Prosecuting the Bush Administration’s Torturers by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
Originally posted at the Future of Freedom Foundation
March 23, 2009

It’s a sign of how much the Bush administration skewed America’s moral compass that we are currently facing the possibility that the only way to bring the torturers to account is through a “Nonpartisan Commission Of Inquiry” — essentially, a toothless truth and reconciliation commission — of the type proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We know that both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder believe that the Bush administration approved the use of torture. In an interview with ABC News on January 11, President-Elect Obama responded to a recent CBS interview with Dick Cheney, in which the then-Vice President had sounded his usual alarms abut the need for “extraordinary” policies to deal with terror suspects, by stating, “Vice President Cheney I think continues to defend what he calls extraordinary measures or procedures and from my view waterboarding is torture. I have said that under my administration we will not torture.”

The Secret: Astonishing coincidences are anything but coincidences by Roland Michel Tremblay

By Roland Michel Tremblay
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
The Marginal
23 March, 2009

There are two types of coincidences I would like to review here. First of all, the most astonishing ones, you are travelling in a different country and suddenly you meet someone you know. Second, you just discussed something, or were thinking about something, you turn on the TV or open a magazine, or meet someone, and the very topic being discussed is the very subject that was on your mind. These are examples of coincidences, and we certainly notice them when they happen in our life. But should we be surprised, or is it just natural, following a basic law of nature, by which you create the very universe you live in?

In light of the law of attraction, meaning the action of thinking brings into your life more of what you are thinking about, astonishing coincidences are no longer astonishing, they cannot even be called coincidences anymore. When you start paying attention to coincidences, you suddenly start seeing them everywhere. It is not surprising, because then you are inviting into your life what you are thinking about, and so coincidences multiply. This is a good thing, you should invite coincidences into your life, it tells you that you are successful at creating your own reality.

Which Strategy to Heal the Middle East? by Naomi Klein & Arthur Waskow

Dandelion Salad

Reposted with permission from Rabbi Arthur Waskow from the Shalom Center

by Rabbi Arthur Waskow
www.shalomctr.org
Mar. 23, 2009

[During February 2009, a national progressive newspaper called In These Times invited me, Arthur, to take part in a conversation with Naomi Klein, a well-known progressive political analyst and writer, with the intention of transcribing it and publishing an edited version approved by both of us.

The occasion was that Klein, in the wake of the Israeli invasion of Gaza, had for the first time joined the campaign for a “BDS strategy” (“Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”) directed at Israel. I assume ITT asked me because they knew I supported a very different strategy for bringing peace to the Middle East. (Both of us agreed that the crucial change must be a vigorous, committed, and active US insistence on full regional peace among Israel, Palestine, all Arab states, Iran, and the US itself.]

I agreed to join in the dialogue, and this edited version of our conversation has now been published by ITT.

I want to note that only in the last few days (March 20-22, 2009), weeks after our conversation, have there been published graphic descriptions by Israeli soldiers of what they themselves have called criminal acts, including murder, by Israeli soldiers in Gaza. These descriptions were published in two major Israeli newspapers after being leaked to them by an Army officer who was horrified by the descriptions. They have also been widely reported in the West, and they put to shame assertions that such claims by Palestinians and outside observers were lies.

Bennis: What is withdrawing ‘responsibly’ from Iraq?

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

Obama: Our central mission in Afghanistan is to prevent another al Qaeda attack on the U.S. homeland + videos

Propaganda Alert

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

1) Barack Obama’s interview on CBS (22 March 2009)
2) Dick Cheney’s interview on CNN (15 March 2009)

Obama Economic Program Increases America’s Bondage to Wall Street Billionaires by Richard C. Cook

by Richard C. Cook
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
March 23, 2009

It’s Time for a New Monetary System

This article previews the author’s new six-part video series scheduled for release April 2: “Credit as a Public Utility: The Solution to the Economic Crisis.”

We Hold These Truths by Richard C. Cook

Originally uploaded by Lorri37

The Obama administration is spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to persuade the banking system to restart lending. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke plans to create hundreds of billions more of new bank reserves by purchasing mortgage-related debt. With Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner working together, “the initiative will seek to entice private investors, including big hedge funds, to participate by offering billions of dollars in low-interest loans to finance the purchases. The government will share the risks if the assets fall further in price.” (Martin Crutsinger, AP) Finally, President Obama is taking over the distinction of being the biggest Keynesian in history with a fiscal year 2009 deficit of $1.75 trillion.

