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Israel's Duplicitous Prisoner Release Offer
by Stephen Lendman
Israeli agreements, offers, and other concessions aren't worth the paper they're written on. Pledges made are systematically broken.
It happens virtually every time. Rogue states operate that way. Israel's one of the worst. It's a democracy in name only. It never was one. It's not now.
It's contemptuous of non-Jews. It believes Muslims are subhuman. It shows in how it treats them. Racism is institutionalized.
Persecution is standard practice. Apartheid is longstanding. So is brutalizing, lawless, militarized occupation. Nothing ahead suggests change.
Peace is a convenient fiction. It's been stillborn for decades. John Kerry is Israel's man at State. He represents its interests. He spurns Palestinian rights. He claims otherwise. He does so duplicitously.
"America does not have a functioning democracy at this point in time." Jimmy Carter
Timothy Gatto
All of us really need to stop getting involved in distractions and look at what has happened in the last few
months. When I talk about distractions, I'm talking about the Zimmerman trial, the royal baby in England and the Republican attacks on women in Texas and other States. I'm not saying that these issues are not important (except for Kate's baby), some of them are. The point I'm making here is that these events are monopolizing the news while important issues are being hidden from the public by the mainstream media.
This is known as distraction and the government has been using it for a long time. The idea is to keep the people occupied with issues that may be sensational and important, but in reality they are hiding events that are occurring that the powers that be don't want the people looking at. I'm going to present some things in this article that the government doesn't want the people dwelling on.
Helen Thomas: Dead at 92
by Stephen Lendman
On July 20, headlines reported the news. The doyen of the White House House press corps was gone.
After a long illness, the Gridiron Club and Foundation announced her passing. She ended decades covering presidential press conferences saying, "Thank you, Mr. President."
She was special. She'll be sorely missed. She spoke truth to power. Too few like her remain. Washington targets those who do.
She withstood tough challenges. She did it throughout her career. She was born on August 4, 1920. She's a Winchester, KY native. Her father was a grocer. She was one of nine children.
Are Palestinian Students in Lebanon Being Pressured to Choose Kalashnikovs Over College?
by FRANKLIN LAMB
Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian Camp.
They are 67 new families, or about 400 Palestinian refugees displaced from Syria, residing in 60 recently erected tents set up as an emergency ‘gathering’ near the Ein el-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp adjacent to the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon. In all, there are approximately 75,000 thousand Palestinians in Lebanon who have fled from Syria over the past 28 months.
America's Surveillance Society
by Stephen Lendman
It's not new. It's longstanding. State-of-the-art technology makes it easy. It's more intrusive than ever. It's lawlessly out-of-control.
On July 6, The New York Times Times headlined "In Secret, Court Vastly Broadens Powers of NSA," saying:
More than a dozen Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) "classified rulings created a secret body of law giving the (NSA) power to amass vast collections of data on Americans while (allegedly) pursuing not only terrorism suspects, but also people possibly involved in nuclear proliferation, espionage, and cyberattacks, officials say."
More on this below. Spying is the national pastime. Legal standards no longer apply. Anything goes is policy. America's a total surveillance society. Big Brother more than ever is real.
Bradley Manning: Aiding the Enemy Charge Sticks
Manning's an American hero. He's no criminal. He's being hung out to dry wrongfully. It's for doing the right thing. He's a 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee.
He exposed US lawlessness. He spoke truth to power. He did so courageously. He challenged American imperial rampaging. Everyone has a right to know.
He's been secretly tried. Kangaroo court military injustice awaits him. It's baked in the cake. Doing so sends a message. It threatens other potential whistleblowers. Stay quiet or be treated like Manning.
He said America's "obsessed with capturing and killing people. Collateral murder" is policy. Human life has no value. Advancing America's imperium is prioritized.
US Courts Approve Indefinite Detention and Torture
by Stephen Lendman
America's a police state. It's ruthless. Iron fist authority rules. International law's quaint and out-of-date. US statute protections aren't worth the paper they're written on.
Constitutional rights don't matter. They never did for most people. It's truer now than ever. They're null and void. Executive diktat power rules. Congress and federal courts go along. They're complicit.
They support sweeping lawlessness. It's unprecedented. It affects domestic and geopolitical issues. No one's safe anywhere.
Obama has life and death powers. He can order anyone murdered. He can do so on his say alone. US citizens are as vulnerable as foreign nationals.
Snowden: Nobel Peace Prize Nominee
by Stephen Lendman
Swedish Sociology Professor Stefan Svallfors nominated him. He praised his "heroic effort at great personal cost."
He revealed NSA's lawless global spying. He told millions worldwide what they need to know. He did so at great risk.
He deserves high praise, not persecution. He showed "individuals can stand up for fundamental rights and freedoms," said Svallfors.
His nominating letter states:
"Best committee members!
I suggest that the 2013 Peace Prize (be) awarded to the American citizen Edward Snowden.
Edward Snowden has - in a heroic effort at great personal cost - revealed the existence and extent of the surveillance, the US government devotes electronic communications worldwide.
New EU Guidelines on Israel
by Stephen Lendman
A previous article discussed them. They pertain to illegal Israeli West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Golan settlements. They leave besieged Gaza unaddressed. It's a glaring omission. It's dismissive of 1.7 million Gazans. Their rights don't matter. Israel's suffocating them illegally. A humanitarian crisis persists.
Dealing with it responsibly is urgent. EU nations don't care. It's off their radar. So is militarized occupation too horrific to tolerate.
Long overdue Palestinian self-determination's not recognized. Full EU affirmation awaits. It's not forthcoming. Israeli lawlessness matters more. Palestinian rights don't matter.
Perhaps baby steps are better than none. They will be if implemented. Rhetoric most often belies policies. Will this time be different?
According to EU officials:
The Economist's Question on Obama's Promise of Open Government, "Is it naive to think Mr Obama really believed this stuff?" YES.
Nicholas C. Arguimbau
Houston, The Economist "Secret government: America against democracy," http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/07/secret-government is a compelling and scary analysis of secret government in America - a nation that has become a caricature of ithe open government President Obama promised when he came to office. There is nothing new about broken campaign promises. Obama, however, has taken that many steps farther. He offered us a vision in 2008 of a nation of open government, democracy operating as it was designed to operate. Reality is now so stunningly different that his maintenance of the same vision has become virtually psychotic. When President Obama was running for office, he promised that his first acts in office would be to issue executive orders adopting a policy of transparency for his presidency, and ease of access to presidential documents. . He clearly identified the documents by which his intent on the subject was to be assessed. As Houston notes, Obama had firmly announced,
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