Stephen Lendman

Britain, America and Israel are likeminded. They're rogue states. They're axis of evil partners. They operate ruthlessly. They mock democratic values. They trash rule of law principles. They tolerate no one challenging their lawlessness. They vilify them. They imprison some. They do so to threaten others. Most often they harass. They do it no-holds-barred.

The Government Accountability Project (GAP) calls itself "the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization." Jesselyn Radack is a prominent human rights lawyer/whistleblower. She's GAP's National Security & Human Rights director. She's involved mainly with national security and intelligence community whistleblowers. She focuses on torture, lawless surveillance, secrecy and political discrimination.

She represented former senior NSA official Thomas Drake. He won awards for truth-telling and intelligence integrity. On April 15, 2010, he was wrongfully indicted. Obama prosecutors did so under the 1917 Espionage Act. He faced multiple charges. They included willful retention of classified information, obstruction of justice and making false statements. He leaked information on lawless NSA spying. He exposed agency waste, fraud and abuse. He performed a vital public service. He deserved praise, not prosecution. In May 2011, 60 Minutes featured his case.

He was lucky. In early June, Obama's Justice Department dropped all charges. They did so in return for his pleading guilty to a misdemeanor too minor to matter. He got one year probation. He agreed to perform community service.

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Carlos Hernández and Alejandro López

■ A las 7:20 de la mañana, los antidisturbios de la policía municipal de Madrid acordonaron la calle Tribulete (en el barrio madrileño de Lavapiés) para ejecutar el desahucio de Antonio Argobia, enfermo crónico de 54 años con incapacidad total. (Video por Periodismo Humano)
■ 'Lavapiés' is a word that means washing someone's feet and refers of course to beloved Jesus. - Washing someone's feet is symbolic of our role in the body of Christ. As you will understand, what happened in Madrid is the very opposite of what we are supposed to be doing. (Editor)

The brutal consequences of evictions being carried in Spain by the banks in collaboration with the courts and police was evidenced once again recently when Antonio Argobia, a chronically ill and disabled 54-year-old, was thrown out of his home in the working class neighbourhood of Lavapiés in Madrid.

Two weeks ago, in the early morning, police cordoned off the street where Argobia rented an apartment and refused entrance to anyone who could not prove they lived or worked there, attempting to pre-empt an anti-eviction demonstration of the type that has become so common in Spain. Soon after, a group of riot police broke down the door of Argobia’s apartment with a battering ram without any prior negotiation and with minimal warning.

In the apartment were a mediator from a local Stop the Evictions (Stop Desahucios) campaign and two photographers from international news agencies, all of whom were arrested and charged with disobedience for refusing to leave the apartment. Argobia was carried out wearing just his pyjamas and put in a police van.

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Nahida Izzat, Exiled Palestinian
Poetry for Palestine

PLEASE SIGN THIS DECLARATION IF YOU AGREE WITH ITS CONTENTS. [Link since broken. - Ed.]

Palestinian Declaration

An invitation to All Palestinians and their supporters to unite under the banner of LIBERATION, affirming our Inalienable Rights and clarifying our aims and aspirations to ourselves and to the world. For the sake of historical truth, and for defending, preserving and protecting the rights of future Palestinian children, we present this document:

■ Whereas, no foreign government, international institution or individual, has any form of legitimacy or jurisdiction to dispossess any other Nation by distributing their land and property,

■ Whereas, all colonial dealings regarding Palestine, whether by the “League of Nations” or the subsequent land confiscations by British colonial forces, as well as coerced transactions by early Zionists, did not invalidate the irrefutable fact that Palestine is the sole indigenous representative of all people of Palestine, settled and anchored culturally to the land since time immemorial,

■ Whereas, the religious component of Palestine’s cultural heritage is the central heritage for 31% of world population who are Christians, 23 % who are Muslims, and 0.2 % who are Jews. Therefore, Jewish Zionists arguably attempted to usurp and destroy the heritage of almost 55% of humankind, namely Christians and Muslims, contrary to historical Palestinian society, known for its social cohesion, irrespective of religion, and for protecting all monuments and all worshipers of all faiths, prior to the Jewish-zionist invasion,

■ Whereas, we the Palestinian Nation, the sole indigenous people of historic Palestine, had neither been consulted with, nor did we agree to or undersign any partition of our homeland, Palestine, when the UN put partition to the vote in the General Assembly in 1948. The UN has never done so again,

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