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“The controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding has served a ‘valuable’ purpose and does not constitute torture, former Attorney General John Ashcroft told a House committee Thursday. … Ashcroft, who stated his opposition to torture, said the Justice Department has determined that waterboarding — as defined and described by the CIA — doesn’t constitute torture. ‘I believe a report of waterboarding would be serious, but I do not believe it would define torture,’ Ashcroft said, responding to questions from Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California.” (07/17/08) http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/17/ashcroft.waterboarding/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“The first war crimes trial [sic] at Guantanamo Bay can begin Monday, a federal judge has ruled, saying civilian courts should let the military process play out as Congress intended. U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Thursday rejected an effort by Osama bin Laden’s former driver, Salim Hamdan, to postpone his trial.” (07/17/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25722105/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Two bombs killed at least three people and wounded 12 in attacks on an Iraqi army patrol and a police convoy in northern Iraq on Friday, defence and interior ministry officials said. Two of the dead were Iraqi soldiers hit by a car bomb near Mosul …. In the other attack, one man died when a home-made mine targeting a police convoy exploded near the northern oil city of Kirkuk.” (07/18/08) http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i538ihoyaSOU--HE-Axk3y5HYuag | | Report Bad Link |
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“Al Gore received a rock star welcome at an energy conference in Washington, where he issued a challenge to the country. ‘So today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources within 10 years,’ he said. Called an alarmist by some critics, Gore has made global climate change his signature issue, and his efforts won him a Nobel Prize. He admitted that weaning Americans off fossil fuels would require placing a carbon tax on burning oil and coal, which his plan would offset with a reduction in payroll taxes. But Gore said soaring gasoline prices and the current economic turmoil have created a new political environment where Americans are hungry for change.” (07/17/08) http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-07-17-voa51.cfm | | Report Bad Link |
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“A majority of California voters oppose a November ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage, according to a survey released Friday. The Field Poll found that 51 percent of likely voters say they would vote against Proposition 8, while 42 percent say they would vote for it.” (07/18/08) http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9921185 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A House committee chairman asked the Pentagon on Thursday to declassify some documents about the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, saying the public and Tillman’s family should get to see them. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made the request in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/5lr9yj | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Defense Department will send close to 800 more bomb-resistant vehicles to Afghanistan, where a resurgent Taliban has military leaders developing plans to add thousands of U.S. troop reinforcements. The hulking vehicles, known as MRAPs, protect U.S. personnel from the powerful blasts of roadside bombs, the No. 1 cause of combat deaths in injuries in Iraq.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/633mzu | | Report Bad Link |
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“Afghanistan has been drawing a fresh influx of jihadi fighters from Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East, one more sign that al-Qaida is regrouping on what is fast becoming the most active front of the war on terrorism groups. More foreigners are infiltrating Afghanistan because of a recruitment drive by al-Qaida as well as a burgeoning insurgency that has made movement easier across the border from Pakistan, U.S. officials, militants and experts say.” (07/17/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25723872/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“Texas, headquarters of America’s oil industry, is about to stake a fortune on wind power. In what experts say is the biggest investment in the clean and renewable energy in U.S. history, utility officials in the Lone Star State gave preliminary approval Thursday to a $4.9 billion plan to build new transmission lines to carry wind-generated electricity from gusty West Texas to urban areas like Dallas.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6yr9cr | | Report Bad Link |
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“Tomatoes are again safe to eat, the Food and Drug Administration said Thursday, weeks after the food was blamed as a source of a salmonella outbreak in the United States and Canada. The federal agency lifted its warning about tomatoes but left in place a warning about raw jalapeno and serrano peppers, having previously said those foods also may be linked to the outbreak.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/54vqwg | | Report Bad Link |
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“Diners hungry for Chinese carry-out or Middle Eastern kebabs in Italy could have their choices limited under a regional law proposed by the anti-immigrant Northern League on Thursday. The League called for the Lombardy regional council to allow cities to bar from their historic centers businesses that are ‘incompatible with the historical context.’ ‘For example, fast food, Chinese restaurants, kebab, sex shops are types of commercial activity that clash heavily with a 1,000-year-old historic district, as is typical of Lombard reality,’ Daniele Belotti, a regional councilor with the League, said in a statement. The measure is aimed at maintaining the character of historic town and city centers, it said.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6m46jp | | Report Bad Link |
