Stephen Lendman

After Hamas was overwhelmingly elected in January 2006, Israel, Washington and the West ended all outside aid, imposed an economic embargo and sanctions, and politically isolated the new government.

Stepped up repression followed, including regular IDF incursions, bombings, killings, targeted assassinations, arrests, property destruction, and Israeli-instigated internal conflict that left Fatah usurping authority in the West Bank, leaving Gaza alone under Hamas.

In June 2007, conditions worsened after Israel imposed its siege, medieval-like, according to some, for its harshness. Now, nearing its third anniversary, it's still in place, slowly suffocating and strangling 1.5 million people, trapped by closed borders, regular incursions and attacks, and shortages of everything needed to function and survive. A humanitarian crisis resulted and continues. The West and most regional states are culpable, complicit or indifferent to a real time catastrophe.

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Marc Morano / Don J. Easterbrook

A prominent U.S. geologist is urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.

Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook's warning came in the form of a new scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16, 2010. Dr. Easterbrook is an Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. Easterbrook's full resume is here.

Dr. Easterbrook joins many other scientists, peer-reviewed research and scientific societies warning of a coming global cooling. Easterbrook is presenting his findings alongside other man-made global warming skeptics at the three day conference in Chicago.

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Mike Adams

Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we're being told?, stated the following:

"It's hard to say exactly what's going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing's for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we're being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it's true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries."

Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR worse than what we were being told.

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Chris Floyd

The American way of war is a marvelously ingenious thing. And thoroughly modern too. No more of that "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" jazz; your modern "warfighter" (they aren't called "soldiers" anymore, you know) prefers to view his targets through, say, a computer screen safely ensconced back in the Homeland or thousands of feet in the sky, or else through the unearthly greenish glow of night-vision scopes. And open combat? Forget it. The new American way is the sneak attack on civilian homes in the dead of night. You creep up, you break in, you cap a few ragheads, then you run away. What glory! What magnificent valor!

The Washington Post reports on yet another glorious page in the annals of the exceptional nation "intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." It's the usual story. Secret "warfighters" suddenly attack a civilian compound in the middle of the night. This, not surprisingly, provokes a few shots from some of the inhabitants, who have no idea who is attacking their home. The superior firepower of the beacons of hope and Christian charity quickly overcome the piddling arms of the demonic heathens, however, and in a trice, there are dead gook – sorry, raghead – bodies all around. Including children – you've got to have children in your body count these days, if you want to be a thoroughly modern Christian beacon warfighter. Then you and your brave band of secret warriors run away and prepare for the next bold raid.

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Stephen Lendman

BP America Chairman Robert Malone, left, and Shell Oil Presi-
dent John Hofmeister (in 2008). (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

It's common practice in America. A government-Wall Street cabal caused the financial crisis and subsequent fallout. Now debated financial reform is a stealth scheme to let bankers self-regulate. Rogue Democrats rammed through health reform to ration care and enrich corporate providers. Defense, technology, and related firms profit hugely from permanent wars, and a regulatory-free Washington - energy industry alliance lies at the root of the Gulf disaster, by far America's greatest ever environmental calamity, worsening daily with no fail-safe, or perhaps any, way to stop it.

It's too big even for the major media to ignore - to wit, on May 15, New York Times writer Justin Gillis headlined, "Giant Plumes of Oil Found Forming Under the Gulf of Mexico," saying:

Alarming reports show "Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery" shows that BP and the Obama administration lied about the incident's severity, and they're still lying.

According to University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye,

"There's a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to" what's visible on the surface, the tip of a big and growing iceberg, this one containing oil. "There's a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column."

Worse still, it's depleting Gulf oxygen, prompting fears about killing sea life in the effected areas and permanently destroying the livelihood of area fisherman who supply 20% of the nation's supply.

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palingates

Sarah Palin is going to run for Presdident. She sees it as her God-given destiny to become the first female President. She is not a rational thinker, but a maniac, and she already is on the campaign trail right now.

Today Kathleen and I had the "pleasure" to listen live on the internet to a substantial part of the NRA convention. It was a freak show of epic proportions. It seems that the NRA (apparently a "non-partisan" organization, good joke) had the desire to present every prominent right-wing lunatic they could get their hands on. After having listened at the beginning of the event to the crazed speeches of the leaders of the NRA themselves, we were not very surprised to see that speakers like Ken Blackwell, John Bolton, Michael Reagan and Oliver North were the preferred choice.

The main focus of basically all of the speeches was how the dark evil liberal powers in Washington try to suppress the good Americans and want to take away their freedoms (and their guns). The speakers basically presented several versions of the same story, and John Bolton managed to introduce some new angles when he said that the United Nations want to take away the second amendment rights, and that Obama is the first "post-American President", whatever he meant by that.

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Robert Stark

Senator Joe Lieberman is sponsoring a Bill with Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown called the "Terrorist Expatriation Act" that would strip terrorist suspects on their citizenship. The bill applies to any American that supports a foreign terrorist organization or any organization that is deemed a supporter of terrorism by an ally of the United States. The bill gives the State Department the power to determine who is a terrorist and strip away their citizenship.

