"Even if we Jews are not physically at your side in the trenches, we are morally with you. This war is our war and you fight it with us." - Schalom Asch, Les Nouvelles Litterairres, February 10, 1940.
On June 30th, the Israeli Navy attacked and captured the unarmed humanitarian aid boat The Spirit of Humanity. This is the second time that the Israeli navy has attacked a Free Gaza Movement boat while it was attempting to deliver medical supplies, building equipment, and children's toys to the Port of Gaza.
Take action below to demand the release of The Spirit of Humanity's crew and passengers!
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk, denounced the unlawful naval seizure by an Israeli gunboat on the high seas of a ship carrying medicine and reconstruction material to blockaded people of Gaza.
According to Private First Class Clifton Hicks, who served in Iraq with the First Cavalry from October 2003, only six months after Baghdad was occupied by American troops, until July 2004, search and avoid missions began early and always had the backing of a senior non-commissioned officer or a staff sergeant. "Our platoon sergeant was with us and he knew our patrols were bullshit, just riding around to get blown up," he explained. "We were at Camp Victory at Baghdad International Airport. A lot of the time we'd leave the main gate and come right back in another gate to the base where there's a big PX with a nice mess hall and a Burger King. We'd leave one guy at the Humvee to call in every hour, while the others stayed at the PX. We were just sick and tired of going out on these stupid patrols."
Former U.S. lawmaker and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and several other human rights activists remained in an Israeli prison Thursday after refusing to sign a deportation form that they claim is self-incriminating.
In a press release from the Green Party, McKinney said the form states that the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-flagged relief boat carrying 21 activists, medical supplies, cement, olive trees and children's toys en route to Gaza, was violating the Israeli blockade and trespassing the country's territorial waters.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s current spiritual leader and the key supporter of reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was more the ideological purist in the early 1980s, apparently opposing the unorthodox strategy that involved going behind President Carter’s back to gain promises of weapons from Israel and the future Reagan administration....
Meanwhile, Israel’s Likud Prime Minister Menachem Begin was furious at Carter for pushing him into the Camp David peace deal with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that required Israel returning the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for normalized relations.
We are NOT the “Story”, It’s Not Just Our 21 Kidnapped Passengers
2009-07-02 | Free Gaza Team
July 1, 2009
With respect, it is not enough. We are not the story. Since its founding in 1948 the State of Israel has regularly kidnapped and tortured Palestinians, throwing them into forgotten prisons where they can languish for years. Today, over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners without benefit of due process, some never even charged - men, women, and children - endure torture and isolation in Israeli jails, outdoor prison camps, and secret black sites. They come from all walks of life: doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, workers, resistance fighters, homemakers, students and others. They are our sisters and brothers.
THE PIRATES OF ZION: OBAMA MISSES THE BOAT!
By Alan Sabrosky*
June 30, 2009
Israel’s boarding and capture in international waters of The Spirit of Humanity, an unarmed boat carrying relief supplies to the suffering people of Gaza, shows that state-sponsored piracy is a real peril today. It is just one more breach of international law added to the global "rap sheet" of a rogue state that, as Netanyahu remarked a few weeks ago, is not like other countries. But Israel’s capture of this boat was also Netanyahu’s test of Obama’s resolve – a test Obama failed, to his shame and discredit.
O.Próximo.- Una activista de Free Gaza describe su detención en Israel como una "película de terror"
Europa Press
Una ciudadana israelí que se encontraba entre los 21 activistas detenidos hace dos días por las fuerzas de seguridad israelíes cuando intentaban llegar a la Franja de Gaza con un barco lleno de ayuda humanitaria, afirmó hoy que las condiciones en las que les han mantenido se parecen a una "película de terror". Seguir leyendo el arículo
[Babelfish]
O.Próximo. - An activist of Free Gaza describes his halting in Israel like a “film of terror”
A message smuggled out of the Ramla Givon prison in an email from members of the solidarity boat crew arrested earlier this week has accused the Israeli authorities of maltreatment and keeping them in poor conditions.
The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday accused the Obama administration of using statements elicited through torture to justify the confinement of a detainee it represents at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The ACLU is asking a federal judge to throw out those statements and others made by Mohammed Jawad, an Afghan who may have been as young as 12 when he was captured. His attorney argued that Jawad was abused in U.S. custody, threatened and subjected to intense sleep deprivation.
Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors.
The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."
“Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth today canceled plans for a series of policy dinners at her home after learning that marketing fliers offered lobbyists access to Obama administration officials, members of Congress and Post journalists in exchange for payments as high as $250,000.”
The interrogation and detention regime implemented by the US resulted in the deaths of over 100 detainees in US custody ? at least [see "Command?s Responsibility," a Human Rights First report from 2006, PDF]. While some of those deaths were the result of "rogue" interrogators and agents, many were caused by the methods authorized at the highest levels of the Bush White House, including extreme stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation and others. Aside from the fact that they cause immense pain, that?s one reason we?ve always considered those tactics to be "torture" when used by others ? because they inflict serious harm, and can even kill people.