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“Home owners and ‘have-a go-heroes’ have for the first time been given the legal right to defend themselves against burglars and muggers free from fear of prosecution. They will be able to use force against criminals who break into their homes or attack them in the street without worrying that ‘heat of the moment’ misjudgements could see them brought before the courts. Under new laws police and prosecutors will have to assess a person’s actions based on the person’s situation ‘as they saw it at the time’ even if in hindsight it could be seen as unreasonable.” (07/16/08) http://tinyurl.com/65dpcl | | Report Bad Link |
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“A Bainbridge man refused to be robbed when he was accosted around 5 a.m. Saturday morning. The complainant, a resident of Spruce Street, told BPS that he was sitting on his front porch smoking a cigar and drinking a cup of coffee. According to the resident, a man wearing a mask and carrying a large knife approached and demanded that he hand over his wallet. The citizen said he told the masked robber that he had to go inside the house to get the wallet. The homeowner returned, not with his wallet in hand, but instead wielding a pistol, which sent the robber off running.” (07/15/08) http://tinyurl.com/5tq22z | | Report Bad Link |
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“District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected. Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District’s 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit. But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.” (07/17/08) http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=74036&catid=158 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The doors opened Thursday to post-handgun ban era here, with gun rights advocates vowing another legal challenge to the city’s newly approved gun control law. Less than a month after the Supreme Court overturned the city’s 32-year-old handgun ban … the same litigant in the landmark case appeared at police headquarters and said he likely would wage a new fight. Dick Heller, whose legal challenge prompted the Supreme Court ruling, said he would challenge new city regulations that continue to ban District residents from owning semi-automatic weapons. ‘The city still does not yet understand the decision of the Supreme Court,’ Heller said from the steps of police headquarters. ‘We have been denied again.’” (07/17/08) http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-07-17-gun-ban_N.htm | | Report Bad Link |
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“A Park Heights man shot and killed a 45-year-old man who was attempting to burglarize his aunt’s home early Wednesday morning, a police spokeswoman said. … When officers arrived, they were told that a man had broken into a home. A man living in that house heard someone come into the basement, and he went upstairs to get a his .38-caliber handgun, police said. He was the registered owner of the gun, police said. The man, armed with the weapon, went to investigate and heard footsteps upstairs. He called out to his aunt to see whether she was walking around the house, Monroe said. Then he walked up to the first floor and saw the burglar running through the rear door of the kitchen and fired once, striking the burglar in the back, Monroe said. The burglar ran out the back door and collapsed near a shed, Monroe said. The man called 911, put his handgun on the kitchen table and waited for police to arrive.” (07/16/08) http://tinyurl.com/6o4p5z | | Report Bad Link |
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“A clerk at a local convenience store on North Kings Highway shot at a man who tried to rob the store last night, according to Myrtle Beach police officials. The incident happened around 6 p.m. Tuesday when a man walked into the store and demanded money. The clerk pulled out a handgun from under the counter, shot at the man, and missed, said Capt. David Knipes, Myrtle Beach Police’s public information officer. The bullet hit a wall, Knipes said. He said the man fled out the door.” (07/16/08) http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/breaking_news/story/522047.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“A U.S. district court judge upheld a decision by the city of St. Paul, Minn., to restrict the route and timing of a parade protesting the Iraq war during the Republican National Convention. Noting that the president, vice president and other political figures are expected to attend the convention, U.S. District Court Judge Joan Erickson wrote Wednesday that security concerns justified the city’s placing some restrictions on the permit for the parade. … The city’s decision to deny protesters the ability to ‘encircle the arena, marching on every route that directly abuts the convention site’ served the substantial government interest of securing the site, Erickson ruled. A coalition of protest groups had filed suit, with the support of the Minnesota branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, arguing the restrictions violated their First Amendment rights.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/66w35u | | Report Bad Link |
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“Hoping to send a message about the importance of jury service, the chief judge at D.C. Superior Court recently issued warrants calling for the arrests of 92 District residents who failed to show up. Twelve people have been arrested or turned themselves in this month for contempt of court, and marshals are canvassing the area for more. Those taken into custody had to pay $25 bonds and were given dates to report back to court for a final chance to explain themselves and get back on the calendar for jury service. The penalty for contempt of court could be as high as seven days in jail and a $300 fine. ‘The point of this whole thing is to get people to serve on juries. It’s not to lock them up,’ Chief Judge Rufus G. King III said.” (07/14/08) http://tinyurl.com/5bvsw7 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Canada deported on Tuesday the first of some 200 Americans who deserted the U.S. military and sought refugee status to protest against the Iraq War. Robin Long, 25, was removed a day after a Federal Court judge in Vancouver rejected his claim that he would suffer irreparable harm if returned to the United States. He fled across the border in 2005 as his army tank unit was preparing to deploy to Iraq. The Canada Border Services Agency confirmed Long’s removal, but declined to give other details, citing privacy laws. Long’s refugee claim had already been rejected and he could not appeal Monday’s court ruling.” (07/15/08) http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N15312247.htm | | Report Bad Link |
