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Israeli-Style Justice
By Stephen Lendman
Accused Israelis face charges in civil courts. Military tribunals try Palestinians. Virtually everyone is guilty by accusation. A new study says so. More on that below.
In April 2008, the Addamer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association published a report titled "Defending Palestinian Prisoners: A Report on the Status of Defense Lawyers in Israeli Courts."
It explained obstacles lawyers representing Palestinians face in court. They're hampered by military orders, Israeli laws, and prison procedures that prevent them from adequately helping clients. They're hamstrung from time of arrests through detentions, interrogations, trials, imprisonments, appeals, and other constraints against justice.
Yet international law is clear and unequivocal. Article 2, section 3(b)(c) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:
....(P)ersons "shall have (the) right (to effective remedy through a) competent judicial, administrative or legislative (authority), or by any other competent authority provided for the legal system of the State (to) ensure that the competent authorities shall enforce (judicial) remed(ies)."
CELAC: A Washington-Controlled OAS Alternative
By Stephen Lendman
On February 23, 2010, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States was established at the Rio Group-Caribbean Community Unity Summit in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, Mexico.
CELAC comprises 33 regional countries. America and Canada are excluded. In July 2010, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Chile's Sebastian Pinera were chosen co-chairs to help draft organizational statutes.
CELAC calls itself "a nonprofit institution, established for critical analysis, design and management of the structural, political, cultural, economic and social factors that affect the various Latin American countries and Caribbean, as well as to their impact on the respective national societies, as in the hemispheric or universal joint."
"Its focus is on finding the best solution in the framework of respect for human rights, the democratic exercise, the overall progress, peace and peaceful coexistence and international levels."
America's Weak Jobs Report
By Stephen Lendman
ABC News quoted an unnamed White House spokesperson, saying the November jobs report provides "further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal."
Obama's Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger hyped the 0.4% unemployment rate drop to 8.6%, "the lowest (figure) since March 2009." He didn't explain why. More on that below, including the real unreported employment rate.
The New York Times tried having it both ways. On December 2, Catherine Rampell's article headlined, "Jobless Rate Dips to Lowest Level in More Than 2 Years," saying:
"Somehow the American economy appears to be getting better, even as the rest of the world is looking worse."
She called it "good news for President Obama as he heads into the 2012 presidential election - especially since just a few months ago the picture looked bleak."
For America's 26 million unemployed, it never looked bleaker. It's reflected in what Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) figures and major media scoundrels don't report - the nation's near-23% unemployment rate (including millions wanting work but dropped out for lack of jobs), its highest since the Great Depression.
Israeli Delegitimization
by Stephen Lendman
Under the UN Charter, other international law, and principles of sovereign equality, all states are equal. None are more or less legitimate than others.
Under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, Israel qualifies as one. It has:
Growing Hunger and Homelessness in America
by Stephen Lendman
Millions of Americans now endure protracted Depression conditions at a time half the population is either poor or low income. Long-term unemployment is unprecedented, and federal aid is being cut, not increased.
Two new reports highlight enormous depravation levels and human suffering, getting little or no major media attention. Many affected families used to be middle class. They're now low-income or impoverished by unemployment or spotty low-pay part-time work.
Most important is that much worse conditions are coming during America's greatest ever Depression to last years and devastate many more households than already.
Money Power World Rule
by Stephen Lendman
The late Georgetown University historian Carroll Quigley said in his book titled, "Tragedy and Hope
"(T)he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences."
Obama Approves Draconian Police State Law
by Stephen Lendman
Obama supports draconian FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act provisions. Justification given is national security and war on terror hokum.
Henceforth, anyone anywhere, including US citizens, may be indefinitely held without charge or trial, based solely on suspicions, spurious allegations or none at all.
No reasonable proof is needed, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Henceforth, indefinite detentions can follow mere membership (past or present) or support for suspect organizations.
Presidents now have unchecked dictatorial powers to arrest, interrogate and indefinitely detain law-abiding citizens if accused of potentially posing a threat.
Europe in Disarray
by Stephen Lendman
Europe's underpinnings can only hold so long. Years of entrapment under euro straightjacket rules means eventual dissolution and collapse.
Throwing more money at out-of-control debt problems buys delay only. Instead of swallowing painful solutions, EU leaders keep repeating the same mistakes, heading dire conditions to catastrophic ones.
Newt Gingrich, Marianne and the Arms Dealer: A Buried FBI Investigation
By Joseph Trento, on December 13th, 2011
National Security News Service | Creative Commons
On October 5, Sarkis Soghanalian, once the world’s largest private arms dealer, died at 82. He had sold weapons to scores of dictators including Saddam Hussein, and he took many secrets with him to his grave. But one secret he did not take involves Newt Gingrich when he was Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. DCBureau has learned that Gingrich was at the center of a U.S. Justice Department criminal investigation in the late 1990s for a scheme to shake down the arms dealer for a $10 million bribe in exchange for Gingrich using his influence as Speaker to get the Iraq arms embargo lifted so Soghanalian could collect $54 million from Saddam Hussein’s regime for weapons he had delivered during the Iran-Iraq War.
Soghanalian was an FBI informant and was responsible for launching one of the most sensitive and secret investigations in FBI history involving the former Speaker and his second wife. According to Marianne Gingrich, it took the direct intervention of then FBI Director Louis J. Freeh to "get the investigation called off." Freeh did not return emails and telephone calls for comment.
THE WAY TO OCCUPY A BANK IS TO OWN ONE
Ellen Brown
The campaign to "move your money" has gotten a groundswell of support. Having greater impact would be to "move our money" -- move our local government revenues out of Wall Street banks into our own publicly-owned banks.
Occupy Wall Street has been both criticized and applauded for not endorsing any official platform. But there are unofficial platforms, including one titled the 99% Declaration which calls for a "National General Assembly" to convene on July 4, 2012 in Philadelphia. The 99% Declaration seeks everything from reining in the corporate state to ending the Fed to eliminating censorship of the Internet. But none of these demands seems to go to the heart of what prompted Occupiers to camp out on Wall Street in the first place – a corrupt banking system that serves the 1% at the expense of the 99%. To redress that, we need a banking system that serves the 99%.
Occupy San Francisco has now endorsed a plan aimed at doing just that. In a December 1 Wall Street Journal article titled “Occupy Shocker: A Realistic, Actionable Idea,” David Weidner writes:
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