Day: March 7, 2009

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Argentina’s Economic Collapse (full video; subtitled)

Dandelion Salad

peltecs on Jan 27, 2011

Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina’s assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan. The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition. If you want to stop the same thing from happening here, and it is happening here, right now, please join the revolution at the Kick Them All Out Project, http://www.KickThemAllOut.com and the Fire Congress Campaign.

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Kucinich: The path forward has to be with transparency

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Kucinich2008

Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Fox 03/07/09

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The Bottomless Bailout by Ralph Nader

Ex-Countrywide honchos set up firm to buy bad loans By Jerry Mazza

$30 billion more for AIG By Jerry Mazza

Jim Rogers: Is there any sound currency in the world? 2009.03.04

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

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Supreme Court Vacates Decision Giving President Indefinite Detention Power In Al-Marri Case

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American Civil Liberties Union
(3/6/2009)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court today vacated a lower court decision giving the president the extraordinary power to seize and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens or residents without charge or trial. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who, after being held for almost six years in military detention, was indicted last week in federal court and charged with two counts of material support for terrorism.

In July 2008, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled in a fractured decision that the president had legal authority to imprison al-Marri indefinitely without charge. As one judge noted in dissent, however, to accept the government’s claim of extraordinary detention power would have “disastrous consequences for the Constitution—and the country.” The Supreme Court vacated that decision and dismissed the case as moot.

The following can be attributed to Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project and lead counsel in al-Marri’s case:

“While we would have preferred a Supreme Court ruling that U.S. citizens and lawful residents detained in the U.S. cannot be held in military custody as ‘enemy combatants’ without charges or trial, the Supreme Court nonetheless took an important step today by vacating a lower court decision that had upheld the Bush administration’s authority to designate al-Marri as an ‘enemy combatant.’ Congress never granted the president that authority and the Constitution does not permit it. We trust that the Obama administration will not repeat the abuses of the Bush administration having now chosen to prosecute Mr. al-Marri in federal court rather than defend the Bush administration’s actions in this case.”

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The Last US Enemy Combatant – The Shocking Story of Ali al-Marri

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Focus on Gaza: Rebuilding Gaza

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AlJazeeraEnglish

Israel’s war on Gaza left 4,000 homes destroyed and 17,000 damaged, not to mention a state infrastructure in ruins. The international community has pledged $5bn to fund reconstruction but the Israeli government will not allow even the most basic building materials to cross into Gaza. In this week’s Focus on Gaza, correspondent Todd Baer reports on how this is hampering reconstruction efforts.

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Recent Words Aside, US Continues Military Encirclement Of Russia by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/37752
March 7, 2009

American Vice-President Joseph Biden at the Munich Security Conference in early February pledged to “press the reset button” with Russia.

Since then prominent Washington officials have repeated their intention to reset, reboot and so forth relations with Russia but have, starting with Biden at Munich, not relented in any substantive manner on any of the behaviors and projects that have antagonized Moscow.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently and American President Obama is to meet with his Russian counterpart Dmitri Medvedev n London early next month.

Russia has permitted the US and its NATO allies transit rights for non-military goods to assist the West’s expanding war in South Asia, though in the process is abetting the extension of the NATO military nexus from the Baltic to the Black to the Caspian Seas and hence tightening the noose around its own neck.

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Viva Palestina’ activists denied entry to Egypt

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Press TV
Fri, 06 Mar 2009 15:14:46 GMT

Four activists, heading for Gaza with humanitarian aid convoy ‘Viva Palestina’, have been returned to Libya short after crossing into Egypt.

The convoy of some 100 vehicles carrying one million pounds worth of humanitarian aid departed from Britain on February 14 and is to enter the impoverished Palestinian territory via Rafah in Egypt.

[…]

“The Egyptian authorities have not come up with an explanation as to why these men should be separated from the convoy. There is a feeling that they could mere political pawns in a much wider game is being played out in Egypt at the moment with Libya, Egypt and Israel,” she said.

“Israel is putting huge pressure on Egypt to force the convoy which is now doubled in size, a British-Libyan venture, through Israeli territory.”

[…]

via Press TV – ‘Viva Palestina’ activists denied entry to Egypt

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Viva Palestina aid convoy reaches Morocco – 19 Feb 2009

Viva Palestina (The Gaza Convoy) + UK releases 3 Viva Palestina members

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

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Donate to the online appeal for Gaza Convoy

Online appeal for Gaza Convoy

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Miliband: The security situation in Pakistan is fuelling terrorist plots in Britain

Propaganda Alert

compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
7 March, 2009

1) David Miliband comments on the situation in Pakistan
2) DEBKAfile: Egyptian manhunt for Iranian agent behind terror attacks on Westerners

________________
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/latest-news/?view=News&id=14538231
excerpt from: David Miliband comments on the situation in Pakistan

Foreign Secretary David Miliband commented on the situation in Pakistan during an interview on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 6 March.

James Naughtie: Well at the risk of asking a very obvious question indeed: what is at stake for the rest of the world in Pakistan?

David Miliband: I think the safety of the UK and its citizens, because as the Prime Minister pointed out when he went to Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks, the majority of terrorist attacks in Britain have links back into Pakistan, or at least into the border area with Afghanistan. Secondly, there’s obviously a large number of British troops and troops from a number of other countries at direct risk in Afghanistan, and I think that that is a potent brew.