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“Former Senator turned energy lobbyist Trent Lott (R-MS) falsely claimed, during a Tuesday MSNBC appearance in support of drilling for oil offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that Hurricane Katrina didn’t cause oil spills. ‘We didn’t have one drop of oil [spilled] when we had the biggest hurricane in recent history, Hurricane Katrina,’ Lott said on Tuesday. ‘I think that the American people,’ he added, ‘are saying ‘Look, do whatever is necessary, do it all, and do it now.’” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/5z2agv | | Report Bad Link |
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“A 38-year-old man who police say tried making a couple of bucks by selling soap as crack cocaine waived his right to a preliminary hearing in Central Court on Monday. Paul Lawson, Jr., of 70 Davis Place, Wilkes-Barre, formerly of Philadelphia, was charged last month with intentional possession of a controlled substance — namely soap in lieu of crack cocaine — with intent to deliver, according to Luzerne County Clerk of Court records. According to an affidavit of probable cause: Wilkes-Barre Police Officer Chris Hardy was on patrol in the area of Academy Street and Davis Place on June 13. Police had already received several complaints regarding a male named Paul, described as wearing a powder blue North Carolina hat, white T-shirt and jean shorts, who was selling fake crack cocaine in the same area. Hardy spotted Lawson, who matched the description of the male wearing the same exact hat and clothing, loitering near South Franklin Street. The officer was involved in an encounter with Lawson, police said.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/59zott | | Report Bad Link |
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“Mexico’s navy seized a homemade submarine carrying a drug shipment off the Pacific coast on Wednesday and arrested its four-man crew. Similar vessels carrying cocaine have been discovered off Colombia and Central America, but navy spokesman Capt. Benjamin Mar said the seizure is a first for Mexico. The 30-foot makeshift submarine was detected heading north about 200 miles off the southern state of Oaxaca, Mar said. The green-topped, arrowhead-shaped vessel was intercepted when it surfaced hours later, and the crew was taken into custody without resistance.” (07/17/08) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,384524,00.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“At 8:34 a.m. the sleek Metrolink train from Oceanside, Calif., swept into Los Angeles’s historic Union Station, disgorging a rush of commuters. Some pulled briefcases on wheels, others hefted backpacks, blending seamlessly with bus and subway passengers pressing through the terminal’s sunlit corridor. … With West Coast gasoline prices averaging $4.41 per gallon, even car-crazed southern Californians are joining the nation’s slow move away from the automobile and toward public transportation. But even as more Americans pile onto city buses, subways, and suburban trains, the increase at the pump is also hitting transit agencies hard.” (07/18/08) http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0718/p01s02-usgn.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“A Taiwanese woman has been charged in federal court with smuggling $380,000 in counterfeit $100 bills in a package of dried seafood, court records show. Mei Ling Chen, 46, was charged with bringing counterfeit currency into the United States. Chen was arrested Tuesday at her former husband’s home in Sunnyvale, four days after customs agents intercepted a package at San Francisco International Airport that had been shipped from Taiwan, authorities said in documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The customs declaration described the package as a gift containing candy and books, Secret Service senior special agent William Bishop wrote in an affidavit. But when a customs agent opened the parcel to make sure it didn’t contain prohibited food items, he found four pouches containing fake $100 bills wrapped in newspaper, Bishop wrote. The pouches, holding $380,000 in fake bills in all, were hidden among 20 bags of dried seafood, authorities said.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/5jvjog | | Report Bad Link |
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“Mitt Romney, whose prospects of becoming John McCain’s running mate appear on the rise, is preparing to formally declare he will not seek donations to repay $45 million in personal loans he made to his failed presidential bid — the biggest ever made by a candidate in a primary campaign. The move could clear away the last remnants of a divisive primary race, ensuring that he and his financial supporters are focused on helping McCain, but it could also put him at odds with McCain’s campaign reform message. Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said yesterday that the former Massachusetts governor is preparing to have the loans ‘reclassified as contributions’ and will write a letter to the Federal Election Commission explaining that he is ‘forgiving the outstanding loans.’” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/69a8hw | | Report Bad Link |
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“On July 17, a U.S. District Court granted an injunction, putting the Ohio Libertarian Party on the November ballot, for president, Congress, and state legislative races. Libertarian Party of Ohio v Brunner, s.d., 2:08-cv-555.” [editor’s note: This is a VERY short article — but it’s on an important issue, and the mainstream media hasn’t caught it yet as I enter it into RRND/FND’s database. If you’re interested in ballot access issues and want to keep up with them AS THEY HAPPEN, bookmark (better yet, subscribe to!) Ballot Access News: ballot-access.org - TLK] (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/5lofe3 | | Report Bad Link |
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“A disgruntled network administrator today pleaded innocent to charges that he set up an unauthorized access system for a major city of San Francisco computer network. Terry Childs, 43, who pleaded not guilty to computer tampering charges in San Francisco Superior Court, is being held on $5 million bond, an unusually high amount for a computer tampering case. He faces seven years in prison if convicted on all counts. … Administrators have been struggling for the past few weeks to regain control of the city’s Fibre WAN after Childs allegedly reset administrative passwords to its switches and routers, and refused to divulge them to authorities. He is also alleged to have planted unauthorized devices on the city’s network.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/57lehz | | Report Bad Link |