Lieberman introduced the Bill stating "The State Department will make an administrative determination… the State Department will now have the authority to revoke their citizenship… they will not enjoy the rights and privileges of American citizenship in the legal proceedings against them…. he could then be tried by military commission as the Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent that he is."

Even though Lieberman claims the Bill is to target Americans who have joined Islamic Terrorist Organizations such as Al Qaeda, it has implications affecting many American political dissidents not just those who one would usually think of as terrorist. Hypothetical scenario's that the bill might apply to are Americans such as former Congresswomen Cynthia McKinney who are helping out Palestinians in Gaza with food and medical aid. Since Israel considers Hamas a terrorist organization and Israel is considered as ally by the US Government.

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Stephen Lendman

On June 26, 2009, HR 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACESA) passed, purportedly "To create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution and transition to a clean energy economy."

In fact, it lets energy polluters raise prices for huge windfall profits and gives Wall Street a bonanza through carbon trading derivatives speculation. Catherine Austin Fitts' Solari.com blog explained it last July in her article titled, "The Next Really Scary Bubble" is coming, saying:

"If you think the housing and credit bubble diminished your financial security and your community, or the bailouts, or the rising gas prices did as well, hold on to your hat" for what's ahead. "Carbon trading is gearing up to make the housing and derivative bubbles look like target practice," or in other words, be the mother of all scams, courtesy of administration, House and Senate collaboration with Wall Street and the energy giants.

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Juan Cole

Thousands of Palestinians rallied in Gaza on Saturday to commemorate the Nakbah or national catastrophe of 1948, when European Jewish settlers brought into the Mandate of Palestine by imperial British policy expelled 700,000 Palestinians from what is now Israel and then sealed the border, confiscating all their property without compensation. These actions turned the bulk of the Palestinians into poverty-stricken camp dwellers and/or stateless persons living under the rule of others, and prevented the rise of an independent Palestinian state such as was envisaged by the League of Nations and the British government just a decade before. [Aljazeera English has video (click link).]

Keeping the memory of their national catastrophe alive is especially important to Palestinians since the rest of the world has forgotten it and wealthy and powerful elements of the rightwing Israel lobbies in the US monitor and intimidate media figures and academics who dare depart from the fantasyland Leon Uris “Exodus” narrative of 1948. (Israelis have the right to their narrative, but not to erase the national narratives of others).

1947-48 in Palestine was a civil war of sorts between the two major populations under British rule there. But most of the 700,000 Palestinians made homeless were not politicized nor were they fighters, and permanently depriving them of their property with no compensation is illegal (not to mention immoral). And although a subcommittee of the UN had proposed a partition of Palestine, the UN Security Council never voted on the plan and it was openly rejected by the Palestinians and privately rejected by Zionist leaders like Ben Gurion (who wanted a ‘Greater Israel’ than was on offer from the UN).

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Arthur Silber

Our Monstrous Culture, and the Monsters Who Rule You (I): What the Monster Said

I remember seeing about half an hour of the original Night of the Living Dead several decades ago. For most of the 1970s, I lived in the middle of Manhattan. I had been flicking through television channels late at night, and I stumbled across the film, which had been released theatrically in 1968. The film caused some controversy because of the nature and level of violence it portrayed. Since I'd now come across it, I was curious to see what the furor was about.

So I watched for a little while. I could barely believe what I was seeing. Limbs torn from bodies, zombies munching on human legs and arms, blood everywhere. I kept watching -- for a little while -- because I found that I was unable to make real to myself the kind of mind that would create this kind of mayhem. It wasn't simply that the images -- and, as I recall, the sounds, oh God, the sounds -- were horrifying. Of equal and probably greater significance to me was the fact that (in part, remembering some of what I'd read about George Romero, the director of the film) the creation of a movie about people who were terrorized and then eaten, all of which was presented in loving, careful detail, was clearly intended to be entertainment. This was fun! It appeared that a sizable audience agreed with this assessment.

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Bob Altemeyer

A Brief History of the Movement

Today's Tea Party movement began in early 2009 in reaction to the American government‟s efforts to stabilize the banking system and keep the nation from sinking into economic turmoil. In October, 2008 the Democrat-controlled Congress passed a “Wall St. bailout” bill (the “TARP” bill) proposed by the Bush administration, which Bush immediately signed. This bill deeply offended some economic conservatives who held a “let the chips fall where they may, no matter what” view of free market economics. (I‟m not going to provide references to major events that are part of the public record, such as the TARP bill, nor to organizations and polls that can easily be tracked down through Google from the information provided.)

Anger among economic conservatives rose yet higher in early 2009 when Congress responded to President Obama‟s call for a massive economic stimulus to keep the recession from turning into a Depression. Almost every major Western government, whatever its political stripe, went deeply into the red at this time to keep its economy afloat. Republicans in Congress voted massively against the bill, and Democrats took the heat for trying to stop a recession that the Republicans had largely caused by deregulating the banking system.

