Cop Pulls Out Gun On Motorcyclist. When police arrested Anthony Graber for speeding on his motorbike, the 25-year-old probably did not see himself as an advocate for police accountability in the age of new media. But Graber, a sergeant with the Maryland Air National Guard, is now facing 16 years in prison, not for dangerous driving, but for a Youtube video he posted after receiving a speeding ticket. The video, filmed with a camera mounted on Graber's motorcycle helmet designed to record biking stunts rather than police abuse, shows a plain clothes officer jumping out of an unmarked car and pointing a pistol at the motorcyclist. It does not portray the policeman in a positive light. After he posted the video on Youtube, police raided Graber's home, seized computers and put him in jail.

"The case is critical to the protection of democracy because I don't think you can have a free country in which public officials are able to criminally prosecute people who film what they are doing," David Rocah, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union in Maryland who is representing Graber, said.

Even though he had never been arrested before, Graber is being charged with illegal wiretapping and could face 16 years in jail.

Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

US supreme court likely to have to rule on issue of balancing "national security" and freedom of speech, says judge. Sotomayor said the incident, which has been condemned by the Pentagon, was likely to provoke legislation in Congress that would require judicial scrutiny. Her comments came in response to a question about security and free speech by a student at Denver university. The judge said she could not answer because "that question is very likely to come before me". She said the "incident, and others, are going to provoke legislation that's already being discussed in Congress, and so some of it is going to come up before [the supreme court]". WikiLeaks posted more than 76,900 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the Afghan war on its website last month, providing a devastating portrait of the war. They revealed how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents and how Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

[It is war crimes like the ones you see in this video (below) that Sotomayor would like to see "balanced" against "national security". To this Supreme Court judge (!) war crimes in and of themselves are not a problem. In her mind, the problem is that we know about the crimes that the Government is committing in our names. Our knowing about their crimes is her & the Government's problem. That's when they start talking about "national security". If we continue blissfully unaware about...anything...about anything but the latest distraction -silly TV-shows, Kentucky Fried and baseball, whatever- then there's no risk to "national security" and no need to balance anything. -But the fact remains that the Government's criminal activity itself is a risk to our national security...]

[Wikileaks: Collateral Murder (VIDEO). This video shows men gathering on a Baghdad street on July 12, 2007, shortly before they were fired upon. View related photos wikileaks.org] A senior U.S. military official said Monday that a gritty war video that shows U.S. forces firing repeatedly on people along a Baghdad street was authentic. However, the Pentagon would not confirm the video's authenticity. The incident on July 12, 2007, happened the same day and in the same area that a Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver were killed. Two children also were wounded. The senior military official said that the video posted Monday at Wikileaks.org was of a 2007 incident in the New Baghdad District of eastern Baghdad. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the video and a Pentagon investigation have never been released.

This Ethiopian Jewish student is not
allowed to study at new school.

Several months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes. Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents' request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding.

There is no law preventing racial discrimination by private organizations, even schools, in Israel.

The Israeli court has interpreted these laws to also apply to illegal West bank settlements, like Immanuel, which are located in areas that are supposed to be under Palestinian control. The Palestinian Authority does not allow racial discrimination, but due to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, it has no authority over the area in question.

74 white girls who have been studying in a building next to the school will now be allowed to study in whites-only classrooms that are privately funded, as their parents claim they do not want their girls to study in racially-mixed classrooms.

The People's Voice: THE LIFE OF AN AMERICAN JEW IN RACIST MARXIST ISRAEL (Part 1) + (Part 2)

General James Conway, commandant of the US Marine Corps, has publicly challenged the July 2011 deadline set by President Barack Obama for beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, saying it gave “sustenance” to the Taliban. Conway’s statement is only the latest in a series of comments from senior military officers dismissing the deadline set by Obama last December when he announced the 30,000-troop surge into the country. At the time, the US president assured the American people, “After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home.”

Raw Story: Afghan President Karzai questions US withdrawal deadline.
Antiwar: Karzai Slams July 2011 US Drawdown Date. Insists Date Is Improving Taliban Morale.