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“On an occasional evening at the kitchen table in Brooklyn, N.Y., Victoria Morey has been known to sit down with her 9-year-old son and do something she’s not supposed to. ‘I am a rebel,’ confesses this mother of two. And just what is this subversive act in which Morey engages — with a child, yet? Long division. Yes, Morey teaches her son, who’ll enter fifth grade in the fall, how to divide the old-fashioned way — you know, with descending columns of numbers, subtracting all the way down.” (07/15/08) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25694356/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“If elected president, Senator McCain would support private school vouchers, give full funding to the federal No Child Left Behind law, and push for an expansion of ‘virtual schools,’ the Republican candidate said yesterday in unveiling his education plan during a speech to the NAACP. The promise to ‘fully fund’ No Child Left Behind was a departure; previously Mr. McCain has said he would freeze nondefense discretionary spending, including spending on education.” (07/16/08) http://tinyurl.com/5ftqqd | | Report Bad Link |
Commentary
News | Audio and Video | Events and Movement News
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“The myths of the FDR era never die. All this despite the fact that the Federal Reserve was created sixteen years before the crash on ’29 and its credit expansion brought the crisis about in the first place; despite the signature of Roosevelt’s hand in the current crisis (Fannie Mae originated with him); despite the fact that for years we have been told the post-New Deal economy was one that would not fail us the way the ‘laissez-faire’ 1920s did. Indeed, we confront one of the great paradoxes of the left-liberal/neocon/establishment economic narrative: Supposedly, in enlightened modern US politics, the failed reliance on free enterprise has long been discredited, and so all the social democracy in the 20th century has finally saved us from the predations of greedy corporate America. But at the same time, corporations are allegedly more powerful and greedy than ever. They reconcile the contradiction simply by lying about Bush’s record, saying he has loosened the government’s grip on the economy. But there is virtually not a single area in which Bush has been more laissez-faire than Bill Clinton.” (07/18/08) http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory163.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“‘Coercive diplomacy’ is a pat phrase Obama has used more than once to describe his preferred course of action, and, when it comes to Iran, I would emphasize the coercive side of the equation over the diplomatic. The American elites are unanimous in their verdict that the US must establish and maintain an American enclave in the Middle East: the only ‘debate’ is over where the main forward base is to be located. McCain says Iraq, and Obama prefers Afghanistan. Obama’s rise is based on a promise he isn’t prepared to deliver — and never made. Whether the voters wake up to that before election day doesn’t really matter, because the alternative is at least just as bad, and probably worse. What is needed isn’t just a new President — we sorely require a new foreign policy.” (07/18/08) http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13156 | | Report Bad Link |
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“The BTP is an operational and philosophical mess. Great, a one line platform states that they want to reduce government on all counts. So what?! While it’s not the contorted twistings of the Reformista’s tired ruminations and redefinitions, its just annoying at this point. When some kiddie script hacker represents some percentage of the actual vote of their convention and all former users are told to sign up again because their database got trashed, you don’t have to wonder. You just don’t take it seriously. Radicals ought to stay in the LP and exert what influence they can in a franchise which has stood the test of time for at least thirty years. Getting all huffy over one candidate in an impossible race to win is not the solution. There is plenty of room for spirited protest candidacies and meaningful activism.” (07/17/08) http://www.ericsundwall.com/2008/07/party-likes-its-1973.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“After Lexington and Concord, Congress had a war on their hands and needed a way to finance it. The Americans were in large measure tax rebels, so taxation of their own would have to wait. After giving some thought to borrowing, Congress decided instead to call upon their old friend, the printing press.The colonists had a long history with paper money. They had been inflating since the 1690s and had all but driven silver specie out of circulation. In 1751, Parliament banned further note issues in New England, and by 1764 extended the prohibition to the rest of the colonies. All colonies were required to gradually retire the notes still in circulation. What were the consequences? Following a brief period of price deflation, and in contrast to dire predictions caused by a lack of money, hard money New Englanders experienced price stability and prosperity.” (07/17/08) http://www.strike-the-root.com/82/smith/smith1.html | | Report Bad Link |
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Cartoon. (07/18/08) http://www.reason.com/news/show/127628.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Why does Israel do everything it can think of to make the whole world hate it? Because it can. Why can it? Because America is its enabler. Israel has a huge air force because America gives it airplanes. Nobody else would. Its economy stays afloat because America gives it money. If it wants to bomb somebody, the US keeps the world from stopping it. If it loses a war, which it did in ’73, the US bails it out. Israel can always say, ‘If you don’t like it, I’ll make my big brother beat you up.’ And that’s a bad thing, because one day the big brother may not come. Israelis might be better off with less help, so they’d have to learn to live where they are.” (07/17/08) http://fredoneverything.net/Israel.shtml | | Report Bad Link |
