Peshawar's black market for stolen military goods

Vulnerable supply lines put US mission at risk

Six weeks after GlobalPost broke the story of stolen US military computers and hardware, the black market still thrives.

By Shahan Mufti

 

ISLAMABAD — As President Obama sets in motion a new strategic initiative in Afghanistan and Pakistan,  supply lines remain vulnerable to attack and a black market is still thriving in stolen military hardware and computers.

As the U.S. begins a surge of 21,000 troops and military advisers in Afghanistan over the summer, the threat to supply lines and the stolen equipment could compromise the mission, military analysts say.

More than six weeks after GlobalPost broke the news of American military hardware and software being sold openly in markets in Pakistan's northwest, the trade of American goods robbed from supply trucks and smuggled in from Afghanistan is still going on.

U.S. military officials in Pakistan would not comment on GlobalPost's special report titled "In The Wrong Hands," even as attacks on convoys are on the rise. 

The problem the U.S. confronts in keeping supply lines open is critical as the U.S. steps up its mission. More troops will need more uniforms, Kevlar vests, boots, canned food, sleeping bags, night vision equipment, and computers — a melange of supplies that enables the military to wage war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the hostile "Af-Pak" terrain.

But just as the demand for war materials is set to surge, the supply of vital equipment to American soldiers remains imperiled in its route through Pakistan and there are few signs of improvement.

Earlier in March another eight trucks laden with NATO supplies were torched outside Peshawar, the largest city in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. Another dozen were damaged when militants armed with automatic weapons and grenades attacked a truck terminal.

Since 2007, several hundred NATO supply trucks have been torched and looted in similar attacks.

Noor Muhammad a trader in Sitara Market, a hub for stolen American military equipment where GlobalPost purchased a U.S. military issue laptop for $650 last month, says business is still good.

"We feel no threat from law enforcement," he says. "These are smuggled goods, but
we are just meeting people's demands."

The day after GlobalPost's story last month the U.S. Government Accountability Office published a report that revealed that American forces had lost track of more than 87,000 weapons supplied to Afghan security forces between 2004 and 2008.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/pakistan/090330/vulnerable-supply-lines-put-us-mission-at-risk?page=0,0

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Baracklava

Nadir Gullu, chef and baklava master of Karakoy Gulluoglu, shows off his portrait of President Obama made of baklava, also known as the Baracklava.

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Save the planet: Get rid of your cat

Evidence is mounting that having a cat isn't very green: Along with humans, they are having a devastating impact on birds and marine life.

By Knute Berger

We're willing to tax plastic bags to save the planet, but are we willing to give up our pets? There's increasing evidence that our love of cats and dogs is having an adverse impact on the earth. Sure, pet owners experience joy and even the release of endorphins when they cuddle with Fluffy, but benign Fluffy is not.

A new report on the state of bird populations in the United States paints a grim picturefor the future diversity of bird species. The State of Birds survey indicates that fully one third of U.S. species are in decline. There are many pressures, most of them human, including habitat destruction. But the second biggest reason for the decline of birds: non-native species predation, which includes invasive critters, domestic animals, and house pets. Among pets, cats are the major threat. There are an estimated 77 million pet cats (pdf) in the U.S. (that doesn't count feral or stray populations which could more than double that number). Numbers vary but experts believe pet cats kill millions of birds in this country each year.

Urban cats are part of the problem in part because habitat fragmentation turns your yard from part of the larger wild system into an ecological island. Visiting birds are more isolated and vulnerable and can be more easily picked off by hunting cats who have the place staked out. Islands are particularly rough on stressed species: The place native birds are doing the worst is Hawaii. Another problem: despite best intentions, keeping cats indoors is problematic. since only about a third (35%) of pet cats are kept exclusively indoors, according to the American Bird Conservancy. Well-fed cats hunt. Cats with bells on their necks are successful predators too.

Then there's the problem of cat food. The New York had a recent column on the earth-devastating, or more accurately, sea-devastating, impact of cat food. In an op/ed, author Paul Greenberg, writes about the problem with his cat:

Coco, like most American cats, ate fish. And a great deal of them — more in a year than the average African human, according to Jason Clay at the World Wildlife Fund. And unlike the chicken or beef Coco also gobbled up, all those fish were wild animals, scooped out of the sea and flown thousands of carbon-belching miles to reach his little blue bowl....

The pet food industry now uses about 10 percent of the global supply of forage fish. The swine industry consumes 24 percent of fish meal and oil — fish oil being considered the best way to wean piglets. Poultry meanwhile takes as much as 22 percent, which means that even when Coco ate chicken, indirectly he was still eating fish.

The bottom line is that wild fish runs, on which whales, seals, orcas and other species depend, is being radically depleted worldwide, and much of the catch winds up in your cat's bowl.

http://crosscut.com/2009/04/02/mossback/18925/

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Afghan Women to Obama: We Must Be at the Table!

by Patricia DeGennaro

The author, a global affairs professor who has worked extensively in Afghanistan, talks to Dr. Masooda Jalal, a political leader and the subject of a new documentary. Her message: women must be involved in peace making; the Taliban and warlords are "only powerful because we allow them to be." 

United States President Barak Obama unveiled his new strategy for Afghanistan last week.  In it he pledged both military and civil support to Afghanistan.  "And," he went out of his way to say, "we will continue to support the basic human rights of all Afghans—including women and girls."  Despite this, Afghan women continue to be absent from the discussion when it comes to their futures and the future of Afghanistan.

As I write this, Brussels is hosting the largest international conference to date on Afghanistan and Afghan women are conspicuously missing.  It seems that international rhetoric for women does not translate into any vigorous action.

Ironically, while leaders sit and plan her future, Dr. Masooda Jalal, the only woman who ran for the Afghan presidency, tours the United States discussing a new documentary, FRONTRUNNER, a film that brilliantly illustrates the challenges she faced running for top office.

I was privileged to sit down with Dr. Jalal earlier this week.  Like many Afghan women, Jalal is a warm, serious individual.  She, however, has an intensity about her that brought her within steps of the Presidential Palace. 

Although she did not become the nation's leader, Jalal continues to work tireless to, in her words, "end racial, ethnic, gender and religious discrimination in Afghanistan." No easy feat for anyone in the world let alone a woman in Kabul, although Jalal seems to conquer endless and insurmountable obstacles with ease. 

