Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Honduras Defends Its Democracy.....
Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution. It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking. But Honduras is not out of the Venezuelan woods yet. Yesterday the Central American country was being pressured to restore the authoritarian Mr. Zelaya by the likes of Fidel Castro, Daniel Ortega, Hillary Clinton and, of course, Hugo himself. The Organization of American States, having ignored Mr. Zelaya's abuses, also wants him back in power. It will be a miracle if Honduran patriots can hold their ground...Link
Monday, June 29, 2009
Fireworks over Baghdad as U.S. troops leave.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces assumed formal control of Baghdad and other cities Tuesday after American troops handed over security in urban areas in a defining step toward ending the U.S. combat role in the country. A countdown clock broadcast on Iraqi TV ticked to zero as the midnight deadline passed for U.S. combat troops to finish their pullback to bases outside cities...Link
‘Audit the Fed’ Bill Gathers Steam.........
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150 years isn't enough for this asshole........
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Sunday, June 28, 2009
S. 604 update - 3 Co-sponsors...........
Title: A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Lesson Learned...................
Since the United States invaded Afghanistan, the country’s number one cash crop, opium, has repeatedly broken production records. By some estimates, the occupied territory now supplies some 90 percent of the world’s poppies. So far, eradication efforts have merely fueled the Taliban’s coffers and driven civilian farmers further outside of U.S. influence. Because of this, the United States has formed a new strategy in the fight against the crop: They are giving up...Link
HR 1207 - 245 Co-sponsors...................
Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
Kucinich votes against climate change bill...
Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who is widely known as an advocate for the environment and for clean energy, announced on Friday that he had voted against the climate change legislation passed earlier that day by the House of Representatives...Link
Obama mulls indefinite prison stays........
WASHINGTON – The White House is considering whether to issue an executive order to indefinitely imprison a small number of Guantanamo Bay detainees, concerned that Congress might otherwise stymie its plans to quickly close the naval prison in Cuba...Link
Friday, June 26, 2009
HR 1207 - 244 Co-sponsors...........
Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
$1.4 million each day on average.............
The healthcare industry is spending upwards of $1.4 million each day on average to lobby members of Congress on health care legislation, a report issued by Common Cause this week reveals. Industry spending has nearly doubled since 2000. Healthcare interests contributed $94 million to Congress members during the 2008 election cycle alone — up from $40 million in 2000...Link
Will Congress Read Bills Before Voting?.....
Last month, when Republicans tried to stall energy legislation with hundreds of amendments, Democrats hired a speed reader to get through them all. Now, with Democratic leadership barreling through its hefty agenda this summer, it looks as if the speed reader's services may be needed once more. Various grassroots organizations are blasting Congress for not taking the time to properly consider the energy bill or health care reform -- two very significant pieces of legislation...Link
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Iran empowers ‘butcher’ to interrogate.....
Saaed Mortazavi, an Iranian prosecutor who was responsible for ordering over 100 newspapers closed and dozens of bloggers and journalists arrested, tortured and in some cases, killed, has been empowered to interrogate Iran’s opposition leaders, according to published reports. Mortazavi’s frightful history has earned him two distinct nicknames: “Butcher of the press” and “torturer of Tehran.”...Link
Michael Jackson is Dead...........
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Farrah Fawcett DEAD at 62.................
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Saturn's icy moon Enceladus............
Saturn's icy moon Enceladus could contain watery underground caverns, forming a potential home for alien life, say scientists. German researchers have found salt - a signature chemical for seawater - in ice grains from vapour jets streaming out of surface cracks, providing the strongest evidence yet of a liquid water reservoir beneath the moon's frozen crust...Link
Fed Chief Advocates Bigger Role............
WASHINGTON — During the debate over financial regulation, the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has been surprisingly quiet. But behind the scenes, he has been a forceful proponent of giving the Fed more power, both defending his management of the economic crisis and arguing that more authority would help the agency act more decisively to reduce the chances of a recurrence, according to interviews with lawmakers and officials from the Fed, the Treasury and the White House...Link
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal......
Glenn Greenwald is a civil rights attorney, a blogger for Salon, and the author of a new Cato Institute policy study called “Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Policies.” The paper examines Portugal’s experiment with decriminalizing possession of drugs for personal use, which began in 2001. Nick Gillespie, editor of reason.com and reason.tv, sat down with Greenwald in April...Link
Exclusive Conversation With Ron Paul.....
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009
'This was a massacre.'........
CNN’s Ivan Watson was left dumbfounded on Wednesday during an interview with an unnamed eyewitness in Iran who told the news network that security forces mercilessly beat protesters. The woman, whose identity CNN chose to keep secret for fear of reprisal by the Iranian government, also said she believed security forces had fired into a crowd...Link
Newsom Usher In Organic Composting Laws.
