Seven million Americans have been arrested since 1995 on marijuana charges and 41,000 of them are rotting in federal and State prisons---but the public is starting to rebel against “the preposterous war on pot,” two political scientists say. Thousands of other pot users and sellers are confined in local jails as well.
With the massacre at Ft. Hood, we once again see the consequences of gun control.
Remember what the gun controllers say: that once gun control is imposed, would-be murderers will obey the gun-control law by resorting to some other form of murder. At least the killers won’t use a gun, the gun-controllers exclaim, because gun possession is now against the law.
To let Congress and the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) decide whether or not deposed President Manuel Zelaya may return to office and complete the remaining weeks of his term, expiring on January 27. If he does, will it matter?
Congressman Weiner has agreed with Nancy Pelosi not to have a floor vote on his Medicare for All bill. A press release from Congressmen Kucinich and Conyers opposing it helped tip the scale. But Weiner did not ask Pelosi to include in her bill the Kucinich Amendment to allow states to create single-payer. Pelosi made clear that President Obama opposes that, and used the bogus excuse that providing everyone with comprehensive free healthcare would deprive them of the right to pay ever increasing rates for uncertain health "insurance."
20 years after the fall of communism, American style capitalism has also fallen. But the downfall was silent, without any visible walls toppling or crumbling. The 9/11 like collapse of the financial firms of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers left no piles of rubble or slabs of fractured concrete on the ground, just lots of laid off traders and deal makers. But the brokerage and investment banks’ end signalled the death knell of market capitalism as we knew it; another misbegotten ideology born out of the musings of Adam Smith, Ricardo and Milton Friedman was laid to rest unceremoniously.
In a landmark case, twenty-three Americans, mostly CIA operatives, have been convicted in Italy for kidnapping a Muslim cleric from the streets of Milan in 2003. They were all tried in absentia after the United States refused to hand them over. The convictions turn them into international fugitives who risk arrest abroad. The case marks the first time any American has been convicted for taking part in a so-called “extraordinary rendition.”
On September 11, 2001, my office building, the World Trade Center, was attacked by al Qaeda, a murder cult of Saudi Arabians, funded by Saudi Arabians. And so, in response to the Saudis’ attack, America invaded … Afghanistan.
“Why would any writer make up stories about the Holocaust?” asks Melissa Katsoulis on mainstream British media outlet The Independent (1).
Katsoulis has recently published a book about the history of literary hoaxes. She is interested in particular in a unique fictional genre; namely ‘the Holocaust hoaxers’.
Consider how the striking of clocks at midnight, Dec. 31, 1999, rendered the name New Millennium Writings obsolete.
At least certain critics and even some friends of my literary journal said so ten years ago. I never saw it that way. For the rest of our lives we’ll live in the new millennium unless the world’s intelligentsia, aided by endlessly flashing ones and zeroes, comes up with some Forever Formula to drastically extend our lives, surely a mixed blessing. Either way, this thousand-year cycle we entered a decade ago has barely begun.
In a span of five weeks, repeated typhoons, tsunamis, floods, mudslides and earthquakes swept through ten nations leaving thousands of people dead and rendering millions more homeless. The first of the natural disasters, tropical storm Ketsana, struck Manila and the surrounding area on September 26th during which time it caused massive floods and mudslides in addition to forcing thousands to flee their wrecked homes.
Today a band of willful men will attempt to pass a bill (H.R. 867) calling on the U.S. Government to stick its head in the sand; to speak,hear, and see no evil; and to refuse to discuss charges of war crimes during Israel’s vicious and equally willful attack on the people of Gaza in December 2008.
According to Professor David Ray Griffin there is no good evidence for Osama bin Laden responsibility for the 9-11 atrocity. Conversely, hard scientific evidence points to explosive demolition of the WTC buildings by the US. The war criminal US Alliance leaders must be tried for 7-9 million post-9-11 war-related deaths.
At a time of growing US poverty, hunger, homelessness, and despair, imperial wars without end, and the Obama administration even worse than its predecessor, Venezuela:
I’m becoming anti social and intentionally so (and besides seeking out the company of my four legged friends-pets), I’m avoiding others these days. Yonder and long ago, I used to be an outgoing and gregarious guy, mingling with my fellow global citizens. Not anymore, that’s changed. I have stopped socialising. By socialising, I mean going out with others to an overcrowded (smoke free) restaurant with sneezing and wheezing, obese, slobs coughing, slobbering or burping loudly in my face, without even using a napkin to cover their overstuffed snouts while telling me while masticating to “get back into the markets”.
Today marks the 30th year since the 444 day Iran Hostage Crisis began in 1979. On this day the media traditionally offers us images of Iranians burning American flags and effigies of Uncle Sam. We are reminded of the great chasm of mistrust and misunderstanding that has marked the last three decades of US-Iranian relations. But, in the past year both Americans and Iranians have asked for something new. Americans have elected a president that promises to pursue diplomacy and Iranians have given birth to a popular democratic movement.
The House is expected to overwhelmingly vote today to condemn a UN inquiry that found Israel committed scores of war crimes in its three-week assault on the Gaza Strip. Headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the inquiry also accused Hamas of war crimes and said both sides should investigate the allegations or face international prosecution.
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