She is a symbol of how the world does not put its money where its mouth is.  Although a formidable candidate, the world chose to put all its muscle behind a man instead—thinking, as former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad states, "Afghanistan is just not ready for a women president."  Well, I would bet if the current Afghan President Hamid Karzai did not get all that international attention and money, she would have definitely proven him wrong.

Jalal comes from an extremely supportive family.  One that encouraged her education and, later, her political campaign. After completing medical school, along with her practice, she became a medical professor at Kabul University.  She has spent her life taking care of the people.  "We are all human," says Jalal, "and as a doctor I know it is important to take care of everyone [the same way]." 

During Taliban rule women were prohibited from working.  Jalal continued her medical practice anyway using her home to treat women, children, and "even men," she says.  She worked for the United Nations as well.  When the Taliban found out about her activities she ended up in jail.  Fortunately, due to UN pressure, Jalal was released after only two days of incarceration.  She was lucky: many women jailed by the Taliban never made it out.

http://womensmediacenter.com/ex/040209.html

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Snitch: the Magazine for Prisoners

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Executive Guillotine

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US judge will drop charges in event of resurrection

A US judge has agreed to drop murder charges against a woman accused of starving her one-year-old son to death if the little boy is resurrected, a lawyer for the accused said Tuesday.

Ria Ramkissoon, now 22, was accused with four other members of a small cult called One Mind Ministries of starving her infant son Javon Thompson to death in 2007.

According to prosecutors, the leader of the sect, a Baltimore woman who goes by the name of Queen Antoinette, had ordered Ramkissoon and other sect members to stop feeding Javon after he didn't say "amen" at breakfast.

In a hearing Monday before the Baltimore Circuit Court, Judge Timothy Doory accepted Ramkissoon's guilty plea and agreed to let her testify against Queen Antoinette and the other defendants.

But if Ramkissoon's son "is resurrected, as you still hold some hope he will be, you may withdraw the plea and the charges against you will be withdrawn," Doory said.

"It's a sad, crazy situation," Ramkissoon's lawyer Steven Silverman told AFP.

"Had we gone to trial, her only defense would have been, 'My child will be resurrected, therefore I'm not guilty.'

"You and I and everyone else knows that's not happening, but she's been brainwashed by a cult and still believes it to this day," he said.

Silverman said as far as he knew, the plea deal marked a global legal first.

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_judge_will_drop_charges_in_event_03312009.html

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Man detained, threatened and abused by TSA for flying with $4700 in cash

 

Here's a recording of Steve Bierfeldt, a US citizen who tried to board a domestic airplane while carrying $4700 in cash, and was detained by the TSA and subjected to abusive language and threats when he said that he would only answer the TSA's inquiries ("Where do you work?" "Why are you carrying cash?") if he was required to by law. The TSA agents threatened to turn him over to the DEA. He was returning from a Ron Paul event in St Louis, MO, and worked for the campaign. The cash on his person arose from sales of t-shirts and stickers at the event.

 

The transport cops in the audio recording of his interrogation actually tell him if he's not guilty he has nothing to fear.

Exactly what security threat does cash pose to an airplane? Are suicide bombers wont to carry a lot of liquid capital in case they flub it and need to bribe their way out?

 

Cue clueless commenter who says, "Well what did he expect when he told the law enforcement person that he expected to be informed of his rights and legal obligations before he would answer his questions?" After all, constitutional liberties are only there to be admired, not exercised. In 3...2...1.

 

Man detained and harassed at airport for carrying CASH! (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

 

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Finally, a little honesty about America's inept war on drugs

Through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the drug cartels rely on. We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

By David Sirota

Finally, a little honesty.

Finally, after America has frittered away billions of taxpayer dollars arming Latin American death squads, airdropping toxic herbicide on equatorial farmland, and incarcerating more of its own citizens on nonviolent drug charges than any other industrialized nation, two political leaders last week tried to begin taming the most wildly out of control beast in the government zoo: federal narcotics policy.

It started with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating an embarrassingly obvious truth that politicians hardly ever discuss. In a speech about rising violence in Mexico, she said, "Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade," and then added that "we have co-responsibility" for the cartel-driven carnage plaguing our southern border.

She's right, of course. For all the Rambo-ish talk about waging a "War on Drugs" that interdicts the supply of narcotics, we have not diminished demand — specifically, demand for marijuana that cartels base their business on.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot.

Add that to the roughly $36 billion worth of domestically produced weed, and cannabis has become one of the continent's biggest cash crops. As any mob movie illustrates, mixing such "insatiable" demand for a product with statutes outlawing said product guarantees the emergence of a violent black market — in this case, one in which Mexican drug cartels reap 62 percent of their profits from U.S. marijuana sales.

That last stat, provided by the White House drug czar, is the silver lining. Every American concerned about Mexico's security problems should be thankful that the cartels are so dependent on marijuana, and not a genuinely hazardous substance like heroin. Why? Because that means through pot legalization, we can bring the marijuana trade out of the shadows and into the safety of the regulated economy, consequently eliminating the black market the cartels rely on. And here's the best part: We can do so without fearing any more negative consequences than we already tolerate in our keg-party culture.

Though President Obama childishly laughed at a question about legalization during his recent town-hall meeting, his government implicitly admits that marijuana is safer than light beer. Indeed, as federal agencies acknowledge alcohol's key role in deadly illnesses and domestic violence, their latest anti-pot fear mongering is an ad campaign insisting — I kid you not — that marijuana is dangerous because it makes people zone out on their couches and diminishes video gaming skills.

(This is your government on drugs: Cirrhosis and angry tank-topped lushes beating their wives are more acceptable risks than stoners sitting in their basements ineptly playing Halo ... any questions?).

Despite this idiocy, despite polls showing most Americans support some form of legalization, and despite such legalization promising to generate billions of dollars in tax revenue, Clinton only acknowledged the uncomfortable reality about demand. That's certainly no small step, but she did not address drug-policy reform. Confronting that taboo subject was left to Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

Last week, this first-term lawmaker proposed creating a federal commission to examine potential changes to the prison system, including a relaxation of marijuana statutes.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2008990031_opina06sirota.html

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House Preparing To Legalize Payday Loans With 391% APRs

By Carey

A House subcommittee wants to legalize payday loans with interest rates of up to 391%. Lobbyists from the payday industry bought Congress' support by showering influential members, including Chairman Luiz Gutierrez, with campaign cash. The Congressman is now playing good cop, bad cop with the payday industry, which is pretending to oppose his generous gift of a bill.