The first of what became Tea Party protests occurred on February 10, 2009. It was produced by FreedomWorks, an organization led by influential Republicans such as former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, that specialized in creating “grass roots” protests. On February 9, a FreedomWorks official phoned Mary Rakovich in Ft. Myers, Florida, whom he had trained in organizing demonstrations. He wanted a protest the next night when Obama was in town holding a town hall on the stimulus bill. About ten people showed up on short notice to decry government waste and “Obama‟s socialism,” but it was a start. Rakovich was then interviewed on Fox.

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Feroze Mithiborwala

We Demand a National Judicial Commission of Inquiry.

The Mumbai 26/11 terror episode was undoubtedly an attack on the nation & on all of South Asia. Thus there is a need for a far more extensive, transparent & honest investigation. Over the course of the past several months, a number of questions and doubts have been raised in the media as well as other public fora and there is a growing discontent & sentiment amongst the people to demand a thorough investigation into all the aspects of the terror attack.

We also need to understand as to why the nation was attacked on precisely the 26th of November. Communal riots & terror attacks have been planned & orchestrated around specific times of political, economic or social crisis. Thus the Babri Masjid was demolished on the 6th of December, which is the day of Dr. Baba Saheb Ambedkar’s death anniversary. The primary agenda of the Brahmanical forces was to counter the upsurge & growing unity of the OBC, Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims as well as other oppressed minorities in the wake of the Mandal Commission.

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Stuart Littlewood

David Cameron views exhibits at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and
Museum (Photo: Handout/Getty Images)

Stuart Littlewood views the Zionist roots of Britain’s senior coalition party, the Conservatives, especially its leader David Cameron and the foreign secretary, William Hague, both self-confessed Israel stooges. He asks whether Nick Clegg, leader of the junior coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, will have the guts to neutralize the Conservatives’ Zionism and uphold his party’s position on Gaza and war crimes.

“I am proud not just to be a Conservative, but a Conservative Friend of Israel; and I am proud of the key role CFI plays within our Party.” – David Cameron, UK Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader

Conservative leader David "I'm-a-Zionist" Cameron didn't win the election but has managed to seize power by slipping between the sheets with Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. This distasteful union should give them enough votes to survive in Parliament for the five years they have set themselves.

The glamour-boy duo, Cameron and Clegg, come from similar privileged backgrounds – top public schools and “Oxbridge”. Cameron is a product of Eton, the infamous Bullingdon Club and Oxford; Clegg arrived via Westminster and Cambridge.

Cameron, of course, is the boss of the coalition. Clegg is merely deputy prime minister, a post usually regarded as a non-job. “Birds of a feather: Cameron hires a new fag,” quipped one blogger.

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Peter Symonds

The Obama administration has seized on the failed car bombing in New York’s Times Square on May 1 to insist that the Pakistani military step up its war on Islamic militants and extend its operations into North Waziristan. The US demand is being backed by thinly disguised warnings of economic reprisals and military intervention.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an explicit public threat during a CBS interview last Sunday. After accusing some Pakistani officials of knowing the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar, she insisted on more Pakistani cooperation and warned: “We’ve made it very clear that if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences.”

Speaking to ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Attorney General Eric Holder accused the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, of being behind the Times Square incident. He claimed that the Taliban directed the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen of Pakistani descent. Under interrogation, Shahzad has allegedly admitted training in Taliban camps in North Waziristan, although the amateurish character of the bombing attempt indicates otherwise. A Tehrik-e-Taliban spokesman has denied any involvement.

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Stephen Lendman

The University of San Francisco School of Law Center for Law and Global Justice and the Frank C. Newman International Human Rights Law Clinic, in association with the Berkeley-based Human Rights Advocates, work for global abolition of juvenile life without parole (LWOP) sentencing, calling it inappropriate for children and illegal.

In November 2007, they published a report titled, "Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison," making their case, saying:

● children given LWOP are "condemned to die in prison;"

="#3D2B1F">● dispensed in adult courts, they ignore the "less(er) culpability of juvenile offenders; their ineptness at navigating the criminal justice system; their potential for rehabilitation, reintegration into society," and known child development principles "established through national standards and international human rights law;"

● only two countries impose LWOP sentences - the United States and Israel, America having 99.9% of all cases; however, nine others permit them, but no known cases exist in - Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Brunei, Cuba, Dominica, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, and Sri Lanka; two other countries, South Africa and Tanzania, abandoned the practice;

● Black children are ten times more likely to get LWOP than while ones, and in California it's 20 - 1; in other words, the darker one's skin, the greater the risk for harsh sentencing, and if rich, the chance is practically nil;

● LWOP "violates international human rights standards of juvenile justice;" Article 37 of the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) prohibits sentencing children under 18 to LWOP or death; imprisoning them should be a last resort for "the shortest appropriate period of time;" all countries ratified it except Somalia and America;

● Article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) requires children to be protected by their status as minors, and under the UN Convention Against Torture, LWOP amounts to cruel, unusual or degrading treatment.

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