The Power of Israel in the United States
by Stephen Lendman
RINF
10.27.06- James Petras is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York. He’s a noted academic figure on the US Left and a well-respected Latin American expert and longtime chronicler of the region’s popular struggles. He’s also an advisor to the landless workers in Brazil and the unemployed workers movement in Argentina. Along the way, he managed to find time to write many hundreds of articles and 62 books published in 29 languages including his latest one in which he discusses another vital world region he has extensive knowledge of and has written frequently about - the Middle East and specifically the state of Israel and its relations with its neighbors, the Palestinians and, most importantly and the subject of this book, the US.
Petras’ powerful new book is titled
The Power of Israel in the United States. It’s a work of epic writing and essential reading documenting the enormous influence of the Jewish Lobby on US policy in the Middle East. It focuses like a laser to assure that policy conforms with Israel’s long-term goal for regional hegemony. The Lobby’s influence is broad and deep enough to include officials at the highest levels of government, the business community, academia, the clergy (especially the dominant Christian fundamentalists/Christian Zionists) and the mass media.
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North Korea, Turkmenistan, Eritrea the worst violators of press freedom
France, the United States and Japan slip further Mauritania and Haiti gain much ground
Reporters Without Borders
10.27.06- New countries have moved ahead of some Western democracies in the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, issued today, while the most repressive countries are still the same ones.
“Unfortunately nothing has changed in the countries that are the worst predators of press freedom,” the organisation said, “and journalists in North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and China are still risking their life or imprisonment for trying to keep us informed. These situations are extremely serious and it is urgent that leaders of these countries accept criticism and stop routinely cracking down on the media so harshly.
"Each year new countries in less-developed parts of the world move up the Index to positions above some European countries or the United States. This is good news and shows once again that, even though very poor, countries can be very observant of freedom of expression. Meanwhile the steady erosion of press freedom in the United States, France and Japan is extremely alarming,” Reporters Without Borders said.
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Minutemen ‘Expose’ Bush’s ’Shadow Government’
by Ron Brynaert
Raw Story
10.26.06- A major anti-immigration group is accusing the Bush Administration of creating a “shadow government,” by “engaging in collaborative relations with Mexico and Canada outside the U.S. Constitution,” Raw Story has learned.
The Minuteman Project sent out a press release late Tuesday evening hyping their Web site, which is showcasing 1,000 documents allegedly obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) by World Net Daily columnist Jerome Corsi. Most widely known for his longtime attacks on Democratic Senator John Kerry’s military record, Corsi also co-authored a book about the Minuteman “battle” to secure America’s borders.
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House Leader Hastert Testifies in Sex Scandal Probe
Hastert maintains he knew nothing of Foley scandal
Dennis Hastert.
The leader of the House of Representatives testified on Tuesday in a Capitol Hill sex scandal and urged investigators to move quickly as his rattled Republican Party struggles to keep control of Congress in the Nov. 7 elections.
"I answered all the questions they asked to the best of my ability," House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois said as he emerged from more than two and one-half hours behind closed doors with an investigative congressional subcommittee.
The four-member ethics panel wants to determine what Hastert and others knew about troublesome behavior by former Rep. Mark Foley.
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Minister Admits Israelis Dropped Phosphorous Bombs in Lebanon
Phosphorus bombs
in Lebanon.
The Herald
10.23.06- The Israeli army dropped phosphorous bombs against Hizbollah guerrilla targets in Lebanon during the war in August, an Israeli minister said yesterday, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time.
Phosphorus weapons can cause severe burns and are banned for use in civilian areas, but Israel insisted it used the weapons in accordance with international law.
"The Israeli army made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hizbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground," Cabinet Minister Yaakov Edri said.
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Government Death Squads Ravaging Baghdad
by Dahr Jamail and Ali Al-Fadhily
IPS News
10.23.06- Two more morgues are planned for construction in Baghdad as death squad killings have soared -- 1,536 were killed in Iraq's capitol in September.