At the Farmer's Market in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building today, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a first-of-its-kind rule requiring all residences and businesses to compost their organic waste. The tougher new composting standards were approved by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in early June by a vote of 9-2...Link
Clerics join Iran's anti-government protests.
(CNN) -- A photo showing Iranian clerics prominently participating in an anti-government protest speaks volumes about the new face of Iran's opposition movement. In a blatant act of defiance, a group of Mullahs took to the streets of Tehran, to protest election results that returned incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Whether these clerics voted for Ahmadinejad or one of the opposition candidates is unknown. What is important here, is the decision to march against the will of Iran's supreme leader who called the results final and declared demonstrations illegal...Link
HR 1207 - 242 Co-sponsors...............
Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Obama warns of worse economy to come....
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Guards commander defies Khamenei....
A commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has been arrested for refusing to obey Iran's Supreme Leader, according to reports from the Balatarin website. General Ali Fazli, who was recently appointed as a commander of the Revolutionary Guards in the province of Tehran, is reported to have been arrested after he refused to carry out orders from the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to use force on people protesting the controversial re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad...Link
Meet Your New Farmer: Corporate Giant.....
Forget buckets of blood. Nothing says horror like one of those tubs of artificially buttered, nonorganic popcorn at the concession stand. That, at least, is one of the unappetizing lessons to draw from one of the scariest movies of the year, “Food, Inc.,” an informative, often infuriating activist documentary about the big business of feeding or, more to the political point, force-feeding, Americans all the junk that multinational corporate money can buy. You’ll shudder, shake and just possibly lose your genetically modified lunch...Link
Monday, June 22, 2009
Missing the Point.........
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit on behalf of a man who says he was harassed by Transportation Security Administration officials. The hosts of CNN’s American Morning, however, appear to find the whole incident something of a joke. Steven Bierfeldt is the director of development for Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty. He was carrying a cashbox with about $4700 from the sale of T-shirts and other political items at an event last March when airport officials in St. Louis, MO spotted the money and demanded to know its source. The 25 year old Bierfeldt declined to answer and set his iPhone to record as he was taken to another room for further questioning.Link
The World's Most Popular U.S. Congressman.
Months after his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination ended, Rep. Ron Paul has become a hot ticket on the international stage. Unlikely as it may seem, Paul, a Texas Republican, is the most popular member of Congress outside the United State, if foreign television appearances are any indication...Link
US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq.......
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Asking a policeman for his badge number....
The Guardian has obtained this police footage of Emily Apple and Val Swain being arrested by surveillance officers after asking for their badge numbers at the Kingsnorth climate camp last year. The two women speak to Paul Lewis about their arrest, imprisonment and official complaint...Link
What the World Didn't See in Tehran..........
Iranian state television yesterday broadcast the soap operas and covered the news about Rafael Nadal's withdrawal from Wimbledon and Pakistani operations against the Taliban as if they were the most important stories in the world. Meanwhile, arriving over the Internet transom, rough and insistent and bloody, were the tiny electronic dispatches from protesters forced off the streets in Tehran, shaky videos from a city screaming for help. For outsiders tuned in to the blog posts, Facebook updates, Tweets and YouTube videos, the torrent of information was compelling and confusing, emotional and rife with rumors, full of sound and fury signifying ... what we do not yet know...Link
U.S. ready for possible N.Korea missile launch.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States military is prepared for the possibility that North Korea may attempt to launch a missile toward Hawaii, President Barack Obama said in remarks released on Sunday. "This administration -- and our military -- is fully prepared for any contingencies," Obama said in an interview with CBS television when asked about reported North Korean intentions to fire a missile toward Hawaii on or about July 4...Link
The FDA's authority to regulate tobacco.......
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Sunday, June 21, 2009
Obama Closes Doors on Openness........
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N.Korea accuses Obama of nuclear war plot.
North Korea has accused US President Barack Obama of plotting a nuclear war on the communist nation by reaffirming a US assurance of security for South Korea, the North's state media said. In a first official response to last week's US-South Korean summit, the state-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said in its Saturday edition Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak "are trying to ignite a nuclear war"...Link
Fissures form in Iranian government.........
As the upheaval in Iran heads into its second week, there are growing indications of severe fissures in Iran’s theocratic government, with high-ranking government officials disputing the validity of the June 12 election results on national television...Link
A Supreme Leader Loses His Aura.............
TEHRAN — The Iranian police commander, in green uniform, walked up Komak Hospital Alley with arms raised and his small unit at his side. “I swear to God,” he shouted at the protesters facing him, “I have children, I have a wife, I don’t want to beat people. Please go home.”...Link
Gunfire heard in northern Tehran...........