"While they may not be JP Morgan Chase or Bank of America, they're very powerful. Their influence should not be underestimated," Gutierrez, the top Democrat on the Financial Services subcommittee in charge of consumer credit issues, said in an interview this week.

Indeed, the payday lending industry is strenuously resisting Gutierrez's measure, which it says would devastate its business. The measure would cap the annual interest rate for a payday loan at 391 percent, ban so-called "rollovers" - where a borrower who can't afford to pay off the loan essentially renews it and pays large fees - and prevent lenders from suing borrowers or docking their wages to collect the debt.

A newer player representing Internet payday lenders - a growing segment of the market - also ramped up its lobbying and political giving efforts. The Online Lenders Alliance, formed in 2005, nearly quintupled, to $480,000, its lobbying expenditures from 2007 and 2008. It contributed $108,400 to candidates in advance of the 2008 elections compared to about $2,000 in the 2006 contests. Gutierrez was among the top House recipients, getting $4,600, while the top Senate recipient was Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., a Banking Committee member who got $6,900.

After watching members of the military fall prey to exorbitant payday loans, Congress in 2006 capped the interest rates for military payday loans at 36%. Fifteen states have similar caps or outright bans.

Congressman Gutierrez is competing with Congressman Joe Baca to see who can author the biggest giveaway. Baca's legislation would allow rollovers, higher fees for online banks, and would pre-empt state laws banning payday loans.

Someone—maybe Carolyn Maloney, who did an excellent job with the Credit Card Bill of Rights—needs to step up and punch the payday lending lobbyists in the face.

http://consumerist.com/5198880/house-preparing-to-legalize-payday-loans-with-391-aprs

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Sean Penn, King Player

" . . . Mr. Penn has joined the cast of "The Three Stooges," a new MGM comedy based on the vintage film shorts of that knockaround trio, Variety reported. Mr. Penn, who recently won his second Academy Award, for playing the title role in Gus Van Sant's "Milk," is set to play Larry, the wire-haired, violin-wielding Stooge . . . " NY Times.

Orson Welles once mentioned that there are actors who are king players. By virtue of their bearing and stature they just naturally play kings. Sean Penn, film royalty for sure, is, by all accounts, preparing for the role of a lifetime: the biopic of Larry Fine, the quiet Stooge, and his relatively unknown life story: as a tireless fighter for social justice.

In this dynamic screenplay, a copy of which I have obtained, Larry, a migrant concert violinist, finds himself in a community of persecuted Burlesque comedians, ultimately takes up their cause and finds the human rights crusader in himself. As the first president of the Slapstick Workers Action Committee (SWAC) he ultimately drives through major reforms in the industry such as: true custard filling to be used in the cream pies, non-toxic red paint for the "do you want your palm read?" sketch and better access to the strippers' dressing rooms.

His torrid love affair with Jackie "Moms" Mably, in a racially intolerant era ends tragically in a firestorm of condemnation. Now questions about his personal life combine with the coming of the McCarthy era result in increased pressure and persecution for Larry. He and his lieutenants, Curly and Moe Howard, are continually victimized by industry goons, chief among them, the feared Harry Cohn, who puts them in films in which they are exposed to punishing, sometimes life-threatening situations.

Aging and nearly blind from years of eye-poking (known in the trade as "Cohning") and almost bald from years of relentless hair pulling, Larry bravely leads the historic, "Funny Walk on Washington" protest. Fifty thousand comics rally on the steps of the Ronald Reagan Trade Building in Washington, at the foot of the statue of Bonzo the chimp, waving signs and hollering, "It's not the money it's the principle of the thing!" In a barely audible voice he delivers the now famous, "I have a terrible headache" speech, calling for better breakaway furniture, gorilla suit ventilation and research into a safe seltzer bottle. The rally is a huge success but the excitement is too much for Larry. Soon afterward, he passes away, ironically, after years of violence and agony, quietly munching a bagel.

There won't be a dry eye in the house. Oscar is waiting. You heard it here.

 

http://www.drawger.com/stevebrodner/ Sphere: Related Content

NORTH KOREA LAUNCHES LONG RANGE ROCKET WITH 100000 MILE/TEN YEAR WARRANTY

Experts say North Korea extended missile warranty will wreak havoc with America's big three missile makers.

by R J Shulman

Pyongyang, North Korea -- (PTSD News) -- Despite threats of retaliation from the United States, at 11:30 a.m. on Sunday, North Korea launched a long range missile with a twist - they are guaranteeing the rocket for 100,000 miles or ten years. "This bold defiance of the excepted standards of the world community is a threat to the global missile makers community," said Charles Kramer, president of the World Missile Manufactures.

Experts say North Korea extended missile warranty will wreak havoc with America's big three missile makers. "If we are not immediately bailed out by Congress," said Lance Blowfield of General Missiles, "we will have to declare bankruptcy."

"We cannot take this situation lightly," said President Barack Obama, commenting in Paris where he was in a meeting with French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. "If we allow our domestic missile industry to die, we will lose jobs which will further depress the economy." President Sarkozy suggest that Obama immediately surrender. "In France, the white flag allows us to forget about the expenses of war so we can concentrate of what we French people do best, make wine and cheat on our spouses."

"If we don't make our own missiles in America anymore, we would have to get them from China" said Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. "This could be embarrassing if we needed these weapons to protect Taiwan from Chinese aggression and had to ask the Chinese to send us some rockets to be used against them."

"The Americans shouldn't be so upset about getting their rockets from China," said Fa Ho Shin, of the Chinese embassy, "after all, rockets were invented by the Chinese."

"It may be too late in that our weapons manufacturing has been mostly outsourced already," said General Brian Capstone, commander of the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. "We had a malfunction the other day. We called tech support and got some guy named Chuck in India. I couldn't understand a damn word of what he was saying and our next test missile went haywire and almost took out El Paso."

http://www.legitgov.org/shulman_n_korea_rocket_warranty_060409.html

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Where Madoff's $55 billion went

Some things just didn't work out so well.

