Franklin Lamb
Beirut

Tensions are rising in Lebanon between elected representatives in Parliament, ‘Unity’ Cabinet members and the American Embassy, as the 27th anniversary of the attack 1983 attack on the US Embassy approaches and the Embassy issues another warning for Americans to leave Lebanon.

On March 29, 2010 the US Embassy instructed Americans not to travel to Lebanon citing ‘safety and security concerns.” Simultaneously it warned those who are in Lebanon to seriously consider leaving.

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By Margaret Flowers

It was with a sense of déjà vu that I watched the latest Frontline documentary about health care. “Obama’s Deal” endeavored to reveal the significant influence of health industry dollars on our political process; however, as in Frontline’s Sick Around America, the producers did a disservice by the failure to educate the public about the bigger picture of the health care situation in this nation and the range of possible solutions.

Curiously, just as it was in the health “debate,” single payer, improved Medicare for All, was also excluded from the film. The major point of the influence of health industry dollars on the reform process which should have been mentioned is that these dollars were spent in order to restrict the debate and protect industry profits. The lucrative status quo would have been threatened if single payer had been openly discussed because a publicly-financed national health program can provide high quality universal health care and control health care costs, something that a private insurance based system cannot accomplish.

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Michael Collins

There they are, the people who brought you every bit of the action in the WikiLeaks video and all of the other horrors flowing from invasion of Iraq. Madeleine Albright (far right, above), former Clinton Secretary of State, is a good place to start. From 60 Minutes:

Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: "We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?"

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it. --60 Minutes (5/12/96)

An exhaustive study found that 227,000 children under five (table 13) died during the George H.W. Bush - Bill Clinton regime of total sanctions against Iraq from 1990 through 2000.

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By Kevin Zeese

Were it not for the deliberate actions of Don Blankenship and Massey Energy the deaths of 29 miners in West Virginia would not have occurred. These deaths were foreseeable, even predicted, and this is not the first time Massey has caused the deaths of miners.

Massey Energy has been fined millions of dollars for its violations of mine safety and has already settled one case where miners were killed with criminal and civil fines totaling more than $4 million. It is time to stop coddling corporate criminals like Blankenship and hold them accountable for their actions.

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BY GILAD ATZMON

In case you didn’t know, in Britain the Holocaust is part of the National Curriculum. Thanks to the ‘The Holocaust Educational Trust’ our children are guaranteed to learn how bad the Nazis were. This is probably much easier for our kids to acknowledge than to look into the ways in which the embarrassing legacy of the British Empire reverberates throughout almost every contemporary disastrous conflict on this planet. It is deemed far easier for our kids to learn about Anne Frank than to absorb the fact that Britain is directly responsible for the robbery of Palestine and the Palestinian ordeal. Learning about Auschwitz is also far easier than accepting the devastating reality created by Britain’s latest illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a colossal crime which has cost more than 1.5 million innocent lives so far. Thanks to The Holocaust Educational Trust we can brush history and our current crimes aside. Learning about the bad Nazis is far easier on our children than learning about the complicity of Britain in the holocaust. I guess that toughening British immigration laws to stop Jews escaping to Britain in the 1930s is not a prominent chapter in our kids’ text books.

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by Stephen Lendman

International law protects refugees and asylum seekers, Article I of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees calling them:

"A person who owning to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country."

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Part #2 of Understanding Capitalism and Socialism (Part 1)
by Joaquin posted by Michael Collins

Now that Republicans are starting to talk about restoring Reaganomics, it is a good time to review Reaganomics; i.e., Supply Side Capitalism. This is number two of my technical essays about how the world works. Today we will explore how supply side economics will save the world. So let's get to it.

Supply side economics became so powerful that it was renamed Reaganomics in honor of the president and WW II movie hero. Reaganomics helped poor Americans understand what rich people have been telling us since the Middle Ages i.e., Robin Hood was doing it wrong.

Some people call Reaganomics "Trickle Down theory". Its kind of like when I went to college; most of the students studied hard to get in to our college and were from middle class families like me, but this one guy got in because his parents bought a new building for the school.

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Mary Shaw

On April 9, Dawn Johnsen, President Obama's nominee to lead the Office of Legal Council (OLC), withdrew her nomination. Her nomination had been in various stages of limbo for more than a year.

There is a great deal of speculation out there regarding the reasons for Johnsen's withdrawal. Sadly, most of the speculation I've heard involves the fact that Johnsen was an outspoken critic of the George W. Bush administration's torture and state secrecy policies. She also previously served as an attorney for NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Because of her "controversial" (i.e., law-respecting) positions, the Senate Democrats apparently do not have the votes to confirm her.

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by Stephen Lendman

On October 21, 2008, for the first time in school history, the University of Ottawa (U of O) Faculty of Science, without cause, deregistered undergraduate Marc Kelly, an exemplary student, expelling him for the semester and preventing him from completing the final three courses he needed to graduate. The official email sent him read:

"The Faculty of Science has been asked to deregister you. (This) message is to notify you that you are no longer registered...."

The official reason was the Department of Physics' displeasure over the nature and methods of his valid, legitimate research, twice secretly rejecting it, then informing him through pro forma letters saying, "It is common sense that (your research) has to use physics tools and physics knowledge."

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Eric Walberg

So what’s the real story behind the coup in Kyrgyzstan?

The pretense that a president of a modest country like Kyrgyzstan can play in big league politics is shed with the ouster of the tulip revolutionary president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, after last week’s riots in the capital Bishkek that left 81 dead and government buildings and Bakiyev’s various houses trashed.

Bakiyev tried to have the best of both big power worlds, last year brashly threatening to close the US airbase, vital to the war in Afghanistan, after signing a cushy aid deal with Russia, and then reversed himself when the US agreed to more than triple the rent to $60 million a year and kick in another $100m in aid. As a result he lost the trust of both, and found himself bereft when the going got tough last week, as riots exactly like those that swept him to power erupted.

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