Robert Stevens

“In effect, the four-page WikiLeaks statement depicted the decision in London as a prelude to a much grimmer challenge awaiting Mr. Assange than the sex abuse charges.” - The New York Times

At the UK Supreme Court in London, Wednesday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange lost his appeal against extradition to Sweden. The judges ruled by a majority of five to two that the extradition request had been “lawfully made”.

Assange is challenging the extradition, which is based on contested allegations of sexual assault made by two women in August 2010.

Though the ruling allowed for Assange’s extradition as soon as possible, his lawyer Dinah Rose requested a 14-day stay be granted in which to consider an application to re-open the court’s ruling. She said that, from an initial reading, the decision could have been made on the basis of legal points never argued by either side during the initial Supreme Court hearing in February.

If Assange decides to appeal on these grounds, a court statement said, “the Justices will then decide whether to re-open the appeal and accept further submissions (either verbally through a further hearing, or on paper) on the matter.”

Despite the fact that he has never been charged with any crime in Sweden or any other country, Assange was arrested in London in December 2010 under the anti-democratic European Arrest Warrant (EAW) system. Even on the arrest warrant, issued by Swedish public prosecutor Marianne Ny, he is not designated as an “accused” person.

Assange has since spent 540 days under house arrest in Norfolk under restrictive bail conditions. He is forced to wear an electronic ankle tag at all times and has to report to a local police station daily.

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Ellen Brown

The youtube video of 12 year old Victoria Grant speaking at the Public Banking in America conference in April has gone viral, topping a million views on various websites.

Monetary reform—the contention that governments, not banks, should create and lend a nation’s money—has rarely even made the news, so this is a first. Either the times they are a’changin’, or Victoria managed to frame the message in a way that was so simple and clear that even a child could understand it.

Basically, her message is that banks create money “out of thin air” and lend it to people and governments at interest. If governments borrowed from their own banks, they could keep the interest and save a lot of money for the taxpayers.

She said her own country of Canada actually did this, from 1939 to 1974. During that time, the government’s debt was low and sustainable, and it funded all sorts of remarkable things. Only when the government switched to borrowing privately did it acquire a crippling national debt.

Borrowing privately means selling bonds at market rates of interest (which in Canada quickly shot up to 22%), and the money for these bonds is ultimately created by private banks. For the latter point, Victoria quoted Graham Towers, head of the Bank of Canada for the first twenty years of its history. He said:

Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created — new deposits — brand new money. Broadly speaking, all new money comes out of a Bank in the form of loans. As loans are debts, then under the present system all money is debt.

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Stephen Lendman

Guilty of war crimes multiple times over, Obama plans more death, destruction, conquest, colonization, resource control, exploitation, and dominance. Syria is target one, then Iran, then other nations. It follows Washington's longstanding pattern of waging war on humanity. Iran's peaceful nuclear program is pretext for post-November war.

Syria's Houla massacre draws it closer against Assad. Since early last year, thousands of Syrian civilians and security forces died. Daily body counts mount. Western-enlisted insurgents bear most responsibility. Assad is wrongfully blamed for their crimes. Houla represents the largest incident so far. At least 109 deaths were reported. Most were killed at point blank range.

According to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spokesman Rupert Colville, over 80% "were summarily executed in two separate incidents."

"What is very clear is that this was an absolutely abominable event that happened in Houla and at least a substantial part of it was summary executions of civilians, including women and children."

Entire families "were shot (in cold blood) in their houses," or murdered other ways.

Western-enlisted death squad assassins, not Assad, bear full responsibility. Spurious accusations blamed pro-Assad Alawites.

Claims about tanks and artillery "pounding" Houla were exaggerated. Bodies found were intact. Bullet, stab, and other wounds reflect close-range killing. Insurgents went house to house. Victims had no place to hide.

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Bill Van Auken

President Barack Obama is reflected in the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial wall as he delivers remarks during the 50th Anni-
versary of the Vietnam War commemoration ceremony.

Obama’s Memorial Day speech makes it clear once again that his administration is an instrument of Wall Street and the US military and intelligence apparatus. The deeply reactionary and dishonest speech must be taken as a warning. If America’s ruling establishment is determined to rehabilitate the Vietnam War it is because it wants to prepare public opinion for even bloodier wars and more horrific crimes.

President Barack Obama chose the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC as the site for a Memorial Day speech in which he sought to rehabilitate the Vietnam War.

The speech was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the first time US forces were deployed in a major combat operation inside the country in 1962, and served to kick off what is projected as a 13-year-long commemoration of that war. The commemoration, mandated by the US Congress, is being orchestrated by the Defense Department.

The appearance dovetailed with the Obama campaign’s efforts to identify the Democratic president with the armed forces and militarism in order to outflank his Republican rival from the right. It served a deeper purpose, however. Exorcising the ghosts of Vietnam has been a burning objective of America’s ruling class for nearly four decades.