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Gunfire rang out in Tehran late on Sunday and pro-reform clerics stepped up criticism of Iran's authorities after more than a week of unprecedented popular defiance against the leadership of the Islamic Republic...Link
Thousands of Iranians took to the streets on Saturday in defiance of an ultimatum from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for an end to protests over last week’s disputed presidential election. A suicide bomber meanwhile struck a key regime monument — the south Tehran mausoleum of revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei, killing himself and wounding at least two people, state media reported. The demonstrators braved tear gas and water cannon to assemble in Enghelab Square in the heart of the capital, witnesses said, as foreign media were again barred from covering the opposition event...Link
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Once again.....A man Alone.
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"I am prepared for martyrdom"...............
Protests continued in Iran today, despite yesterday's threat by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to crush dissent if it went on. But the regime appears to be making good on its threats. Eyewitnesses reported massive security forces gathered all over Tehran, with Basij paramilitaries clubbing demonstrators and waves of arrests...Link
Solar NRG Vs. the Air Force..................
On a vacant piece of land near Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, the promise of solar energy has collided into the demands of military training. And a solar project that would have featured a vast field of mirrors, a molten-salt storage facility and a 600-foot "power tower" appears to be heading for defeat...Link
Friday, June 19, 2009
Daily protection.................
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Khamenei warns protesters to stay off streets.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a stern warning to opponents today to stay off the streets and denied claims that last week's elections had been rigged. In an uncompromising address at Friday prayers, Khamenei claimed that the high turnout at the elections showed how much the Iranian people supported the regime, and blamed western powers for interfering in Iranian politics, singling out the UK as the "most treacherous"...Link
HR 1207 - 237 co-sponsors.......................
Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Sue TSA over ‘illegal’ detention...............
The American Civil Liberties Union may have just earned itself a few more Republican admirers. Announcing a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration for the “illegal” detention of the Campaign for Liberty’s treasurer in April at a St. Louis airport, the ACLU damned what it called a “troubling pattern” of aggressive invasions of privacy by the TSA...Link
Congress approves $106 bln for wars.........
US lawmakers late Thursday sent President Barack Obama a 106-billion-dollar emergency bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, fight swine flu, aid Pakistan and boost IMF loans to poor nations. The Senate voted 91-5 for compromise legislation that cleared the House of Representatives by a 226-202 margin on Tuesday. The measure will fund US efforts in both conflicts until fiscal year 2010 begins on October 1, at a time when Obama has charted a course for withdrawal from Iraq and an escalation in Afghanistan...Link
Insurance sucks..........................
As the federal government debates health care reform, the health insurance industry has some news for us. They're not going to stop canceling people's policies after they get sick. Nope. No way...Link
Obama's Plan Falls Flat With Economists.....
President Obama said he was looking for a "careful balance" when sketching his blueprint to stabilize the nation's financial sector and wring from the system the kind of risky practices that propelled the country into economic turmoil. But in seeking that balance — and bowing to political realities on Capitol Hill — the president may have boxed himself in with a mixed-bag proposal that has managed to disappoint economists and financial experts across the spectrum...Link
Iran opposition defiant..................
Iran’s opposition held another rally and stepped up its challenge to the Islamic regime on Wednesday as the authorities intensified a crackdown on the media to try to contain the biggest crisis since the 1979 revolution...Link
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Feinstein denies NSA abuses...................
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S.604 has 2 cosponsors..............
Title: A bill to amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
HR 1207 - 234 co-sponsors..................
Title: To amend title 31, United States Code, to reform the manner in which the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is audited by the Comptroller General of the United States and the manner in which such audits are reported, and for other purposes.
I wonder what happened to my colleagues...
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Mr. Speaker, I continue to believe that the best way to support our troops is to bring them home from Iraq and Afghanistan. If one looks at the original authorization for the use of force in Afghanistan, it is clear that the ongoing and expanding nation-building mission there has nothing to do with our goal of capturing and bringing to justice those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact it undermines our national security. I urge my colleagues to defeat this reckless conference report.
Comparisons to the Bush administration.......
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The Story of 9 Failed Currencies.........
The world’s major economic powers are all suffering from the economic downturn but even the most cynical doomsayer is sure we’ll get ourselves out of this mess—eventually. Rare are those instances in which entire economies are disrupted to the point - typically as a result of rampant inflation, or hyper inflation - that an entire form of currency is discarded, reformed or replaced. But it does happen. There are invariably external issues (military, political, etc) at play, which result in what can generally be referred to the ‘failure of a currency’, and each situation is unique. The following is a list of nine notable examples in which currencies became so devalued that they were eventually replaced:....Link
Obama breaking transparency promises.....
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Only $1.6 trillion.....................
WASHINGTON - The latest cost estimates for health care legislation in Congress are around $1.6 trillion over 10 years, two Senate sources said Tuesday as concerns mounted over the price tag for the sweeping overhaul...Link
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Federal Reserve to gain power under plan.
The Federal Reserve, already arguably the most powerful agency in the U.S. government, will get sweeping new authority to regulate any company whose failure could endanger the U.S. economy and markets under the Obama administration's regulatory overhaul plan...Link
HR 1207 - 229 co-sponsors.........................
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