Death squads from the Ministry of Interior posing as Iraqi police are killing more people than ever in the capital, emerging evidence shows.
The death toll is high -- in all 1,536 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue in September. The health ministry announced last month that it will build two new morgues in Baghdad to take their capacity to 250 bodies a day.
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N.J. gay ex-governor wants to wed partner
Opposed same-sex marriage while in office to hide his homosexuality
Associated Press
Trenton, N.J. 10.27.06- Former Gov. James McGreevey, who resigned after acknowledging a gay affair, said he would tie the knot with his partner if state lawmakers decide to allow gay marriage.
"Marriage would offer the ability to bless our relationship in a committed way," McGreevey, 49, told The New York Times.
McGreevey's comments followed a state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that same-sex couples must be given the same rights as married people. The court left it up to the Legislature to decide whether to extend those rights under the structure of marriage or something else.
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SEX TRAFFICKING: San Francisco Is A Major Center For International Crime Networks That Smuggle And Enslave
by Meredith May
San Francisco Chronicle
10.27.06- Many of San Francisco's Asian massage parlors -- long an established part of the city's sexually permissive culture -- have degenerated into something much more sinister: international sex slave shops.
Once limited to infamous locales such as Bombay and Bangkok, sex trafficking is now an $8 billion international business, with San Francisco among its largest commercial centers.
San Francisco's liberal attitude toward sex, the city's history of arresting prostitutes instead of pimps, and its large immigrant population have made it one of the top American cities for international sex traffickers to do business undetected, according to Donna Hughes, a national expert on sex trafficking at the University of Rhode Island.
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George W. Bush v. The U.S. Constitution
John Conyers
(D-Mi.)
In July 2005, 122 members of Congress, along with more than 500,000 Americans, sent a letter to President George W. Bush, asking him to verify whether the assertions set forth in the so-called “Downing Street Minutes” were accurate. The president never responded.
That lack of response prompted Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, to commission his staff to write a report examining the administration’s manipulation and deception during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. When the
New York Times reported in December 2005 that President Bush had approved widespread warrantless domestic surveillance of innocent Americans, (later corroborated in May 2006 by
USA Today), Conyers asked his staff to document those abuses as well. The final report, “The Constitution In Crisis,” released in August with little attention from the mainstream media, is a compelling indictment of the Bush administration.
Academy Chicago Publishers recently published the report as a book, titled
George W. Bush versus the U.S. Constitution. Below, In These Times has excerpted the book’s foreword by Rep. Conyers, who explains the dangers to the Constitution posed by the Bush administration’s assertion of a “unitary executive.”
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Desperate GOP Stoops to Lowest Fear Politics Imaginable
by Robert Parry
Consortium News
10.23.06- The Republican National Committee has released a new campaign ad to rally the GOP base and other voters by showing threatening quotes from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden followed by the pitch: "These are the stakes. Vote Nov. 7." (Watch the ad below)
President George W. Bush has flogged the same theme in lashing Democrats who favor a military withdrawal from Iraq.
"If we were to follow the Democrats' prescriptions and withdraw from Iraq, we would be fulfilling Osama bin Laden's highest aspirations," Bush said at an Oct. 19 campaign speech in La Plume, Pennsylvania. "We should at least be able to agree that the path to victory is not to do precisely what the terrorists want."
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E-voting Machine Code Leaked - Again
by Robert McMillan
IDG News Services
10.23.06- Source code to Diebold Election Systems Inc. voting machines has been leaked once again.
On Wednesday, former Maryland state legislator Cheryl C. Kagan was anonymously given disks containing source code to Diebold’s BallotStation and GEMS (Global Election Management System) tabulation software used in the 2004 elections. Kagan, a well-known critic of electronic voting, is Executive Director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Olney, Maryland.
The disks were created and distributed by two federal voting machine testing labs run by Ciber Inc. and Wyle Laboratories Inc. They had been testing systems on behalf of the state of Maryland, Diebold said in a statement.
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