World-News

US President Barack Obama, defending plans to try accused September 11 author Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court, predicted Wednesday that he would be convicted and executed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091118/wl_afp/usattacksguantanamojustice



The Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Show Trial

By J.R. Dunn

AG Eric Holder's statement that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will remain in custody no matter the verdict in his upcoming Manhattan trial coupled with Obama's instructions to the jury that KSM be "convicted and executed" reveals the entire exercise as a show trial.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24058.htm


From Information Clearing House

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The U.S. Post-9/11 Tribunal System
http://www.lewrockwell.com/hornberger/hornberger173.html

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Military Tribunals - Justice Lite?

William Fisher, Truthout: "While Sarah Palin and other right-wing opportunists create a cottage industry in drumming up public hysteria about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other terror suspects from Guantanamo coming to New York for trial, many legal experts and human rights groups are being equally outspoken in their criticism of the 'new and improved' Military Commissions designated to try five other detainees."

http://www.truthout.org/1120091



Obama's Failure to Close Guantanamo by January Deadline Is Disastrous

Andy Worthington, Truthout: "President Obama's admission in China that he will miss his self-imposed deadline for the closure of Guantanamo is disastrous for the majority of the 215 men still held in the detention facility, and for those who hoped, ten months ago, that the president would move swiftly to close this bitter icon of the Bush administration's lawless detention and interrogation policies in the 'war on terror.'"

http://www.truthout.org/1120094



Murder at Guantanamo?

Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout: "With recent news reports centering on Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that some Guantanamo detainees would be prosecuted in federal court and revamped, albeit flawed military commissions, important stories from previous months related to the prison facility continue to sink ever deeper into the swamp of our collective amnesia."

http://www.truthout.org/1120095

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The Administration Guts Its Own Argument for 9/11 Trials
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/20

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It’s show trial time

CounterPunch
by Alexander Cockburn

11/22/09

The scenario envisaged by Obama, his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Holder is presumably that somehow a jury of unprejudiced citizens will be convened, and ultimately — hopefully sometime before the election of 2012, at least — Khaled Sjhaikh Mohammed will step into the execution chamber, thus vindicating Obama’s oft-advertised commitment to track down the perps of 9/11 and kill them. So eager is Obama to underline this point that last Friday he declared in Japan that those offended by the trial will not find it ‘offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.’ This remark came right after his assertion that the trial would be ’subject to the most exacting demands of justice.’ Realising that the latter remark might be construed by some pettifogging civil libertarians as prejudicial to a fair trial, Obama then added that he was ‘not going to be in that courtroom. That’s the job of the prosecutors, the judge and the jury.’ So, in this prospectus, even if the Great War on Terror does not prosper in Afghanistan it will proceed satisfactorily in execution chambers here in the Homeland...

http://counterpunch.org/cockburn11202009.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Eric+Holder
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Rahm+Emanuel
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Palin
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Khalid+Sheikh+Mohammed
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Khalid+Shaikh+Mohammed
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Khaled+Shaikh+Mohammed
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=9/11
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Global+War+on+Terror
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+commissions
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=military+tribunal
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=detention
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=detainee
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=interrogat
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/hornberger
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=William+Fisher
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Andy+Worthington
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jeffrey+Kaye
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Glenn+Greenwald
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alexander+Cockburn
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=J.R.+Dunn

$4.8 trillion - Interest on U.S. debt

Unless lawmakers make big changes, the interest Americans will have to pay to keep the country running over the next decade will reach unheard of levels.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/19/news/economy/debt_interest/



1 million jobless face benefits loss in January

Extended benefits will expire unless Congress acts. Recent extension only covers workers through Dec. 31.

http://snipurl.com/tbi28



Your congressman's padded retirement plan

Opinion polls show that Americans today have a special contempt for Congress. They might be even more upset if they knew what kind of retirement deal congressmen have given themselves at the taxpayers' expense.

http://snipurl.com/tbi2f



Bank Bonuses Surge

While many Americans will count themselves lucky to be drawing any kind of income at all this year, bonus payments will rise by 40 percent for most bankers, according to a recent survey conducted by New York-based Options Group.