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Glenn Greenwald

To avoid counting civilian deaths, Obama re-defined "militant" to mean "all military-age males in a strike zone"

Virtually every time the U.S. fires a missile from a drone and ends the lives of Muslims, American media outlets dutifully trumpet in headlines that the dead were ”militants” – even though those media outlets literally do not have the slightest idea of who was actually killed. They simply cite always-unnamed “officials” claiming that the dead were “militants.” It’s the most obvious and inexcusable form of rank propaganda: media outlets continuously propagating a vital claim without having the slightest idea if it’s true.

This practice continues even though key Obama officials have been caught lying, a term used advisedly, about how many civilians they’re killing. I’ve written and said many times before that in American media discourse, the definition of “militant” is any human being whose life is extinguished when an American missile or bomb detonates (that term was even used when Anwar Awlaki’s 16-year-old American son, Abdulrahman, was killed by a U.S. drone in Yemen two weeks after a drone killed his father, even though nobody claims the teenager was anything but completely innocent: “Another U.S. Drone Strike Kills Militants in Yemen”).

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Tom Carter

At Guantánamo Bay, the Obama administration continues to prosecute five alleged September 11 conspirators before a military commission over objections from defense attorneys regarding torture and challenges to the legitimacy of the proceedings.

The five prisoners are Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the reputed “mastermind” of the September 11, 2001 attacks; his nephew Ramzi Binalshibh, accused of playing a major role in Al Qaeda operations in Germany; and three men alleged to be lower level Al Qaeda figures: Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, Ammar al Baluchi and Walid bin Attash.

All five men have been held for years without trial or charge and have been subjected to brutal and illegal forms of torture at Guantánamo Bay and at secret CIA “black sites.” Khalid Sheik Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding (near-drowning by asphyxiation) 183 times in a single month in 2003.

All five are charged with murder, hijacking and terrorism, among other charges, and the Obama administration is seeking the death penalty.

At an arraignment that lasted more than thirteen hours earlier this month, lawyers appointed for the five men directly challenged the legitimacy of the military commissions and repeatedly sought to direct attention to the fact that the five men had been tortured. (See: Guantánamo military commission arraigns 9/11 defendants.) The proceedings frequently ground to a halt as the tribunal sought to defend its legitimacy and to prevent a discussion of torture.

At one point during the arraignment, bin Attash took off his shirt in an attempt to show the tribunal the scars that resulted from torture. “No, no, no,” said Colonel James Pohl, the presiding judge. “You will put your shirt on.”

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G. Mason

"We can never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was 'legal.'"
~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Did you read Bonfire of the Vanities?" George asked me. I nodded, and he continued: "Do you remember that scene where he's getting out of the car, and there are all these people screaming his name, women throwing themselves at him? I mean, here's this guy who's in a terrible situation, but he's like a big celebrity."

Aussie publisher and Assange family acquaintance George Hirst had met me at the law school's cafe, so we could confer on ideas for helping the WikiLeaks leader. George and I both worried about Assange's potential extradition to the U.S., where harpy Hillary Clinton and other government vengefuls could use the EU's lax extradition laws to prosecute Assange, torture him, or worse. Now, months later, on the eve of the UK Supreme Court's final decision, we are all about to learn whether or not the embattled publisher will be extradited to Sweden, and then perhaps to the United States.

But the truth is that some of us already know how this will probably turn out. The Obama administration likely aims to ultimately extradite Assange to the U.S., derail the Australian's promising Senate run, deflate his surge in popularity, and generally suppress this youngish upstart who dared challenge the established power structure. By prosecuting the 40-year-old publisher under trumped-up espionage and conspiracy charges, the administration would love to make of Assange an example for the rest of us about what will happen if we step out of line.

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Glenn Greenwald

More than 1,500 Afghans block the highway between Kabul
and Kandahar in Seed Abad, Wardak province, Afghanistan,
Saturday, May 26, 2012. (Credit: AP/Rahmatullah Nikzad)

Yet another Afghan family (and a bakery in Pakistan) is extinguished by an airstrike: unleash the justifications

Yesterday, I wrote about the rotted workings of the Imperial Mind, but today presents a tragic occasion to examine its close, indispensable cousin: the Authoritarian Mind. From CNN on May 27, 2012:

A suspected NATO airstrike killed eight civilians — including six children — in eastern Afghanistan, a provincial spokesman said.

The airstrike took place Saturday night in Paktia province, said Rohullah Samoon, spokesman for the governor of Paktia. He said an entire family was killed in the strike.

The LA Times identified the victims as “Mohammed Shafi, his wife and his six children,” and cited the statements from the spokesman for the Paktia governor’s office that “there is no evidence that Shafi was a Taliban insurgent or linked with Al Qaeda.” The Afghan spokesman blamed the incident on the refusal of NATO to coordinate strikes with Afghan forces to ensure civilians are not targeted (“If they had shared this with us, this wouldn’t have happened”).

