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Russia Bashing
by Stephen Lendman
On December 4, parliamentary elections were held to fill 450 State Duma seats, Russia's Federal Assembly lower house.
With nearly all votes counted, RIA Novosti said Medvedev/Putin's United Russia party won 238 seats, falling slightly below a majority with 49.67% of the vote.
It added that it's "a far cry from the commanding two-thirds constitutional majority the party held in the State Duma for the past four years" based on tabulated results so far.
United Russia is the nation's dominant party. In December 2001, it was founded by merging the Unity and Fatherland-All Russia parties. Vladimir Putin served as acting President after Boris Yeltsin resigned on December 31, 1999. From May 7, 2000 - May 7, 2008, he was President. Dmitry Medvedev succeeded him. Putin now serves as Prime Minister. He's United Russia 2012 presidential candidate. On March 4, presidential elections will be held.
Pulling Back the Curtain on the Wall Street Money Machine
Ellen Brown
On November 27, Bloomberg News reported the results of its successful case to force the Federal Reserve to reveal the lending details of its 2008-09 bank bailout. Bloomberg reported that by March 2009, the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion in below-market loans and guarantees to rescuing the financial system; and that these nearly interest-free loans came without strings attached.
The Fed insisted that the loans were repaid and there have been no losses, but the Bloomberg report said the banks reaped a $13 billion windfall in profits; and “details suggest taxpayers paid a price beyond dollars as the secret funding helped preserve a broken status quo and enabled the biggest banks to grow even bigger.”
A Hopeless Legion of Loons
By Sheila Samples
"Oh, big conniver, nothing but a jiver, done got hip to your jive, Slippin' and a slidin', peepin' and a hidin', won't be your fool no more." ~~Little Richard
Fear and despair are billowing across the US political landscape, due in no small part to nearly three years of President Barack Obama's soaring jive even as he was breaking promises to millions of jobless, homeless, helpless Americans. Many of us watched, aghast, as Obama repeatedly took careful aim and shot himself in both feet; then, rather than deciding to fight on his knees, began scrambling around on them in a futile search for bipartisanship.
Ain't gonna happen. Those hoary old Republicans with whom he has strenuously attempted to bond have been around the political block more than once. Most are sexist; homophobic to the core, and racist from the core...on in. They’re absolutely committed to -- obsessed with -- not only Obama's failure, but his complete destruction.
Human Rights Day
by Stephen Lendman
A commonly accepted definition calls human rights basic freedoms "to which all humans are entitled, often held to include the right to life and liberty, freedom of thought and expression, and equality before the law."
The UN said "(o)n Human Rights Day 2011, we pay tribute to all human rights defenders and ask you to get involved in the global human rights movement."
On December 9, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay will host a live online Facebook/Twitter/Weibo (Chinese) global conversation from 9:30AM - 10:30AM EST to answer questions participants ask. They're your rights, she says. "Know them, demand them, defend them."
December 10 commemorates the day General Assembly members adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) in 1948.
Is Iran Preparing to Strike Back
By Brian M. Downing
These attacks are almost certainly directed by Israeli, Saudi, and US intelligence services. They may also be acts of war.
"This business will get out of control."
– The Hunt for Red October
In the last few years diplomatic pressures and economic sanctions have been imposed to convince Iran to allow international inspection of its nuclear research facilities. A number of states have also pursued a violent clandestine campaign of bombings and assassinations that have killed scores of Iranians, including nuclear scientists. These attacks are almost certainly directed by Israeli, Saudi, and US intelligence services. They may also be acts of war.
In recent weeks Iran has decried terrorism around the world (somewhat paradoxically, to be sure), put up a clumsy plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador, boasted of its missile strength, and briefly seized the British embassy in Tehran – an act done not by students as with the US embassy in 1979, but by toughs of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Most recently, the IRGC went on alert, ostensibly to brace for more attacks inside the country.
America's Illegal Chemical Weapons Stockpile
by Stephen Lendman
On November 28, the Conference of the States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) opened its 16th session in The Hague, Netherlands.
Information on it can be found on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) web site.
OPCW is mandated to implement their elimination, and "to provide a forum for consultation and cooperation among States Parties." Its work includes:
(1) Demilitarization: destruction of all chemical weapons and precursors.