By Steve Clifford

What did Bernie Madoff do with that $55 billion? Flip Side assigned its crack investigative reporting team to answer this question. The results are just in:

Bernard Madoff : Sources of Funds, 1992-2008

Chumps: $5,637,000,000. Shmedriks: $14,080,000,000. Dupes: $4,363,000,000. Shlemiels: $7,375,000,000. Goyim: $23,545,000. Total: $55,000,000,000.

Bernard Madoff: Uses of Funds, 1992-2008

New York Yankees baseball cap, $17.95

Loss on co-investment with Paul Allen in Charter Communications, $325,000,000

Book: Ponzi's Scheme: The True Story of a Financial Legend, $14.95

Ingrates who wanted money back: $4,325,000,000

NPR Spring Pledge Drive: $50

East Side Co-op: $4,000,000

Pilates classes: $1,325

Payment to Dr. Bomo Ngoro, Auditor General of Burkina: $18,766,000

Six Sigma Consulting: $919,459.15

Property in Antibes: $900,000

Loss on co-investment with Paul Allen in Portland Rose Garden: $55,000,000

Summer home in Hamptons: $1,580,000

Things that cost a lot of money: $3,695,000,000

Things that cost a whole lot of money: $9,423,000,000

Loss on co-investment with Paul Allen in Radar Networks: $35,780,000

NPR Feast of the Ascension Pledge Drive: $50

Purchase of Papal Indulgences: $2,936,890,000

Food (excluding Vitello Tonnato): $77,736.89

Vitello Tonnato: $77,736.89

Motivational speakers: Barry Bonds ($75,000), Jeff Skilling ($125,000), Charles Manson ($250,000)

Tchatchkes: $6,000,000,000

http://crosscut.com/2009/04/06/flip-side/18938/

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Michael Tamblyn - 6 Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better

 

http://blip.tv/file/1894592/

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Obama launches effort to reduce nuclear arms

President Barack Obama on Sunday launched an effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons, calling them "the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War" and saying the U.S. has a moral responsibility to lead as the only nation to ever use one.

In a speech driven with fresh urgency by North Korea's rocket launch just hours early, Obama said the U.S. would "immediately and aggressively" seek ratification of a comprehensive ban on testing nuclear weapons. He said the U.S. would host a summit within the next year on reducing and eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, and he called for a global effort to secure nuclear material.

"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be checked — that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," Obama said to a bustling crowd in an old square outside the Prague Castle gates.

"This fatalism is a deadly adversary," he said. "For if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."

Obama targeted his comments directly at North Korea at one point, which launched a rocket late Saturday night in defiance of the international community. The president was awoken by an aide and told of the news, which occurred in the early morning hours in Prague.

"North Korea broke the rules once more by testing a rocket that could be used for a long range missile," Obama said. "This provocation underscores the need for action — not just this afternoon at the UN Security Council, but in our determination to prevent the spread of these weapons."

Addressing another longtime foe on the nuclear front, Obama said the U.S. will present Iran with "a clear choice" to join the community of nations by ceasing its nuclear and ballistic missile activity or face increased isolation and a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

He said the U.S. also will proceed with development of a missile defense system in Europe as long as there is an Iranian threat of developing nuclear weapons. If that threat is removed, he said, "The driving force for missile defense in Europe will be removed. "

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/obama-launches-effort-to-reduce-nuclear-arms-1663128.html

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Fake faith and epic crimes

The Brussels War Crimes Tribunal and the newly established Blair War Crimes Foundation are building a case for the former British prime minister's prosecution

by John Pilger

These are extraordinary times. With the United States and Britain on the verge of bankruptcy and committing to an endless colonial war, pressure is building for their crimes to be prosecuted at a tribunal similar to that which tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. This defined rapacious invasion as "the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes [sic] in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole". International law would be mere farce, said the chief US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, the Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, "if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves".

That is now happening. Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Britain have long had "universal jurisdiction" statutes, which allow their national courts to pursue and prosecute prima facie war criminals. What has changed is an unspoken rule never to use international law against "ourselves", or "our" allies or clients. In 1998, Spain, supported by France, Switzerland and Belgium, indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, client and executioner of the west, and sought his extradition from Britain, where he happened to be at the time. Had he been sent for trial, he almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity. The then home secretary, Jack Straw, let him escape back to Chile.

The Pinochet case was the ignition. On 19 January, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W Bush with that of Pinochet. "Outside [the United States] there is no longer the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime," he said. "So if you try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as 'former president George Bush' [but] as a current war criminal." For this reason, Bush's first defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who demanded an invasion of Iraq in 2001 and personally approved torture techniques for use in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, no longer travels. Rumsfeld has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. On 26 January, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said: "We have clear evidence that Mr Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but nevertheless he ordered torture."

The Spanish high court is currently investi­gating a former Israeli defence minister and six other top Israeli officials for their role in the killing of civilians, mostly children, in Gaza. Henry Kissinger, who was largely responsible for bombing 600,000 peasants to death in Cambodia in 1969-73, is wanted for questioning in France, Chile and Argentina. Yet, on 8 February, as if demonstrating the continuity of American power, President Barack Obama's national security adviser, James Jones, said: "I take my daily orders from Dr Kissinger."

Like them, Tony Blair may soon be a fugitive.

http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2009/04/war-crimes-blair-pilger-iraq

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Hoax Film Made by Nazis

by Jorge Luis Marzo

These three clips are part of an SS film shot at Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp for Jews in Prague, in 1944. Entitled "The Fuhrer gives a city to the Jews," it was a hoax film made by Nazis intended to demonstrate that widespread news about the extermination of Jews in the East was false. The most unbelievable thing is that, in order to create a credible plot, the entire film was directed by Jewish filmmaker Kurt Gerron, himself a prisoner, and shot and performed by the very inmates, under the threat of being sent to Auschwitz. The camp was painted, remodelled and inmates received extra rations of food, etc..

The Fuhrer gives a city to the Jews, Part 1

A copy of the film was sent to the Red Cross in Geneve (Switzerland). A few days later, the whole camp's population was sent to Auschwitz and murdered in the gas chambers.

I got this footage from the Jewish International Council in NYC. The film has been used by some negationist pro-Nazi groups to deny the Holocaust. So, for any use of these film clips, it is very important to explain the full context.

The Fuhrer gives a city to the Jews, Part 2

The Fuhrer gives a city to the Jews, Part 3

http://artoftheprank.com/2009/04/04/hoax-film-made-by-nazis/

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Thousands flee bomb attacks by US drones

by Daud Khattakin and Christina Lamb

AMERICAN drone attacks on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan are causing a massive humanitarian emergency, Pakistani officials claimed after a new attack yesterday killed 13 people.