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Stephen Lendman

Who exactly did this? - The Syrian government or CIA's rebel
groups? (Photo: Shaam News Network, via Reuters)

Washington orchestrates everything behind the scenes. Obama wants to replace Assad with a pro-Western puppet.

A previous article discussed scoundrel media anti-Iranian propaganda. They also target Syria. They march in lockstep with imperial lawlessness.

Readers and viewers deserve better than misinformation and betrayal. They need alternative sources to avoid it.

Washington has longstanding designs on Iran and Syria. Regime change is planned by any means. War threatens both countries. Obama, the peace candidate, can't wait to start another one. He's already guilty of war crimes multiples times over.

Media scoundrels back him. Peace, equity, justice, human and civil rights, other democratic values, and obeying rule of law principles don't matter. Political Washington abhors them. So do media scoundrels.

America unmasked is loathsome, dangerous and rapacious. Scoundrel media reality reveals rejection of fundamental journalistic principles.

The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) "is dedicated to the perpetuation of a free press as the cornerstone of our nation and our liberty."

Democratic freedom depends on keeping "the American people well informed....It is the role of journalists to provide this information in an accurate, comprehensive, timely and understandable manner."

SPJ's Code of Ethics affirms this responsibility. Scoundrel media members fall way short. Fiction substitutes for fact. News is carefully filtered. Dissent is marginalized, and support for wealth and power is policy.

Aggressive wars are called liberating ones. Civil liberties are suppressed for our own good, and patriotism means going along with government policy no matter how repugnant, lawless or destructive.

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Robert Stevens

Family tragedy in Bathis Square: A 90-year old woman and
her son (60), both from Syros, comitted suicide by jumping
from their 6th floor balcony. (Photo/Caption: Άποψη)

The appalling suicide of a mother and son in Athens again underscores the social nightmare being visited on Greece by the troika—the European Union (EU), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The tragedy occurred May 24. The mother, aged 90, and her son, aged 60, leapt hand in hand from the roof of their apartment building in the capital shortly after 8 a.m.

The son was identified as Antonis Perris, an unemployed musician. Since Antonis had been unable to find work, the pair had been forced to survive on the mother’s pension of just €340 (US$427) a month.

The joint suicide occurred only days before IMF head Christine Lagarde dismissed reports that people were dying in the country due to the savage austerity measures being imposed, callously claiming that it was “payback” time for Greek workers.

The night before their deaths, Perris described their deteriorating economic situation and suffering on a well-known blog site. He wrote,

I have been taking care of my 90-year-old mother for 20 years. In the last 3-4 years she has developed Alzheimer’s, recently she also has been having Schizophrenic fits amongst her other grave health problems, so nursing homes won’t accept her.

The problem is that I hadn’t foreseen the crisis so I don’t have enough cash in my account, although I have real estate assets I sell from time to time, I’m left without cash and we can no longer eat. I borrow money from my credit card with 22% interest even though the banks themselves borrow with 1%. I have other running costs.

Unfortunately, I have also developed serious health problems lately. I have no solution in front of me. I can no longer live this drama. There’s no solution. Does anyone have a solution?

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Gilad Atzmon

The Telegraph reported [last Thursday] that “ministers have criticised Britain’s biggest exam board after pupils were asked to explain ‘why some people are prejudiced against Jews’ as part of a GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

Apparently more than 1,000 teenagers are believed to have taken the religious studies tests, which challenged pupils to assess the reasons behind anti-Semitism.

The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, which set the exam, rightly said that the question acknowledged that “some people hold prejudices” – they probably expected the students to examine the reasons that lead to anti Jewish feelings rather than simply justifying them.

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Stefan Steinberg

In an interview with the British Guardian newspaper published Friday, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, vented her class hatred for the workers of Greece, denouncing them as tax scofflaws and ruling out any respite from the austerity measures that have devastated the country.

In the interview, Lagarde was questioned about the social catastrophe resulting from five years of economic crisis and austerity measures dictated by the IMF and the European Union. She was asked, in particular, to respond to the plight of pregnant women who “won’t have access to a midwife when they give birth,” patients who “won’t get life-saving drugs,” and the elderly who “will die alone for lack of care.”

Contemptuously dismissing the suffering and death caused by the policies she is helping to impose, Lagarde replied: “I think more of the little kids from a school in a little village in Niger who get teaching two hours a day… I have them in my mind all the time, because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.”

The crocodile tears of Lagarde, formerly the finance minister under French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for the impoverished children of Africa carry little weight given the quasi-genocidal record of French imperialism in Africa and the neo-colonial interventions in the Ivory Coast, Libya and other parts of the continent carried out by the Sarkozy regime.

