no choice but to live with them unless by some miracle the court later overturns itself. The people have no recourse through congress to address unpopular court decisions.
The ramifications of these assertions are very serious. They mean the Supreme Court not only can invalidate the actions of Congress of the president, but also craft de facto laws that cannot be undone by the people's elected legislators. This is wildly beyond the role of the federal judiciary as envisioned by the Founders. They certainly never intended to create an unelected, lifetime-tenured, superlegislature.
Our federal courts, like the rest of our federal government, have become far too powerful. When federal judges impose their preferred policies on the American people, the ability of average citizens to influence the laws under which they must live diminishes.
This is why every American should read or reread the Constitution
and the Federalist Papers. Only when we understand the proper
role of the judiciary in our federal system will we stop viewing
judges as purveyors of social, political, and economic rules for
our nation.
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Right after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was hospitalized following a massive stroke Jan. 4, reporters from the controlled media held a vigil outside Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital where Israel's 77-year old leader lay in a drug-induced coma. The media spotlight on the comatose veteran military commander, however, avoided mentioning Sharon's long career as a master terrorist and the many massacres and war crimes in which he has been involved.
The U.S. media focus on the ailing Zionist leader ignores the documented evidence of Sharon's 58-year history as a master of terrorism who has ruthlessly used terror as a weapon and a tool to achieve his strategic and political goals. Sharon's primary strategic goal has always been to build a fortified Jewish ghetto-state in Palestine.
TERRORISTS
A salient fact of Israeli history, generally ignored by the Western press, is that several Israeli prime minister were terrorists, who bombed and murdered their way to the top. Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Sharon were all well-known terrorists who later became Israeli statesmen.
While a sympathetic Israeli journalist on a prominent U.S. cable news network described Sharon as "a biblical hero," it should be remembered that the so-called "hawk-turned-statesman" has been personally responsible for terrorism, violence and instability in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East during the past six decades.
On Sept. 28, 2000, Sharon provoked the Palestinian uprising known as the Al Aqsa Intifada by invading, with scores of heavily armed Israeli troops, the most sacred Muslim site in Jerusalem. The subsequent Israeli military response resulted in 25 Palestinian civilians being killed for every Israeli death.
Supposedly to quell the violence, which he had personally brought about, Sharon then authorized the building of a hideous fortified barrier wall, not unlike that which separated East and West Germany, illegally appropriating a great deal of Palestinian land in the process.
In the weeks and months after 9-11, Sharon was a frequent visitor to the White House, where he held secret discussions with President George W. Bush. As the U.S. invaded and occupied Afghanistan, the Israeli military carried out a brutal invasion and re-occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In April 2002, the Israeli army besieged and attacked the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, using bulldozers to destroy houses with the inhabitants still inside. Sharon's frequent use of bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and orchards has earned him the epithet "the Bulldozer."
Sharon then refused United Nations investigators access to the devastated camp, in which crimes against humanity had clearly been committed.
SHARON AND 9-11
As American Free Press has reported since September
2001, there is a great deal of evidence that Israel's military
intelligence was involved in the terror attacks of 9-11, which
raises the obvious question about Sharon's role in the events
that launched the United States's War on Terror.
Logically, the evidence offers but two options: either Sharon
as prime minister had prior knowledge of 9-11 and was involved
in the terror attacks, or Mossad, Israel's military intelligence
agency, is under the command of an outside authority and was involved
in a covert operation in the United States without the knowledge
of the prime minister.
For the following reasons, however, the second option seems highly unlikely:
There were some 200 fake movers and art students, who had backgrounds in Israeli military intelligence, nabbed by police in the United States in connection with the terror attacks of 9-11. Were these Israeli agents simply part of a rogue operation, which Sharon, the master of Israeli state-sponsored terrorism, was completely unaware of?
Electronic text message warnings were sent to Israeli telecom firm Odigo hours before the first plane hit, demonstrating prior knowledge of the attacks. Were these being sent between agents of a rogue terror network of which Sharon had no control or knowledge?
Because the evidence clearly points to Israeli state involvement the controlled press in the United States forbids and discussion of Mossad's involvement in the terror attacks of 9-11. Therefore, the obvious question concerning Sharon is never asked: To what extent was he involved in the Sept.11 attacks?
Ignoring Sharon's criminal record puts American interests and lives in peril, this writer wrote in February 2001. After the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution on Feb. 13, 2001, congratulation the newly-elected Israeli prime minister, I warned that to ignore Sharon's long history of state-sponsored terrorism and wr crimes endangered the American people on whose behalf Congress had extended "the best wishes."
"To ignore Sharon's Machiavellian character and criminal record may very well put American interests and lives in peril," I wrote. "Sharon has a history of duplicity and has betrayed the United States in the past."
"In a minimally just world Sharon would be behind bars,"
the American author Edward S. Herman wrote in June 2002. "Sharon
is treated in the West as a respected statesman, even called a
‘man of peace' by George W. Bush in the wake of Sharon's
new war crimes at Jenin, Nablus, Bethlehem, and other West Bank
towns. This treatment of Sharon has one great merit," Herman
wrote, "it makes crystal clear that the ‘war on terror'
is a ‘war of terror.'"
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Immediately after the Sept. 11 attack, many people asked innocent questions, such as, why did giant skyscrapers disintegrate so thoroughly? How could the U.S. Air Force ignore three airplanes wandering into restricted airspace? The lack of sensible answers from our government caused private citizens to do their own research, and they have brought forward overwhelming evidence that the government lied to us about 9-11.
For example, at 5:30 in the evening on Sept. 11, a 47-story skyscraper in the World Trade Center, known as Building7, crumbled into a pile of rubble.
FEMA investigated the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7, but in their report published in 2002, FEMA officials wrote that they have no idea why Building 7, collapsed.
A few months later, the landlord of Building 7, Larry Silverstein, announced on television that the fire department took his suggestion to demolish Building 7, "and then we watched the building collapse," as Silverstein describes it.
Months later, the "9/11 Commission Report" was published, but it did not bother to address the issue of why or how Building 7 collapsed, or why Silverstein said the fire department demolished the building.
The government's avoidance of Building 7 is evidence that they are covering up something about that building. And Silverstein's absurd statement that the fire department demolished building 7 is evidence that he was intimidating honest people in the government..
But what would the government be trying to cover up? And why
would Silverstein want to intimidate government officials?
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