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“Considerable attention has been paid to an argument made by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent to the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on the Second Amendment, as though Stevens had identified precisely why the majority was all wet. ‘The Court,’ wrote a seemingly astonished Stevens, ‘would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons!’ Well yeah! That is exactly what the Framers intended when they penned the Second Amendment, affirming the individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms.” 907/12/08) http://tinyurl.com/5sol5v | | Report Bad Link |
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“There is a big difference between being Conservative and being Patriotic. Elephants and Donkeys can agree on many, many questions on how we run our country, come to the same conclusions and get a lot of business done. And a lot of Conservatives can drop the ball and refuse to see the citizen authority — lethal force connection they should be standing up for. This is one of the biggest complaints of constituents: for all the talk of Independence, the Conservatives won’t really take a position on how citizen authority in this country is backed by lethal force in the hands of the citizen first and always. It is this authority backed by force which shall not be infringed.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/69tg8e | | Report Bad Link |
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“There are two ways to view the news that the House Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on impeachable crimes by President George W. Bush. One view would be that this is all a charade and that after all, it will not be a real impeachment hearing, but rather, simply a hearing into the impeachable crimes of the Bush administration. As committee Chair Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) put it, ‘We’re not doing impeachment, but he [Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who introduced 36 articles of impeachment] can talk about it.’ Viewed that way, this is not such a big deal. Rep. Kucinich gets to make his case that the president is committing high crimes and misdemeanors and abuses of power and war crimes, but then Congressional Democrats will continue to ignore all the crimes as it has done since taking control of Congress in November 2006. But a second way to view this is as a significant victory over the quisling Congressional leadership, which has been ducking its responsibility to defend the Constitution and to stand up for the rule of law not just since November 2006, but since the inception of the Bush/Cheney presidency.” (07/17/08) http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/17/10422/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Bush Regime’s ‘terrorist’ protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the ‘terrorist’ watch list. ” (07/17/08) http://counterpunch.org/roberts07172008.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Barack Obama and John McCain continue to argue about war. McCain says to keep the troops in Iraq until we ‘win’ and supports sending more troops to Afghanistan. Obama says to withdraw some (not all) troops from Iraq and send them to fight and ‘win’ in Afghanistan. For someone like myself, who fought in World War II, and since then has protested against war, I must ask: Have our political leaders gone mad? Have they learned nothing from recent history? Have they not learned that no one ‘wins’ in a war, but that hundreds of thousands of humans die, most of them civilians, many of them children? Did we ‘win’ by going to war in Korea? … Did we ‘win’ in Vietnam? … Did we ‘win’ in the first Gulf War? Not really.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6bt5gf | | Report Bad Link |
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“Friends in Washington send me e-mails: They want to know if Israel is getting ready to bomb Iran’s nuclear installations. This is the Bush Era: If you will it, no Middle East war is impossible. And in the last few weeks, there has been a gale of hints, threats, and leaks. U.S. officials, none named, told The New York Times that an Israeli military exercise last month was ‘a rehearsal’ for striking Iran. Shaul Mofaz, the remarkably mediocre ex-military chief of staff campaigning to succeed Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said that an Israeli attack was ‘unavoidable.’” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/62537r | | Report Bad Link |
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“Like jokes about President Bush being stupid, cheap shots at Sen. John McCain’s age are largely unfunny. More importantly, they deflect crucial concerns about the men. … Ridicule of McCain’s age (along with paeans to his war record) distracts from hard critiques of his record and policies. McCain’s age is irrelevant unless it affects his ability to function in a world that has radically changed since his formative years. McCain’s computer illiteracy, for example, is not the result of advanced years. Rather it suggests someone who is coddled, out-of-touch and loath to learn new things. Nor is McCain’s history of cancer tied to age. But some things are, such as the less-publicized array of his potentially compromising conditions, ailments and medications.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6mcz3l | | Report Bad Link |
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“Barack Obama’s July 3 statement that he would ‘continue to refine’ his policy on Iraq based on a ‘thorough assessment’ of conditions on the ground and more information from military commanders prompted howls of protest (and a few cheers) from across the political spectrum. Antiwar activists worried that he was softening his earlier commitment to end the Iraq War on a fixed timetable; Republicans accused him of flip-flopping. Meanwhile, a rising chorus of establishment voices applauded Obama’s comment as a step toward a ‘reasonable position’ based on an open-ended policy of ‘conditional engagement.’ Faced with such obsessive parsing of his remark — based on the premise that Obama had shifted course — the candidate was forced to the podium (and the New York Times op-ed page) to clarify.” (07/16/08) http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080804/editors | | Report Bad Link |