The dead and injured included foreign militants, but women and children were also killed when two missiles hit a house in the village of Data Khel, near the Afghan border, according to local officials.

As many as 1m people have fled their homes in the Tribal Areas to escape attacks by the unmanned spy planes as well as bombings by the Pakistani army. In Bajaur agency entire villages have been flattened by Pakistani troops under growing American pressure to act against Al-Qaeda militants, who have made the area their base.

Kacha Garhi is one of 11 tented camps across Pakistan's frontier province once used by Afghan refugees and now inhabited by hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis made homeless in their own land.

So far 546,000 have registered as internally displaced people (IDPs) according to figures provided by Rabia Ali, spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and Maqbool Shah Roghani, administrator for IDPs at the Commission for Afghan Refugees.

The commissioner's office says there are thousands more unregistered people who have taken refuge with relatives and friends or who are in rented accommodation.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6036512.ece

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The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama

 

Corrupt new administration deepens and expands systemic criminalization and war agenda

by Larry Chin

To sober, clear-eyed observers of history and political deception, the ascension of Barack Obama held the promise for unprecedented new dangers: a revitalized New World Order, led by the Anglo-American empire's  neoliberal criminal faction and an iconic, deceptive new facilitator; and a continuation of Bush/Cheney criminality and war, under smarter and much more effective management.

 

Now, just months into their tenure, the Barack Obama administration has more than fulfilled the promises he made to his elite constituency, deepening the mass destruction of Bush/Cheney, while charming its victims all over the world into enjoying their own demise.

 

The empire's facilitator 

 

Beneath his seemingly boundless charisma and charm, Barack Obama has always been an utterly ruthless politician. He has been a compromiser who has danced with the darkest forces of political and criminal power, while winning over common people; a consensus-abiding chameleon and a "pragmatist". Obama is the true model of what George W. Bush only claimed to be: "a uniter, not a divider".

 

The signs were clear from the early days of the presidential contest that Obama was, like every presidential candidate, a handpicked puppet. His cadre of national security and foreign policy advisors included the most notorious war criminals, intelligence/security "advisors" and corrupt think tank assets in the world. His campaign was bankrolled by Wall Street, and big corporations. His policy agenda was taken from the playbook of the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Both neoliberal (and neocon) elite power and money coalesced behind Obama, as his political rivals dropped off.

 

Obama's record in the US Senate was one of general complicity with Bush/Cheney and the status quo, including enthusiastic support of the consensus "war on terrorism" deception and the big 9/11 lie. Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has described how, in her encounters with Obama, the senator from Illinois repeatedly refused to act in opposition to Bush/Cheney policies. Time again, during his days in the Senate, and throughout the presidential campaign, Obama has not only fully supported the Bush/Cheney administration on the Patriot Act, and the wholesale the militarization and criminalization of the United States. 

 

Immediate destabilization

 

The naïve, the hopeful and the ignorant have continued to harbor fantasies about "change", even as Obama promptly destroyed every single hope, starting with the composition of his administration. He hand picked a transition team, and then a cabinet consisting entirely of legendary war criminals and corrupt elites, each more malodorous and corrupt than the next. From Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates and war criminal Richard Holbrooke, to Hillary Clinton and an economic advisory team comprised of the architects of Wall Street destruction, including Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

 

Under Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Ponzi scheme that is Wall Street, the wholesale robbery of the American people begun by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke, and Bush/Cheney Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has not only continued unabated, but has metastasized with each new bailout, and every new fraud orchestrated by Geithner.

 

While the people on "Main Street" have continued to suffer a new Great Depression without real assistance from the Obama administration, the New World Order's financial coffers continue to fill with stolen US taxpayer money. No relief for the impoverished, while the administration "bails out" banks and Wall Street, under such frauds as the  "Public Private Partnership Program". Leaving the wolves in charge of the financial henhouse, Geithner and the Obama administration authorized Congress to toss out securities pricing standards on "toxic assets". (Also see this op-ed, and the piece by Arthur Leavitt, former head of the SEC, and the Carlyle Group.) Essentially, the Obama administration is simply going to let the banks and financial institutions, that created the crisis with their massive Ponzi schemes, determine how they wish to price their own "toxic assets".

 

This move, not surprisingly, sparked a huge Wall Street rally. Some even hailed it as the end of the crisis.

 

A criminal stimulus plan

 

Obama's so-called stimulus package is yet another Trojan horse. As exhaustively and incisively detailed by Michel Chossudovsky in "America's Fiscal Collapse":

"This is a 'War Budget'. The austerity measures hit all major federal spending programs with the exception of:  1. Defence and the Middle East War: 2. the Wall Street bank bailout,  3. Interest payments on a staggering public debt. 

"The Obama stimulus program constitutes a continuation of the Bush administration's bank bailout packages. The proposed policy solution to the crisis becomes the cause, ultimately resulting in further real economy bankruptcies and a corresponding collapse of the standard of living of Americans. 

"Both the Bush and Obama bank bailouts are intended to come to the rescue of troubled financial institutions, to ensure the payment of 'inter-bank' debt operations. In practice, large amounts of money transit through the banking system, from the banks to the hedge funds, to offshore banking havens and back to the banks.  

"What we are dealing with is the fraudulent transfer and confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the fraudulent appropriation of tax revenues to finance the bank bailouts, etc. To understand what has happened:  follow the money trail of electronic transfers with a view to establishing where the money has gone.

 

"What is at stake is the outright criminalization of the financial system: 'financial theft' on an unprecedented scale.

"The monetary system, which is integrated into the State budgetary process, has been destabilized."

 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13050

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night

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Marijuana Blogger

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Marijuana Chemical May Fight Brain Cancer

Active Component In Marijuana Targets Aggressive Brain Cancer Cells, Study Says

By Kelli Miller Stacy

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

The active chemical in marijuana promotes the death of brain cancer cells by essentially helping them feed upon themselves, researchers in Spain report.

Guillermo Velasco and colleagues at Complutense University in Spain have found that the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, causes brain cancer cells to undergo a process called autophagy. Autophagy is the breakdown of a cell that occurs when the cell essentially self-digests.