(2) Non-Proliferation: ensuring against proliferation of toxic chemicals and their precursors.
(3) Assistance and Protection: Member States able to protect their populations pledge to help others that can't.
America Lurches Toward Full-Blown Tyranny
by Stephen Lendman
Post-9/11, America's moved steadily toward eroding democracy entirely. Justification given is war on terror hokum. Incrementally, international, constitutional and statute laws have been trashed.
Equity, justice and other democratic values long ago were abandoned to advance America's imperium. On May 26, the House voted to abolish freedom entirely - HR 1540, 322 - 96.
On December 1, the Senate did likewise - S. 1867, 93 to 7. Both versions assure no one anywhere is now safe, including law-abiding US citizens.
WW I: A Pointless Tragedy or Super Russian Doll Conspiracy
By Katherine Smith, PhD
WW I, the war to end all wars, never made any sense. The official story of WW II: a fanatical dictator trying to take over the world with money from George H.W. Bush’s father, at least sounded plausible… until you realize that:
Adolph Hitler was, a gay prostitute and a street cleaner, who made every mistake possible in his failed attempt to take over the world. Hitler came on the scene with the Beer Hall Putsch (a march on Berlin), the first in a series of curious blunders.
“When the Munich police fire into the ground, the brave soldier from WW I throws himself to the ground dislocating his shoulder and runs away. After hiding in a friend's house for several days the future Führer is arrested and his 5-week trial turns Adolf Hitler into a national hero where he wrote, later corrected to “dictated,” the best seller Mein Kamp. His struggle was most likely ghost-written by a Jesuit priest.” Inside The Gestapo by Hansjurgen Koehler
Other problems with the official WW II story:
- The Munich Agreement
From the World Book Encyclopedia:
“On September 29, 1938, an agreement was signed between Hitler and Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain calling for a peaceful revision of the wrongs committed by the Treaty of Versailles that would have avoided World War II. Hitler said the Sudetland was “the last territorial claim I have to make in Europe.” But German troops invade Poland on Sept 1, 1939, starting World War II. The Munich Agreement was one of the worst of the tragic blunders that led up to the war.”
Blunder? Unlikely
World Book scholars neglected to read the November 14, 1938 front page of the Völkischer Beobachter, reporting the death of Vom Rath.
“Reichskristallnacht, Crystal night: cause and effect.”
The Munich agreement did not stop World War II because a Polish Jew, Herschel Grynszpan, walked into the German Embassy in France one week earlier and assassinated, according to most historical accounts, a “top German” diplomat as revenge for the expulsion of Herschel’s parents from Germany to Poland.
Joseph Goebbels suspected a Jewish conspiracy and planned a trial hoping to demonstrate Grynszpan’s link with the Zionists to plunge Europe into a war. The trial was scrapped when Grynszpan fabricates a story about a homosexual liaison between the junior diplomat and himself.
Troy Davis's sister succumbs to cancer
Mary Shaw
On December 1, Martina Davis Correia lost her long battle with breast cancer. Correia was the sister of Troy Davis, who was executed by the state of Georgia on September 21 amidst worldwide protest.
Georgia went ahead with the Davis execution despite compelling evidence suggesting that he was innocent of the murder for which he was convicted. Davis's original trial was flawed. Most of the witnesses have since recanted or contradicted their stories, with many claiming that they had been pressured or coerced by police. And there was no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime. His conviction was based solely on that questionable testimony by witnesses.
A Government Out of Control
By Timothy V. Gatto
Lately I've been wondering about good and evil and right and wrong. I guess that I think about these things because of what I see on all in the news reports. The announcers on television don't seem to blink an eye when they talk about the cities that we bomb and the resulting carnage. It's almost as if these things are just natural occurrences in the daily life of the people planet Earth. What I really can't wrap my head around is that the most war loving segment of America seems to be the Christian right.
I know that throughout history, Christians have been responsible the majority of wars in the last 500 years. I also know that the rulers used religion to obtain public support for their military adventures. This is no secret, not by any means. Most of the history textbooks have no problem revealing the use of religion as a pretext for war. I can remember how my fellow students in college shook their heads and talked about the stupidity of the people that believed in the propaganda that their rulers were using at the time.
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