Could Barack Obama become the first person in history to win the Nobel Peace Prize two consecutive years? It is hard to dispute the premise that awarding him the Prize this year would be every bit as justifiable as last year's award. Fresh off his Nobel-winning escalation of the war in Afghanistan, we now have this monument to world peace:

Amnesty International, June 7, 2010: Amnesty International has released images of a US-manufactured cruise missile that carried cluster munitions, apparently taken following an attack on an alleged al-Qa’ida training camp in Yemen that killed 41 local residents, including 14 women and 21 children.

More than 40 people have been killed in a string of bombings that have rocked Iraq. In Baghdad alone, over 20 bombs exploded in at least 12 separate incidents. Today's bombings are raising questions the Iraqi government's ability to deal with an ongoing insurgency. Sabah Al-Mukhtar from the Arab Lawyers Association says the bombings may actually be the Iraqi government's way to get US troops to stay...

Antiwar: US Officials Raise Possibility of Staying in Iraq Past 2011.

My first whiff of the news was an unsettling email from a reader of my article, ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ inflating Islamophobia, indicating The Council on Foreign Relations, i.e. the Rockefeller Globalist cabal, had a hand in this. The writer was annoyed at my not considering it. I hadn’t considered it since my focus had been on the fact that the destruction of 9/11 was not perpetrated by Muslim nations as stated categorically by the New York Post, ignoring the very possible involvement of Israel, which has a history of false-flag attacks.

I received a second email from the Corbett Report, a video report whose Sunday stories were the Ground Zero Mosque Distraction, Israel Lobby, Apple and Orwell, the first with some fascinating information about Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, who heads up the Cordoba Initiative, i.e., the building of the Ground Zero Islamic center. Eureka!

The Cordoba Initiative, and Imam Rauf, Corbett went on to say, were affiliated with the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and support for that came from fellow Council on Foreign Relations’ members. Imam Rauf himself was on the Council on Foreign Relations’ Religious Advisory Committee. The Cordoba initiative’s website cited “Christian support for the Cordoba House” from a Christian publication, “Sojourners,” which is owned by evangelical Christian writer and political activist Jim Wallis, also a sitting member of the CFR’s Religious Advisory Committee. Wow!

The job of a shaped charge is to cut steel H-beams. "The way we do this is by cutting the beam at an angle which through a series of beams cut at the same angle will tend to make the building shift over and 'walk'" This photograph below demonstrates that the WTC beams were not cut by welders.

Because of fuel and time constraints welders would have used a cutting torch to cut the shortest distance possible - straight across the beams. Also, cutting torches cut by forced oxidation, therefore the large amount of once liquid metal congealed on the beam would not be present.

If a "progressive collapse" is required the beams are cut at opposite angles. The linear shaped charge demonstrates the sound made by high velocity explosives. The sound which shocked the firefighters is all but identical, thus indicating it was created by a high velocity explosive detonation.

Why were high velocity explosives detonating in the vicinity of the World Trade Center?

Yes, thermite was found at ground zero...

A US-led airstrike has killed six children and injured another child in Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan, amid growing public discontent over civilian deaths. The children were killed on Thursday afternoon local time after US-led forces bombarded a civilian house, a local police chief said. The US-led forces launched the airstrike in response to Taliban mortar fire on their base. The Taliban attack is also said to have killed one and injured another child, a Press TV correspondent reported. Civilians have been the main victims of violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the country's troubled southern and eastern provinces, where they are killed by both militant and foreign fire. The UN has put the number of civilian casualties at nearly 1,300 so far this year. It blames a quarter of the deaths on foreign troops. The issue of civilian casualties has long been a source of friction between Kabul and Washington.

Five US soldiers are charged with deliberately targeting Afghan civilians amid growing discontent over the rising civilian causalities in the war-torn country. The troopers allegedly killed three Afghans in Kandahar Province this year and they were charged with murder in June. Since then US army prosecutors have also filed additional charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder -- a plot that allegedly began when one soldier discussed how easy it would be to "toss a grenade" at Afghan civilians, The Seattle Times reported on Thursday.