The team discovered that cannabinoids such as THC had anticancer effects in mice with human brain cancer cells and people with brain tumors. When mice with the human brain cancer cells received the THC, the tumor growth shrank.

Two patients enrolled in a clinical trial received THC directly to the brain as an experimental treatment for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive brain tumor.  Biopsies taken before and after treatment helped track their progress.  After receiving the THC, there was evidence of increased autophagy activity.

The findings appear in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

The patients did not have any toxic effects from the treatment. Previous studies of THC for the treatment of cancer have also found the therapy to be well tolerated, according to background information in journal article.

Study authors say their findings could lead to new strategies for preventing tumor growth.

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/brain-cancer/news/20090401/marijuana-chemical-may-fight-brain-cancer

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Drug Wars: Deterioration Turns to Demoralization

 

by Rusty Fleming

In times past there was a prevailing wisdom that the violence stemming from the drug war equated to just one drug dealer killing another and after they finished killing each other off, things would go back to being peaceful and all would be well— this theory is no longer valid. The escalated violence and corruption the cartels are exhibiting today are quickly eroding Mexico and its democratic institutions to the point that they have caused a serious shift in the entire geopolitical landscape and represent the greatest threat to national security to both the U.S. and Mexico.

One of the more disturbing aspects of the narco-insurgency in North America is the effect it is having on the free press in Mexico. Our own history has proven that exposing the truth in a free press has done more for positive change in government and corporate accountability in our nation than perhaps any other single component, but that simply does not fit in the world of terror that the narcos create and perpetuate. Hardly a single Mexican media outlet in the country operates freely and without fear when it comes to reporting on the narcos and their activities.

The narcos have succeeded in removing nearly all investigative reporting in the Mexican media. Even if reporters are allowed to, or brave enough to, they often remove their bylines, reveal very few facts and almost never name the perpetrators. There are numerous reported cases of media intimidation in the U.S. as well. Newspapers from San Antonio and Dallas have pulled reporters back to as far as New York to get them away from the threats made on them for reporting on cartel activity.

So the question becomes how do you fight against an enemy if you don't even know who he is? Can you imagine going after the Gambino crime family having never mentioned John Gotti's name? So what comes out in the press is essentially body counts and highlights of the brutality prominently displayed by the warring groups that wish to send their messages of fear to authorities, rival gangs and the public at large.

By killing rivals in barbaric fashion—beheading, burning alive and torture, the message is—"This is what happens when you are with the wrong gang"— by killing law enforcement agents the message is—"This will happen to anyone who opposes us" and by killing top government officials, the message is—"We can get to anybody" and to the public who sees the decapitated, burned and tortured remains, the message is— "No one is safe."

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rfleming/2009/04/02/deterioration-turns-into-demoralization/

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New Bill Allowing Industrial Hemp Farming Expected to Be Introduced this Week

 

For the third time since the federal government outlawed hemp farming in the United States over 50 years ago, a federal bill will be introduced that will remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. The chief sponsors, Representatives Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) have circulated a dear colleague letter seeking support for the Industrial Hemp Farming Act. The bill will be identical to HR 1009 which was introduced in the 110th Congress.

"With so much discussion lately in the media about drug policy, it is surprising the tragedy of American hemp farming hasn't come up as a 'no-brainer' for reform," says Vote Hemp President, Eric Steenstra. "Hemp is a versatile, environmentally friendly crop that has not been grown for over 50 years because of a politicized interpretation of the nation's drug laws by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). President Obama should direct the DEA to avoid confusing industrial hemp and it's genetically distinct cousin marijuana. While the new bill in Congress is a welcome step, the hemp industry is hopeful the new leadership in the White House will prioritize the crop benefits to farmers. There are jobs that would be created over night as there are numerous American companies that have no choice but to import hemp materials valued at $300 million in sales per year," says Steenstra.

U.S. companies that manufacture or sell products made with hemp include Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a California company who manufactures the number-one-selling natural soap, and FlexForm Technologies, an Indiana company whose natural fiber materials are used in over 2 million cars. Hemp food manufacturers such as French Meadow Bakery, Hempzels, Living Harvest, Nature's Path and Nutiva now make their products from Canadian hemp. Although hemp grows wild across the U.S., a vestige of centuries of hemp farming, the hemp for these products must be imported. Hemp clothing is made around the world by well-known brands such as Patagonia, Bono's Edun and Giorgio Armani.

There is strong support among key national organizations for a change in the federal government's position on hemp. The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) "supports revisions to the federal rules and regulations authorizing commercial production of industrial hemp." The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has also passed a pro-hemp resolution.

Numerous individual states have expressed interest in industrial hemp as well. Sixteen states have passed pro-hemp legislation; eight (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research. North Dakota has issued state licenses, two years running. The new bill will removes federal barriers and allow laws in these states regulating the growing and processing of industrial hemp to take effect.

http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-01-2009/0004999084&EDATE=

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You're fired

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Bagram prisoners can contest detention in U.S. courts

The ruling is almost certain to be appealed by the government

by PAUL KORING

WASHINGTON — Prisoners held by U.S. forces in Afghanistan can challenge their detention in U.S. courts, a federal judge ruled Thursday, rejecting the Obama administration's position.

The ruling – almost certain to be appealed by the government to the Supreme Court – may have sweeping ramifications. It means that hundreds of detainees held at Bagram Air Base may have the same access to U.S. courts as those at Guantanamo, which President Barack Obama vowed to shut down within a year.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bates was limited only to non-Afghans captured outside of Afghanistan and held at Bagram, some for years. However, he also asked for further submissions on the rights of Afghans captured in Afghanistan and held by U.S. forces.

The ruling echoes high court judgments in Europe and Britain that battlefield captives have at least some rights in the courts of the country that captured them.

In Canada, the Harper government is vigorously contesting a federal court case brought by rights groups that argue Afghan detainees captured by Canadian forces have rights. That case is also expected to reach the Supreme Court of Canada.

"Yet again, a foreign court has held that legal rights 'follow the flag' when the military detains individuals abroad," Paul Champ, the lawyer representing Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Human Rights Association said. "Unfortunately, Canadian courts remain totally out of step on this fundamental human-rights issue."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090402.wafghan02/BNStory/International/

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iPods, First Sale, President Obama, and the Queen of England

Commentary by Fred von Lohmann

President Obama reportedly gave an iPod, loaded with 40 show tunes, to England's Queen Elizabeth II as a gift. Did he violate the law when he did so?