Amnesty International issued a 105-page report today detailing war crimes committed by the Israeli military during its 22-day military offensive against the Gaza Strip. The attack killed over 1,400 Palestinians and wounded 5,000 others. It also destroyed over 3,000 homes.
Bringing fresh attention to its blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel on Tuesday turned back a boat attempting to deliver three tons of medical supplies to Gazans.
President Barack Obama is actively considering issuing an executive order authorizing the continued, indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, without trial, according to the Washington Post and Pro Publica. The news is widely being treated as a shocking about-face for a president who has criticized his predecessor's harsh tactics in dealing with alleged terrorists. But for anybody paying attention, this is just one more step along a path the president has has already traveled, with indefinite detention hinted at in a May speech and even championed by the Obama administration in legal papers filed in March.
The controversial climate bill that is set to be taken up by the Senate on Monday after its passage in the House will legislate home inspections by government regulators who will demand to audit every aspect of your property under the threat of substantial and repeated fines if their visits are denied or their demands not satisfied.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Here is the deal.
The US has lost its manufacturing, so the government is going to "create jobs" by pouring tons of gratuitous regulatory compliance on us all, to justify hiring inspectors at taxpayer expense who will in turn force us to purchase improvements to our homes. Everybody works!!!!!
But here is where the "solution" breaks down. Where is the money coming to PAY for all this regulatory compliance? The government is still acting as if they believe there are vast sums of cash floating around out here in the real world, and that saving the economy is simply a matter of taking it away from all of us.
Let’s see now… The Israelis invade Gaza and murder 1500 people in cold blood using banned weapons and destroying the infrastructure so that the people are now living in the rubble and… Obama says nothing. Cynthia McKinney along with a Nobel Peace Prize winner and 20 or so other people get kidnapped on the high seas, while trying to deliver aid to these people and this same psychopathic, thug nation or… should I call it a repug-nation? Well… this same murderous collection of international criminals hijacks their boat and arrests them and… Obama says nothing.
Webmaster's Commentary:
If the above link is unavailable (hackers today) use this alternate link
The $787 billion U.S. economic stimulus package may not be able to live up to lofty expectations, painting President Barack Obama into a policy corner once the money runs out.
With only a little under 7 percent of the stimulus actually paid out so far, it is a bit early to try to measure success. However, the White House is already fielding questions about whether another spending package will be needed.
The White House has dismissed as "misinformation" a reported Iranian police claim that the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, who has emerged as an emblem of the political uprising, was staged.
Webmaster's Commentary:
"Why, that's just plain SILLY! That's, that's absurd!! That's, that's, that's, that's ... like saying we just made up all that stuff about Saddam's nukes just to invade Iraq....... Okay, bad example; let me think of another one." -- Official White Horse Souse
That may be one reason that the mainstream news commentators hate bloggers so much. The more people who get their news from blogs instead of mainstream news sources, the smaller their audience, and the less the MSM can charge for the kind of "nonconfrontational access" which leads to puff pieces for the big boys.
European Union members are threatening the collective withdrawal of their ambassadors from Iran to secure the release of the British embassy employees being held by the authorities.
Webmaster's Commentary:
All but one of the arrested staffers have been released. And note the EU's total silence on the hijacking of a Greek-flagged ship in international waters by Israel!
A senior Bank of England official today compared the banking system over the last 20 years to the South Sea bubble of the early 18th century and said bankers had merely "resorted to the roulette wheel" to keep up with each other.
In his speech at Bar Ilan University on June 14, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a new Israeli “peace plan,” with preconditions that a Palestinian negotiator must first meet before he would “promptly” engage in “unconditional” bilateral talks to meet an international consensus demanding the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel . His preconditions added to the fourteen conditions the former Israeli government of comatose Ariel Sharon attached to Israel's adoption in grudge of the 2003 Road Map blueprint for peace with the Palestinian side, on the basis of which the U.S.
Goldman Sachs has played a crucial role in creating every market bubble since the 1920s -- and has profited from not only the bubbles, but from the crash that followed as well, says a new expose in Rolling Stone magazine.
An article in the July 9-23 issue of the magazine, written by Matt Taibbi, lists five asset bubbles that the 140-year-old investment bank helped create -- and one that Taibbi asserts the firm is currently working to make happen.
The numbers are staggering and are aggregates of official data. They matter because various Obama administration officials including the President himself started off calling for huge stimulus packages to help generate "jobs, jobs, jobs!"
But now, I have been hearing more and more from senior Obama economic team members about the jobs they hoped for coming at the very tail end of an economic recovery. Others are talking about a GDP recovery -- but not a jobs recovery. They are admitting as well that they underestimated the severity of this recession and its impact on unemployment levels.
And all this while Goldman Sachs and other financial houses have seen their balance sheets get cleaned up and bonuses surge.
U.S. employers cut far more jobs than expected last month and the unemployment rate hit a nearly 26-year high of 9.5 percent, underscoring the likelihood of a long and slow recovery from recession.
The eurozone unemployment rate climbed to a 10-year high of 9.5 percent in May, official European Union data shows.