One of the soldiers had reportedly formed what has been called a "kill team" to randomly execute Afghan civilians while on petrol. Investigators say anyone who dared to report the events was threatened with violence. All five are awaiting court martial and could face life in prison or death if convicted. Analysts say it could be one of the most serious war-crimes cases to emerge from the Afghan war. A recent UN report says that nearly 1,300 civilians were killed by NATO or Afghan forces in the first six months of 2010. Civilians have been the main victims of violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the country's troubled southern and eastern provinces. The issue of civilian casualties has caused friction between Washington and the Afghan government.

AWIP: Army: Soldiers formed ‘kill team’ to randomly execute Afghans.

Stephen Lendman: US kills civilians to intimidate people.
Uruknet: "Scores" of Afghan civilians killed in NATO raid.
AWIP: US/Nato probes reports raid killed 45 Afghan civilians.
AWIP: Afghan war logs [the 92.000] reveal U.S. death squad’s crimes.

Aid agencies in Pakistan say they will continue to deliver emergency assistance to flood victims despite warnings of possible attacks by the Taliban. The United Nations is reviewing its security measures after the US said it had credible evidence that the Pakistani Taliban was planning to attack foreigners who are helping in the aid response to the country's devastating floods. But other aid agencies, including Medicins Sans Frontieres, say they will continue to provide help to flood victims despite the warnings. Flooding is continuing in the south of the country, where up to 500,000 people have been ordered to evacuate their homes in the past 24 hours. The flood waters are expected to cause further destruction in the Indus River delta. The floods have so far killed 1,500 people and affected up to 20 million others.

Al Jazeera: Evacuations ordered in Pakistan. As Pakistan's floods continue to sweep southward, the government has warned residents of three towns to evacuate after floodwaters breached an embankment. Hadi Bakhsh Kalhoro, a senior official in the local Thatta district government, told the AFP news agency that floods had caused a breach in one of the embankments at the village of Surjani, close to the Indus river, threatening the rest of the area. Around 400,000 people normally live in the threatened towns of Sujawal, Mirpur Bathoro and Daro in Pakistan's southern Sindh province, but most were thought to have fled already. Farther north along the Indus, Pakistani authorities were also struggling to block rising floodwaters from overrunning the city of Shahdadkot, home to some 100,000 people, and to rescue thousands from at least 25 nearby villages.

Baroness Ashton 'deeply concerned' at court's ruling in case of West Bank protest. Baroness Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, yesterday issued an unusually sharp rebuke to Israel over a military court's conviction of a Palestinian activist prominent in unarmed protests against the West Bank separation barrier.

Lady Ashton said she was "deeply concerned" that Abdallah Abu Rahma was facing a possible jail sentence "to prevent him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the separation barriers in a non-violent manner".

Though acquitted on two charges – including one of stone-throwing – Mr Abu Rahma, 39, a leader of the anti-barrier protests which have taken place every Friday for five years in the West Bank village of Bil'in, was convicted on Monday on another two: "incitement" and "organising and participating in an illegal demonstration".

Australians For Palestine: Criminalizing peaceful protest; act up for Abdallah Abu Rahmah. We are now waiting for Abdallah’s sentence, but he is facing years in jail. Now is the last moment to act up on his case, and it is still not too late.

Al Jazeera: Palestinian's conviction criticised -VIDEO.

A former CIA officer accused the Israeli Mossad of spying intensively on the United States for military and dual-use civilian technology. Philip Giraldi said Tel Aviv's claims of not spying in the US are only intended for the media. He added that the Israeli lobby is so powerful that Washington cannot address Tel Aviv regarding the spying issue, which has been going on for many years. Thus the Mossad is spying in the US with impunity, Giraldi said. Relations between the United States and Israel have been damaged historically and repeatedly regarding several incidents of Israeli and Jewish spies. In 2008, the US arrested an American suspected of spying for Israel.

Philip Giraldi: Mossad in America