You know your copyright laws are broken when there is no easy answer to this question.

Traditionally, it has been the job of the "first sale" doctrine to enable gift giving -- that's the provision of copyright law that entitles the owner of a CD, book, or other copyrighted work, to give it away (or resell it, for that matter), notwithstanding the copyright owner's exclusive right of distribution.

In the digital era, however, first sale has been under siege, with copyright owners (and even the Copyright Office) arguing that it has no place in a world where "ownership" has been replaced by "licenses" and hand-to-hand exchanges have been replaced by computer-mediated exchanges that necessarily make copies. But it's precisely because first sale is central to everyday activities like giving an iPod to a friend, selling a used CD on eBay, or borrowing a DVD from a library, that EFF and others have been fighting for it in case after case.

So, how does President Obama fare in this? It's nearly impossible to figure out. If he'd simply purchased a "greatest hits" CD of show tunes and given it to the Queen, the first sale doctrine would have taken care of it. But because digital technology is involved here, suddenly it's a legal quagmire. (And, for the remainder of this discussion, I am going to set aside the Presidential immunity issues and the UK copyright law issues, which make it even more of a quagmire.)

First, let's imagine that the President (or his staff) bought the 40 show tunes from the iTunes music store. Do you "own" the music that you buy from iTunes? The nearly 9,000 words of legalese to which you agree before buying don't answer that question (an oversight? I doubt it). Copyright owners have consistently argued in court that many digital products (even physical "promo" CDs!) are "licensed," not "owned," and therefore you're not entitled to resell them or give them away. (And the Amazon MP3 Store terms of service are even worse for consumers than iTunes -- those terms specifically purport to strip you of "ownership" and forbid any "redistribution.")

Second, even if the first sale doctrine applies to iTunes downloads, what about the additional copies made on the iPod? iTunes does not download directly to an iPod. So President Obama's staff made an additional copy onto the Queen's intended iPod. How are those copies excused? The iTunes terms of service say that downloads are "only for personal, noncommercial use." Is giving a copy to a head of state a "personal" use? Seems more like a "diplomatic use," doesn't it? So copyright owners could argue that the copy on the iPod was not authorized, because it was beyond the scope of the iTunes "license." And according to the typical rightsholder argument, any use beyond the scope of the "license" is a copyright infringement.

Perhaps it's a fair use? I'd certainly take that view. But does it matter here whether President Obama's staffer first deleted the copy that is still on her computer? Should that matter? (It does not matter for first sale purposes, which is one reason why the first sale doctrine answers questions so much more clearly.)

Third, what about a breach of contract? As I mentioned above, some might argue that this "use" of iTunes downloads breaches the "personal use" limitation in the agreement. And if it is a breach of the iTunes contract, can the copyright owners sue President Obama as "third party beneficiaries" of the iTunes contract? It's not clear. (In the Amazon terms of service, copyright owners are specifically made third party beneficiaries, which appears to be an attempt to clear a path for record labels to sue Amazon customers for breaches of the contract.)

And all of this even before you start asking what happens when the Queen connects her new iPod to her computer, thereby making even more copies (the UK, after all, lacks a fair use doctrine)...

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/first-sale-president-obama-and-queen-england

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Hersh: Cheney ‘Left A Stay Behind’ In Obama’s Government, Can ‘Still Control Policy Up To A Point’

In an interview on NPR's Fresh Air yesterday, host Terry Gross asked investigative journalist Seymour Hersh if, as he continues to investigate the Bush administration, "more people" were "coming forward" to talk to him now that "the president and vice president are no longer in power." Hersh replied that though "a lot of people that had told me in the last year of Bush, 'call me next, next February,' not many people had talked to him. He implied that they were still scared of Cheney.

"Are you saying that you think Vice President Cheney is still having a chilling effect on people who might otherwise be coming forward," asked Gross. "I'll make it worse," answered Hersh, adding that he believes Cheney "put people back" in government to "stay behind" in order to "tell him what's going on" and perhaps even "do sabotage":

HERSH: I'll make it worse. I think he's put people left. He's put people back. They call it a stay behind. It's sort of an intelligence term of art. When you leave a country and, you know, you've driven out the, you know, you've lost the war. You leave people behind. It's a stay behind that you can continue to contacts with, to do sabotage, whatever you want to do. Cheney's left a stay behind. He's got people in a lot of agencies that still tell him what's going on. Particularly in defense, obviously. Also in the NSA, there's still people that talk to him. He still knows what's going on. Can he still control policy up to a point? Probably up to a point, a minor point. But he's still there. He's still a presence.

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/03/31/hersh-cheney-behind/

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President brokers final G-20 agreement

The Group of 20 summit (G-20) reached a final agreement to restore the world's economy Thursday only after President Obama personally intervened and negotiated a compromise between France and China, White House officials said.

By Steven Thomma

LONDON — The Group of 20 summit (G-20) reached a final agreement to restore the world's economy Thursday only after President Obama personally intervened and negotiated a compromise between France and China, White House officials said.

It was a remarkable stroke of personal diplomacy by a new president who made his debut this week on the world stage.

The pact calls for added spending to stimulate growth, new regulation over all "systemically important" financial institutions, including hedge funds, more than $1 trillion for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and an effort to list tax havens, as a way to "name and shame" them into becoming more transparent and cooperating with international rules.

Heading into the summit's final hours, however, it appeared the group would fail to reach a consensus. For a tense hour, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and President Hu Jintao of China were going back and forth about tax havens. In a large conference room at the Excel Center, surrounded by 18 other world leaders, the two men sniped at each other, according to officials.

Sarkozy pushed to have the G-20 spotlight offending tax havens — maybe including Hong Kong and Macau, which are under China's sovereignty — based on a list published Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), but China objected, largely because it doesn't belong to the OECD.

Hu appeared angry that Sarkozy was effectively accusing China of lax regulation and that China was being asked to endorse sanctions issued by the OECD, a club of wealthy nations that his country has yet to join.

That was when Obama, long a champion of ending or curbing tax havens, decided to float a compromise and pulled Sarkozy aside, according to a senior White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "The president thought he could be helpful in resolving the differences," the official said.

The account was confirmed by other officials who had been in the room.

Obama proposed that the G-20 merely "take note" of the OECD list, thus opening the door to implicit but not direct endorsement of it.