Some 273,000 people lost their jobs across the eurozone in May, bringing the number of out of work individuals to 15.013 million -- a rate not recorded since May 1999.
Webmaster's Commentary:
This is why globalism is such a bad idea. An economic calamity in the US has become a crisis for the entire world!
Famous and respected New York Judge Richard Posner says maybe we should ban links to save newspapers.
Webmaster's Commentary:
This will backfire. The blogs are driving most of what little readership the newspapers have left. In the age of twitter, the blogs are quite capable of reporting and commenting on what is going on around the world.
And frankly, the blogs would not be such a threat to the newspapers IF THE NEWSPAPERS WOULD STOP LYING TO THE PEOPLE!
An investigator at the Securities and Exchange Commission warned superiors as far back as 2004 about irregularities at Bernard L. Madoff's financial management firm, but she was told to focus on an unrelated matter, according to agency documents and sources familiar with the investigation.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Who told her to focus elsewhere? I want NAMES! The tar is starting to boil!
Remember the big govermedia stink when armed British patrol boats wandered into "disputed" Iranian waters and were captured? For days on end the captured British sailors were lionized on the media and welcomed home as heroes when Iran released them.
But a former US Congresswoman gets captured off an aid ship in international waters and it's not a story?
President Obama's administration is spending massive amounts of taxpayer money on subsidizing the new jobs with the assumption they will more than replace employment sure to be eliminated by carbon taxes, cap-and-trade legislation and other limits on traditional industry.
But Washington might want to examine an ominous warning from Spain, an early pioneer in pursuing the theory of "green jobs."
According to economics professor Gabriel Calzada of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid, the Spanish government's renewable energy initiatives have destroyed 2.2 jobs for every new "green" job created.
The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff Thursday for operating a "Ponzi scheme" costing investors $50 billion made the TV network news. Curiously, a lawsuit the same day against Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for defrauding Citibank shareholders of more than $122 billion, also described as a "Ponzi scheme," got no airplay whatsoever.
There are several noteworthy developments since I wrote on Tuesday about the refusal of NPR's Ombdusman, Alica Shepard, to be interviewed by me about NPR's ban on using the word "torture" to describe the Bush administration's interrogation tactics. Given the utter vapidity of her rationale ("there are two sides to the issue.
While acknowledging that Madoff’s decision to plead guilty and cooperate with investigators seeking to unravel his schemes would ordinarily count in his favor, Chin underscored the political reasons for imposing the maximum sentence possible under the law. Madoff’s fraud had left his victims “doubting our financial institutions” as well as “our government’s ability to regulate,” he said.
Webmaster's Commentary:
Actually, we had come to that conclusion even before Bernie's crimes were exposed.
Of course, I might have missed something here. Maybe there is another reason that the American Corporate media thinks that Iran hijacking boats in their own territorial waters is a major news story while Israel hijacking a boat in international waters is not. And if that is true; if there is really is a reason why the two stories are being treated differently, I welcome any member of the corporate media to call into my radio show and explain it to me.
Because until they do, I think we have no choice left but to conclude that the difference in coverage between the two stories is that the American Corporate Media just don't like black people!
Dr. Mary Ruwart has a plan that would reduce healthcare costs by 80% overnight... without costing taxpayers $2 trillion. So why isn't anyone talking about this?
A European rocket placed the world's biggest commercial telecommunications satellite into geostationary orbit, launch operator Arianespace said.
The 6.9-tonne TerreStar-1, operated by US telecoms services firm TerreStar Networks Inc., was launched by Ariane-5 heavy rocket from the European space base in Kourou, French Guiana, after four delays caused by stormy weather.
Governments are failing to stem a rapid decline in biodiversity that is now threatening extinction for almost half the world's coral reef species, a third of amphibians and a quarter of mammals, a leading environmental group warned Thursday.
"Life on Earth is under serious threat," the International Union for Conservation of Nature said in a 155-page report that describes the past five years of a losing battle to protect species, natural habitats and geographical regions from the devastating effects of man.
Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday.
However, other scientists said that the finding, while significant, won't end the debate over the origin of anthropoids — the primate grouping that includes ancient species as well as modern humans.
In an about face, the United Nations on Wednesday lavishly praised drug decriminalization in its annual report on the state of global drug policy. In previous years, the UN drug czar had expressed skepticism about Portugal's decriminalization, which removed criminal penalties in 2001 for personal drug possession and emphasized treatment over incarceration. The UN had suggested the policy was in violation of international drug treaties and would encourage "drug tourism."
But in its 2009 World Drug Report, the UN had little but kind words for Portugal's radical (by U.S. standards) approach. "These conditions keep drugs out of the hands of those who would avoid them under a system of full prohibition, while encouraging treatment, rather than incarceration, for users.
The controversial climate bill that is set to be taken up by the Senate on Monday after its passage in the House will legislate home inspections by government regulators who will demand to audit every aspect of your property under the threat of substantial and repeated fines if their visits are denied or their demands not satisfied.
Click for torture scandal links
Dead because of a lie. Dead because selfish people in government wanted a war and lied to get one. How can you not be angry?
"There is no UN in Israel!"