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“July polls don’t tell you who’s going to win in November. Just ask President Dukakis or President Gore, both of whom were well ahead in July and went on to lose in the fall (although Mr. Gore still doesn’t quite see it that way). Or ask President Clinton, who was running third in some polls after clinching his party’s nomination, and won comfortably in the fall. Polls are, at best, snapshots of the present, not predictors of the future. But that doesn’t mean they’re meaningless. There’s a reason that news organizations, and campaigns themselves, spend time and money to try to get the picture right, even if that’s all it is. Polls give you an insight into the dynamic of the race ahead; they highlight the problems, or the challenges, facing the candidates, their strengths and weaknesses.” [editor’s note: Not exactly on the level of Nostradamus here - SAT] (07/16/08) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,384424,00.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“As the United States’ banking and mortgage lending sectors confront mounting turmoil — and some countries face even greater economic challenges in the global economy — billions of people worldwide need financial stability and are hoping for it in the marketplace, as well. Leaders and policymakers are coming together to seek answers as ordinary citizens search for ways to solve their personal financial problems. But people also are hungering for solutions that go deeper and wider — to correct, strengthen, and rejuvenate the whole mental atmosphere underlying our global economy.” (07/18/08) http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0718/p08s01-cogn.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Are you happy? If you answered ‘yes,’ you’re rare. Most people view ‘happiness’ as an elusive state they haven’t attained, and they mistakenly think happiness comes from getting or taking from others. They think if they just get that raise, or if they meet the ‘right’ person, or any number of things they think that if they obtain will bring them that feeling they dream of. In this society of consumers, many think having more things will give them that feeling they so crave.” (07/17/08) http://www.nolanchart.com/article4271.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Anyone who peruses the top mainstream economics journals will quickly realize that economic theory has been crowded out by mathematical formalism. The neoclassical economists’ uncompromising quest for precision in their models has been achieved at the expense of the accuracy of their predictions.” (07/17/08) http://mises.org/story/3028 | | Report Bad Link |
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“California is facing a $17 billion deficit along with the third-highest unemployment rate in the country. This has caused some elected officials to say the state has a revenue problem … but the facts say otherwise. Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took over in 2003, the state’s general fund has grown by more than a third, roughly $25 billion.” (07/17/08) http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=23532 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Majority Leader Harry Reid has had it up to here with Tom Coburn, the Senate’s scourge of excessive spending and pork-barrel earmarks. Mr. Reid is telling reporters he will no longer tolerate the Oklahoma Republican blocking about 100 bills using the power Senate rules give individual member to stop legislation from coming to a floor vote. Mr. Coburn objects to many of the bills because he says they would enrich special interests and private developers at the expense of taxpayers.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/5od7je | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Third World is in trouble. Standards of living are plummeting, while the West is getting richer. Nearly everyone seems to believe it. The left wants to believe it as a justification for global socialism. Racists want to believe it because it ‘proves’ the superiority of the white race. The media think it’s a good story and promote it constantly, leading the vast majority of the public to believe it. But is it true?” (written 09/02; posted 07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6s8jlx | | Report Bad Link |
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“Just when you thought that Colorado labor law is complicated enough, the federal government has decided to get into the act. HR 980, which has been approved in the United States House of Representatives, and is winding its way through the Senate, would require state and local governments to bargain collectively with public safety employees, including law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical service personnel.” (07/17/08) http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=1367 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Kiva’s experience neatly encapsulates the larger narrative in which Western development agencies have encountered so much difficulty in ensuring that aid to Africa is effectively distributed and efficiently deployed. The difference with Kiva, is, again, the incredible transparency of each step in the process. Ironically, I feel more confident about making future loans through Kiva after reading about the organization’s missteps and naivete in Flannery’s blog.” (07/17/08) http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/2008/07/17/kiva_3/index.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“[Treasury Secretary] Paulson is a Republican, but as head of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, he had close ties with Democratic-dominated Fannie Mae. After prominent Democrat James A. Johnson left Fannie after eight years as chairman and CEO and joined the ZymoGenetics biopharmaceutical firm, he was named head of Goldman Sachs’ compensation committee, helping set Paulson’s abundant salary there. That connection clearly was not enough for Paulson to consider recusing himself from dealing with the crisis threatening Fannie, Freddie and the whole American economy. … Paulson’s tardy attention to the mortgage companies is not unique. The only senior executive branch officials who expressed alarm about overextended Fannie and Freddie were Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and their warnings were shrugged off.” (07/17/08) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27579 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Overall, D.C. vs. Heller is a mixed bag since, on the one hand, the court struck down the District of Columbia’s gun owners ship ban and trigger lock requirement but keeps its hands off the District’s gun license and registration laws and other regulatory schemes, like concealed carry permits. I am glad at the very least that D.C. vs. Heller affirms the right to bear arms as an individual right as outlined which was the intent of the people who drew up the Second Amendment.” (07/17/08) http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Editorial-Page.htm?InfoNo=035838 | | Report Bad Link |