The IMF head continued: “As far as Athens is concerned, I also think about … all these people in Greece who are trying to escape tax.”

Asked whether she thought more about non-payment of taxes than “all those now struggling to survive without jobs or public services,” Lagarde replied, “I think of them equally. And I think they should also help themselves collectively … by all paying their tax.”

The Guardian article continued: “It sounds as if she’s essentially saying to the Greeks and others in Europe, you’ve had a nice time and now it’s payback time. ‘That’s right.’ She nods calmly.”

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Stephen Lendman

Kristallnacht in Palestine

Imagine daily life under these conditions:

● Occupation harshness enforces institutionalized terror. Fear is constant. Collective punishment is policy.

="#3D2B1F">● Peaceful public demonstrations are assaulted. Free expression and movement are prohibited. Population centers are isolated. Borders are closed.

● Normal daily life is denied. Economic strangulation and institutionalized racism are imposed. So are curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, separation walls, electric fences, and other barriers.

● Neighborhood incursions, land, sea and air attacks, bulldozed homes, land theft, ethnic cleansing, slow-motion genocide, targeted killings, mass arrests, torture, and gulag imprisonment reflect daily life for praying to the wrong God.

● Fundamental civil and human rights are denied. Crimes of war and against humanity repeat without redress. Wanting to live free in sovereign Palestine is called terrorism.

● Punitive taxes are imposed. Few services are provided. Vital ones are lacking or inadequate. Palestinian lawmakers are imprisoned for belonging to the wrong party.

● Fishermen are attacked at sea. So are farmers working their land. Trying at the wrong time risks arrest, injury or death. Crops and orchards are destroyed. Settlers commit regular attacks. Courts provide no help.

● Gaza is suffocating under siege. Scoundrel media policy enforces coverup and denial, blame the victim, and portray Israel as the region's only free democratic state. Reality reflects police state harshness. It persists without end.

● Even Jews challenging injustice are targeted. Rogues tolerate no opposition. Israeli ones have few equals.

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Stephen Lendman

Israel enforces rogue state harshness. Rule of law principles are spurned. Even Jewish rights are marginalized. Palestinians have none. Occupation ruthlessness terrorizes them.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad serve illegitimately. Israel manipulated the process to elect Abbas and keep him in charge. Despite virtually no popular support, Fayyad was appointed. Enforcing Israeli authority is policy. Abbas is a longtime collaborator. Duplicity defines his agenda. Israel and Washington know he's reliable. They support him to serve their interests.

Abbas took credit as Oslo's architect. Israel controlled the process. Sellout defined it. Israel got what it wanted. Palestinians were shut out. Abbas sold out. He agreed to unilateral surrender. So did Arafat.

War criminal S. Peres (R) says that traitor M.Abbas (L) is the
best Palestinian leader with whom his country can negotiate
"peace" ["peace" being the silence of the vanquished].

In April, Al-Ahram contributor Hasan Afif El-Hasan headlined "Twenty lost years," saying:

Post-Oslo, nothing changed. Israel's military protects settlers and terrorizes Palestinians. PA security forces violate the rights of their own people "in accordance with guidelines and direct orders established by Israel."

"The path the PA chose since Oslo has not led to Palestinian independence and it has weakened the Palestinian national movement."

"The PA does not govern its own territory, and became for all intents and purposes the administrator of an Israeli protectorate while Israel carries on with ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem, colonising the West Bank and enforcing the criminal blockade on Gaza."

Abbas and Fayyad replicate US-controlled puppet authority in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. PA security forces prevent and/or contain peaceful demonstrations.

During Cast Lead, anti-Israeli protests were prohibited. Abbas tried to prevent war crime investigations. He won't permit another Intifada. He targets Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine supporters.

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Paul Craig Roberts

If you don't come to democracy, democracy will come to you...

The US government is the second worst human rights abuser on the planet and the sole enabler of the worst–Israel. But this doesn’t hamper Washington from pointing the finger elsewhere.

The US State Department’s “human rights report” focuses its ire on Iran and Syria, two countries whose real sin is their independence from Washington, and on the bogyman- in-the-making–China, the country selected for the role of Washington’s new Cold War enemy.

Hillary Clinton, another in a long line of unqualified Secretaries of State, informed “governments around the world: we are watching, and we are holding you accountable,” only we are not holding ourselves accountable or Washington’s allies like Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the NATO puppets.

Hillary also made it “clear to citizens and activists everywhere: You are not alone. We are standing with you,” only not with protesters at the Chicago NATO summit or with the Occupy Wall Street protesters, or anywhere else in the US where there are protests (ref).

The State Department stands with the protesters funded by the US in the countries whose governments the US wishes to overthrow. Protesters in the US stand alone as do the occupied Palestinians who apparently have no human rights to their homes, lands, olive groves, or lives.

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