"He sent a message to the Chinese," the official said. "They were considering it (Obama's message) for some time."

Obama then met with Hu and Sarkozy in a corner of the meeting room, as other world leaders waited.

Upon the trio's reaching agreement, the G-20 summit then agreed to note the list of tax havens. 

The result: "The era of banking secrecy is over," the final communiqué said.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2008976752_g20summ03.html

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London cops beating the shit out of peaceful G20 demonstrators

Posted by Cory Doctorow, April 2, 2009 9:00 PM | permalink

Here's some disgraceful footage of London's cops beating the shit out of a group of peaceful G20 protestors who are holding their arms in the air, chanting, "This is not a riot." Look familiar? It's what the British cops did at the last Climate Camp, too. How much you want to bet that no one involved in the authoritarian response to these peaceful protestors pays any price, because they all offer the lame excuse that an entirely different group of protestors broke some windows at a bank in a different part of town?

Film Of Police Attack On G20 Climate Camp

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One in 10 Americans gets help from U.S. to buy food

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A record 32.2 million people -- one in every 10 Americans -- received food stamps at the latest count, the government said on Thursday, a reflection of the recession now in its 16th month.

Food stamps, the major U.S. anti-hunger program, help poor people buy groceries. The average benefit was $112.82 per person in January.

The January figure marks the third time in five months that enrollment set a record.

"A weakened economy means that many more individuals are turning to SNAP/Food Stamps," said the Food Research and Action Center, an anti-hunger group, using the acronym for the renamed food stamp program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

The U.S. unemployment rate was 8.1 percent in February, the highest in 25 years. Weekly claims for jobless benefits totaled 669,000 last week, the highest in 26 years, the government said on Thursday.

Food stamp enrollment rose in 46 of the 50 states during January as the national total rose by 580,000 people, or 1.3 percent, from December, when the previous record was set, said Agriculture Department figures.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5314B320090402

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Judge Must Release Woman Sentenced to Jail for Being Poor, ACLU Says in Court Papers

UPDATE: The ACLU of Michigan is happy to announce that Edwina Nowlin was released today after being represented by the ACLU at  an emergency hearing in Delta County Probate Court today.


DETROIT – The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan asked for an emergency hearing today on behalf of an Escanaba woman sentenced to 30 days in jail because she is too poor to reimburse the court for her son's stay in a juvenile detention facility.

"Like many people in these desperate economic times, Ms. Nowlin was laid off from work, lost her home and is destitute," said Michael J. Steinberg, ACLU of Michigan Legal Director. "Jailing her because of her poverty is not only unconstitutional, it's unconscionable and a shameful waste of resources. It is not a crime to be poor in this country and the government must stop resurrecting debtor's prisons from the dustbin of history."

In December 2008, Ms. Nowlin's 16-year-old son was sentenced to the Bay Pines Center and Ms. Nowlin was ordered to pay $104 per month for his lodging. At the time of this order, Ms. Nowlin was homeless and working part-time with a friend after being laid off from her job. She told the court that she was unable to pay the ordered amount, however the judge found her in contempt for failing to pay. In addition, Ms. Nowlin's requests for a court appointed attorney were denied.

Since March 3, 2009, Ms. Nowlin has been serving her sentence at the Delta County Jail. On March 6, 2009, she was released for one day to work. Once released she picked up her $178.53 check from work thinking that she now could pay the $104.00 to get out of jail. However, upon her return to jail that evening, the sheriff forced her to sign over her check to the jail to cover $120.00 for "room and board." She was also charged $22 for a drug test and the booking fee.

According to the ACLU's motion: "This country did away with debtors' prisons more than a century ago. The imprisonment of Ms. Nowlin because she is too destitute to make payments to the court is a miscarriage of justice."

http://aclumich.org/issues/due-process/2009-03/1353

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April Fools: GOP Budget a New Windfall for the Wealthy

By Jon Perr

It may be April Fool's Day 2009, but the Republican Party is playing the same joke on the American people. After brushing off last week's calamitous Republican "road to recovery" blueprint as a "marketing document," Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled the GOP's alternative budget in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. In it, Ryan offers the same snake oil his party has been selling since the days of Reagan and Bush. The cure for what ails the U.S. economy, it turns out, is a massive tax windfall for the wealthiest Americans who need it least.

The new Republican budget doubles down on the wildly regressive Bush/McCain tax cutting binge American voters rejected at the polls in November. Making the budget-busting Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent, the GOP also proposes an alternative "highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates." Taxpayers making over $100,000 would see their rate drop to 25% from its current high of 35%. (Below that level, the rate drops to 10%.) Corporate taxes would also drop to 25%. While the capital gains tax rate would be frozen at its post-2003 level of 15%, the estate tax would be eliminated altogether.

The predictable result is yet another massive redistribution of the tax burden away from the richest Americans even as it produced a torrent of red ink. While the Center for American Progress concluded the Boehner-Ryan giveaway would hand an annual tax bonanza of $1.5 million to the average CEO, a preliminary analysis from the Center for Tax Justice last week concluded that by 2011, the GOP scheme would drain the Treasury to the tune of $300 billion more than the Obama plan. And as is par for the course for the Republicans, the usual upper-income suspects benefit the most:

Over a fourth of taxpayers, mostly low-income families, would pay more in taxes under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan.

The richest one percent of taxpayers would pay $100,000 less, on average, under the House GOP plan than they would under the President's plan.

(It should be noted the CTJ model was preliminary and does not necessarily reflect the final details in today's GOP budget document. For example, CTJ assumed a capital gains tax rate of 10% and not 15%.)

To be sure, the GOP's so-called alternative budget is merely a reprise of the unprecedented windfall George W. Bush and his Republican Party delivered to the rich over the past 8 years.

And a massive windfall it surely was. As the Center for American Progress noted, the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And to be sure, their payday was staggering. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities detailed in 2008, in 2007 millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. Those in the top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw their after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while the gains for the middle quintile and bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% and 0.4%, respectively. (Another CBPP study demonstrated that the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure in the White House.)

And as the New York Times detailed in 2006, the 2003 Bush dividend and capital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes "on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000." As the Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, "the top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of the increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income." So it should come as no surprise that the income share of the 400 richest Americans doubled over the past decade.

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/april-fools-gop-budget-new-windfall-wealt

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