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http://www.slate.com/id/2195384/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“The problem with Bernanke’s approach is that the credit crunch is not about a lack of liquidity; it’s about a lack of information. The nation’s leading financial institutions have a lot of their assets tied up in mortgage-backed securities of questionable value. To put it bluntly, no one knows what some of this stuff is worth. As long as the giants are grappling with this problem, they’re operating in a state of paralysis that affects thousands of smaller banks; lending has slowed down, making it harder for businesses to grow and create jobs. Further rate cuts are not likely to fix this mess — nor is Fed’s latest power-grab likely to prevent the next one.” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6a456j | | Report Bad Link |
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“For those who don’t see how we can possibly avert the Social Security/Medicare train wreck without raising taxes, here’s a quick primer on how budgeting works for everyone who isn’t the government: 1. Figure out how much money you can spend. 2. Take the figure from line 1 and allocate it according to your priorities. And you know what? It works for government programs, too!” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6a7qzf | | Report Bad Link |
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“The Benedict Arnolds in the Libertarian Party have done their dirty work. Now the LP is officially under the control of warmongering neocon types. At least the top of the party’s ticket is dominated by such pond scum. Your blogger was recently at the Freedom Fest shindig in Las Vegas, hence the absence in blogging for awhile. While there I witnessed two individuals I know to be libertarians attempting to talk to the Republicans who are now the LP’s candidates …” (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/6y8mrz | | Report Bad Link |
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“Imagine a society with no government punishing people for bad behavior, and where nobody ever used force against each other at all. People could commit fraud, for instance, and get away with it. In the buyer/seller relationship, one side would profit most through fraud if the other side is honest. For example, the seller could choose to sell a good or a tainted product, and the buyer could choose to pay with real or counterfeit money. If both are honest, they both get what they want; however, each would profit even more if they take advantage of the other’s honesty. If neither trusts the other, both would be inclined to defraud the other. The result is they trade counterfeit money for a piece of junk.” (07/17/08) http://partialobserver.com/article.cfm?id=3007 | | Report Bad Link |
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Cartoon. [Flash format] (07/17/08) http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/fiore/2008/07/politishop.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Preferential contracting is a multibillion dollar business. According to a study by Justin Marion of the University of California at Santa Cruz, government contracting is estimated at almost 10 percent of gross domestic product and the practice of giving preferential treatment to disadvantaged business enterprise (DBE) contractors and subcontractors is widespread. In 2002, 6.75 percent of federal procurement dollars, for example, were awarded through the Small Business Administration to DBEs. And between 1983 and 1999, all Department of Transportation contracts required 10 percent ‘goals’ — their term of art for set-asides — for minority- and women-owned firms. The original intent of the DBE programs was to spread work around to a variety of struggling minority business owners, lifting them from poverty to the ranks of the successful. But study after study has shown that a small number of firms, a monopoly of just one or two in some jurisdictions, gets the overwhelming share of the contract awards.” (for publication 07/21/08) http://tinyurl.com/5nl37n | | Report Bad Link |
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“It always baffles me a bit that a great many educated folks just stick to the faith that when government undertakes to address a problem, there will be solutions bubbling out all over the place, as if those in government possessed magical powers. At the same time, oddly, their distrust of people in business persists, as if free men and women had some innate proclivity toward mendacity the moment they entered the market place.” (07/17/08) http://rebirthofreason.com/Articles/Machan/A_Chance_for_Freedom.shtml | | Report Bad Link |
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“If you are one of the privileged few, you don’t have to worry about short selling of your stock any more. Other companies do, but not the few, the proud, the owners of the country’s major financial institutions. Of course, these are the same big banks that own the Federal Reserve system, so no surprise that the evil, vicious, hateful, thugs who run the Securities and Exchange Commission are prepared to do anything to keep them from going under. So, sure, the financial stocks have surged on news that the people who make the rules for the exchanges won’t allow those stocks to be bought and sold under the same market conditions that apply to everyone else. They have friends in high places.” (07/16/08) http://tinyurl.com/6d8sut | | Report Bad Link |