The cancer of debt grows by the day. According to Michael Hodges’ famed “Grandfather Economic Report”: “America has become more a debt ‘junkie’ than ever before, with total debt of $57 trillion, and the highest debt ratio in history. That’s $186,717 per man, woman and child.”

With the federal bailouts of the financial system and the recession, the debt load has increased by $4 trillion in the last six months. What are we going to do with even more debt coming?

Terror in the Holy Land + Israeli T-shirts mock Gaza killings

Dandelion Salad

WHYNotNews

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Israeli T-shirts mock Gaza killings – 23 March 2009

America’s Dehumanizing Prisons by Sherwood Ross

Dandelion Salad

by Sherwood Ross
Global Research, March 22, 2009

Close Down Guantanamo?. What about our Own Hell-Holes?

From Florida to California, America’s dehumanizing prisons confront President Obama and our governors with a challenge every bit as daunting as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.

In California, the state’s 33 adult prisons teem with nearly double the inmates they were designed to hold,” The New York Times reports. In Florida, officials say they must build 19 more prisons over the next five years.

In both states, advocacy groups would rather see non-violent prisoners nearing the end of their sentences released early than build more new bunks. Barney Bishop, president of the influential business lobby Associated Industries of Florida, has released a position paper calling for a halt to the scheduled construction of three new, 1,300-bed prisons at a cost of $300 million. “It doesn’t make sense to me,” Bishop told the Miami Herald.

Florida has got 99,000 inmates behind bars and it will have an estimated 124,000 in the slammer by 2014. The figure is skyrocketing because “get tough” politicians voted in mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory life terms so that, in the words of Bill Bales, a criminology professor at Florida State University, “there is no release valve available, unlike in states that have parole.” Mandatory sentences may also discourage prisoners from trying to get time off for good behavior.

British hotels put on alert over Mumbai-style terror attack

Propaganda Alert

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

1) Hotels put on alert over Mumbai-style terror attack
2) British Interior Minister: UK hotels on high terror alert (January 2009)

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/…

excerpt from: Hotels put on alert over Mumbai-style terror attack (*)

British luxury hotels are vulnerable to Mumbai-style attacks, senior anti-terrorist officers are warning, ahead of a major relaunch of the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy next week.

by Christopher Hope, Daily Telegraph, 21 March 2009

Quote:

Security services officials are also judging the threat against the UK to be at the “severe end of severe”, just days before the G20 summit in London is due to begin. The Daily Telegraph has learned that senior counter-terrorism officers are highly concerned about the possibility of attacks by terrorists using automatic weapons on major hotels and other public buildings. This marks a change in the challenge posed to the security services, which have previously focused on preventing bombings.

(*) title of the print version

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from the archives:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2154541.ece

excerpt from: UK hotels on high terror alert

by Graeme Wilson, The Sun, 21 January 2009

Quote:

Britain is on high alert for a Mumbai-style terrorist attack on a top hotel, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith revealed yesterday. She told MPs that security chiefs have been training staff at major hotels on how to cope with a terror hit. Ministers, police and security services are urgently reviewing the UK’s counter-terrorism plans to beef up protection around hotels and other public buildings. Appearing before the Commons Home Affairs committee, Ms Smith said the atrocities in Mumbai in November — which claimed nearly 200 lives — had triggered an overhaul of Britain’s “protective security arrangements”.

see

Please don’t hate us: UK ad campaign to target extremism

Bill Moyers Journal: Families over the edge + Socialism

Dandelion Salad

Bill Moyers Journal
March 20, 2009

Bill Moyers talks with Marta Peláez, president and CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services, Inc., a domestic abuse shelter in San Antonio, TX, for perspective on the human face of the economic downturn and how it may be pushing more families over the edge.

Spitzer: Regulatory System Was Structurally Flawed But You Can’t Legislate Judgement

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heathr456

From Fareed Zakaria GPS March 22, 2009.

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Eliot Spitzer: The real scandal at AIG is the not the bonuses. It’s the payments to counterparties. + The feds must investigate

An American Outrage: Bernie, AIG, and Us by Rosemary and Walter Brasch

The Big Takeover by Matt Taibbi

Was the Bailout Itself a Scam? By Paul Craig Roberts

Bernanke’s Hammer by Cameron Salisbury

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2