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http://www.debka.com/headline_print.php?hid=5949

excerpts from: Egyptian manhunt for Iranian agent behind terror attacks on Westerners

DEBKAfile, 6 March 2009

Based on Egyptian intelligence findings, president Hosni Mubarak’s aides advised visiting US secretary of state Hillary Clinton last week that an Iranian agent is behind recent attacks on foreign tourists in Cairo, DEBKAfile’s exclusive sources report.

They are hunting an Iranian agent whom they believe set up a terrorist network for these attacks. On Feb. 23, two bomb blasts in Cairo’s central Khalil al Khan market killed a French teen-ager and injured 23, mostly tourists. Then, on March 1, a teacher from the American school in Alexandria was stabbed and suffered minor injuries at the same place. […]

According to classified reports, Egyptian security authorities suspect that all three assaults were the work of a network set up by an officer of al Qods Brigades, Iran’s external terrorist arm, who arrived in Cairo under cover at the beginning of this year. They are not sure if the network is based on Iranian terrorists or local recruits.

US and Middle East intelligence circles find it hard to credit Cairo’s suspicions; an Iranian terrorist team at large in Cairo would represent a grave deterioration in Tehran-Cairo relations. It would also reflect on Iran’s relations with the nations whose citizens were targeted – France, Germany and Saudi Arabia. […]

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Scott Horton interviews Noam Chomsky: The roots of U.S. imperialism

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Highly recommend listening to the entire interview on Antiwar Radio.  ~ DS

AntiwarRadio

Click the link for the entire interview http://antiwar.com/radio/20…

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Mosaic News – 3/6/09: World News From The Middle East

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Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

linktv

Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute

Headlines coming soon. Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.

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For What Noble Cause, Mr. Obama? by Cindy Sheehan

Cindy Sheehan for Congress
Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad
Featured Writer
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox
March 2, 2009

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.
Barack Obama: October 2002

For the record, I did not support Barack Obama for President of this country. Of course the above quote was from his famous “anti-war” speech, that was not an anti-war speech, but an anti-Iraq war speech and this is just a sound bite from a mostly nationalistic and pro-war speech.

I opposed Obama, though, because I actually listened to what he said about foreign policy when he was Candidate Obama. He never, ever said that he was going to withdraw all troops from Iraq and he always said that he was going to increase troop levels, not only in Afghanistan, but also in the military over-all. His budget increases military spending at a time when education, health care, wages and jobs are declining. Obama is a militarist-corporatist and haven’t we had enough of this kind of “leadership” in the past three decades?

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Ex-Countrywide honchos set up firm to buy bad loans By Jerry Mazza

By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Online Journal
www.jerrymazza.com
March 7, 2009

Adding insult to outrage, former executives of the nefarious Countrywide Financial, who should be involved in a RICO suit for conspiracy to defraud based on thousands of knowingly risky loans they made to tens of thousands of Americans, are now poising themselves to make more millions from the home mortgage mess they helped create, reports the New York Times.

A dirty dozen or so of the former giant Countrywide are now lining up to scoop up millions from the mortgage mess. No less than Stanford L. Kurland, Countrywide’s former president, and his gang of former executives are buying up delinquent home mortgages that the government paid for to take over from other failed banks. They’re offering pennies on the dollar, which still guarantees them a piece of what they collect.

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$30 billion more for AIG By Jerry Mazza

By Jerry Mazza
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted at Online Journal
www.jerrymazza.com
March 7, 2009

American International Group (AIG) will get another $30 billion in government aid. This comes on the heels of its quarterly loss of $61.7 billion.

There’s nothing like rewarding massive failure with a series of massive bailouts. This included taking a $21 billion charge related to taxes and wrote down $25.9 billion in assets this quarter, which included mortgage-back dreck and credit-default swill, according to The New York Times.

This is the fourth bailout, so far, so the government now owns 80 percent of the insurer’s holding company, owing to the previous bailouts, including a $60 billion loan, a $40 billion purchase of preferred shares and $50 billion to soak up poison assets. How we doin, okay? But Federal officials are going to hang in there with AIG, valued at about $1 billion by hedge funds, according to Jim Cramer’s The Street.com, behind General Motors at $1.4 billion, both from giants to small caps.

The government’s cumulative bailouts from AIG far exceed Citi-group ($50 bill) and Bank of America ($45). AIG faced default on debt, purportedly threatening to send “shock waves through the system” as banks holding AIG derivatives were banging on the table for cash and other payments. I say, let them eat cake. Nevertheless, credit rating agencies were not going to downgrade the company’s debt. How large of them.

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Jim Rogers: Is there any sound currency in the world? 2009.03.04

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peacespeech

Jim Rogers asks Jeffrey Halley whether there is a sound currency in the world, so he could hold it for the next 10 years.
Very interesting conversation!
2009.03.04

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Retirement plans of millions of Britons at risk after Bank of England ‘prints money’

The U.S. Financial System Is Effectively Insolvent by Nouriel Roubini

MI5 alert on bank riots

Royal Bank of Scotland – Give Us Back Our F****** Money

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2