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“I’m a strong believer that traveling is a basic human right — that is, that people have the right to go wherever they want, for whatever reason they please, subject only to the equal rights of others, such as respect for private property. In practical terms, that means I oppose the U.S. government’s oppressive restrictions on travel to (and trade with) such places as Cuba. Whatever political points government officials want to make, they should frame up in a press release and leave private citizens alone to see the world for themselves. So I applaud the civil disobedience of the Venceremos Brigade, a group of unrepentant commies who make their own political points by risking fines and prosecution through unlicensed travel to that forbidden destination just 93 miles off the coast of Florida — in fact, the group just returned from its latest trip.” (07/16/08) http://www.tuccille.com/blog/2008/07/our-right-to-travel-to-cuba.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“You and I are caring people. And caring people care about composting, which is why many of us bemoan the fact that our civic governments do not collect compost. The well-informed among us may even talk fondly of municipal organic waste collection systems, like those started in San Francisco in 1998 and Toronto in 2004. But let’s play these municipal collection systems out a bit. First the city gives every household a pricey new plastic rolling tote. They buy additional trucks and hire more people. Those trucks chug up every single lane in the city until they are full, then they drive somewhere far away and dump the organic waste. Large machines pile and re-pile the organics for a few months until it breaks down into compost. They do this two to four times each month, 12 months of the year, for the rest of time. There’s an obvious environmental cost, and the cash price is none too pretty, either.” (07/17/08) http://www.alternet.org/environment/91732/ | | Report Bad Link |
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“How could Americans not think of World War II as ‘the good war?’ We were victors. Our cities weren’t burned, our towns not occupied, our civilians not starved or slaughtered. Our battlefield casualties, nearly a million killed and wounded, were the heaviest in American history but lighter than other major combatants’. In terms of military and economic power — not the sole measure but important in assessing world politics — the war’s outcome was overwhelmingly favorable to the United States. But most victories carry the seeds of their own undoing: 1945 left America more prone to seek military solutions than the chastened and war-exhausted Europeans. And, of course, the victory was partial.” (07/14/08) http://www.amconmag.com/2008/2008_07_14/cover1.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“People have long been fascinated by the end of the world. Some interpretations of Hindu scripture suggest that the world will end with the imminent conclusion of the current Kali Yuga cycle. Some New Agers believe that the world will undergo apocalyptic changes as the Maya Long Count calendar comes to an end on December 21, 2012. Some Christian End Timers believe that the period preceding the Day of Judgment described in the Book of Revelation is now upon us. Religious believers are not alone in their fascination with doomsday. Secular catastrophists predict environmental doom or worry about calamity raining down on us from outer space. This week the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, headed by bioprogressive philosopher Nick Bostrom, is convening a conference on Global Catastrophic Risks.” (07/17/08) http://www.reason.com/news/show/127610.html | | Report Bad Link |
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“Spurred by the claim that speculators are to blame for skyrocketing oil prices, airline executives are circulating an open letter encouraging customers to urge their congressional representatives to enact stronger regulatory oversight of ‘unchecked market speculation and manipulation.’ This crusade has gained popular support on stopoilspeculationnow.com and in media outlets across the country. The airlines’ campaign, unfortunately, is built on a mix of economic half-truths and downright lies, which will only hurt consumers and airlines alike in the long run. Futures markets and speculation play an important role in the economy because they allow us to compensate for risk by moving resources from periods of abundance to periods of scarcity, stabilizing commodity prices as a result. Blaming speculators for high oil prices, as economist Russell Roberts notes, is tantamount to blaming thermometers for the weather.” (07/16/08) http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2267 | | Report Bad Link |
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“Ultimately, the Court agreed with Heller that D.C.’s ban on all functional firearms in the home is unconstitutional ‘under any of the standards of scrutiny the Court has applied to enumerated constitutional rights.’ But the Court did not choose a specific standard, and may hereafter apply something less than the strict scrutiny standard Heller had suggested. On the other hand, the Court categorically rejected ‘rational basis’ scrutiny, which has been a rubber-stamp for virtually all legislative enactments. And the Court also rejected Justice Stephen Breyer’s ‘interest-balancing’ test, which is no more than a repeat of the process that legislatures undertake in crafting regulations. Something higher is demanded, said Scalia, when an express constitutional right is at issue. At a minimum, it appears that the Court will adopt some version of intermediate or heightened scrutiny, as urged by the Justice Department.” (07/14/08) http://tinyurl.com/59lcdm | | Report Bad Link |
Audio and Video
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Live debate between presidential candidates: Charles Jay (Boston Tea & Personal Choice), Brian Moore (Socialist Party USA) and Frank McEnulty (New American Independent). 7:30pm Eastern on Blog Talk Radio. [various formats] (07/24/08) http://tinyurl.com/4mghhm | | Report Bad Link |
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Thomas J. DiLorenzo discusses his new book, Hamilton’s Curse, with host Kenneth John. 9-10am Central on WRMN 1410 AM, Elgin, IL or live on the web. [live radio or stream] (07/21/08) http://www.freedomrings.net | | Report Bad Link |
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Content TBA. [MP3] (07/17/08) http://media.libsyn.com/media/ftl/FTL2008-07-17.mp3 | | Report Bad Link |
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“If Obama Gaffes, Does Anyone Hear It? / The Multiculturalist / Talk Radio Copycats / Jostling To Accompany The Savior.” [MP3] (07/17/08) http://tinyurl.com/55yqdw | | Report Bad Link |
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“Nihilism: The genesis of emptiness …” [MP3] (07/14/08) http://tinyurl.com/fdr1108 | |