http://snipurl.com/tbi2k



Restore law and split up banks

Ten years ago, the Republican-controlled Congress - egged on by that champion deregulator, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm - passed legislation that arguably did more to plunge the United States into our crippling great recession than anything else: It repealed the Great Depression era's Glass-Steagall Act.

http://snipurl.com/tbi2r



Geithner, under fire, defends AIG bailout

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner defended on Thursday the costly bailout of AIG and urged swift regulatory reform to safeguard the economy from the failure of big financial firms.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE5AI2Z820091119


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Geithner
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=U.S.+debt
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Great+Depression
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=jobless
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=benefits+loss
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=retirement
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=taxpayer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bonus
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=AIG+insurance

Obedience to God or Obedience to Orders?

By Jacob G. Hornberger

What if the U.S. government is the aggressor, not the defender, in a particular war? What if the president orders soldiers to kill people who have done nothing against the United States? What if the U.S. government itself starts a war against a much weaker nation?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24013.htm



Hell Comes Home

Killing is the ultimate traumatic experience

By Robert C. Koehler

There's no armor, it turns out, for conscience. So our men and women are coming home from the killing fields wounded in their heads, used up, greeted only by the military's own meat grinder of inadequate health care and intolerance for "weakness."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24017.htm



Secret CIA 'Torture' Prison Discovered

ABC News Finds the Location of a "Black Site" for Alleged Terrorists in Lithuania

By BRIAN ROSS and MATTHEW COLE

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24010.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=secret+prison
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=black+site+prison
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=torture
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+G.+Hornberger
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+C.+Koehler
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Brian+Ross

In der US-Parlamentsdebatte zur Gesundheitsreform fand die NY Times Übereinstimmungen in 42 Stellungnahmen, die dafür eintraten, den Markenschutz für Genentech-Produkte gegenüber Generika zu stärken.

http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/146579



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Gentech
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Lobbyist

Did Geithner & Co cave in to the banks?

The report accuses treasury secretary Tim Geithner - at the time head of the New York branch of the US Federal Reserve - and his colleagues in the federal government of failing to negotiate discounted settlements with the banks.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/americas/2009/11/17/did-geithner-co-cave-banks



National Debt Now Tops $12 Trillion

It's another record-high for the U.S. National Debt which today topped the $12-trillion mark. Divided evenly among the U.S. population, it amounts to $38,974.34 for every man, woman and child.

http://snipurl.com/tay92



More than $98 billion in improper gov't payments

More than $98 billion in taxpayer dollars spent by government agencies was wasted.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091118/ap_on_bi_ge/us_government_waste



Mortgage delinquencies hit another record in 3Q

For the three months ended Sept. 30, 6.25 percent of U.S. mortgage loans were 60 or more days past due, according to credit reporting agency TransUnion. That's up 58 percent from 3.96 percent a year ago.

http://snipurl.com/tae7m



Home-Purchase Mortgage Filings Plummet -MBA

The volume of mortgage applications filed to purchase homes last week hit the lowest level in nearly nine years, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Thursday.

http://snipurl.com/tay9t



U.S. Home Construction Dropped 10.6 Percent in October

Construction of new homes unexpectedly plunged last month, as builders waited to see whether lawmakers would extend a tax credit for homebuyers.

http://snipurl.com/taya7


From Information Clearing House



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Geithner
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Treasury
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Federal+Reserve
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=national+debt
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=taxpayer
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=mortgage

Least we forget

Quote: "I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LsSppYxSHk&feature=player_embedded



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama

By Robert Scheer

What's up with Barack Obama? The candidate for change once promised to take on the powerful banking interests but is now doing their bidding. Finally, a leading Democrat, in this case Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, has a good idea for monitoring the Wall Street fat cats who all but destroyed the American economy, and the Obama administration condemns it.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24008.htm



"This is our surge"

Iraq's Lessons, On The Home Front

By Karl Vick

Combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been advising Salinas police on counterinsurgency strategy, bringing lessons from the battlefield to the meanest streets in an American city.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24004.htm



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=what+change
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Chris+Dodd
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=counterinsurgency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Scheer

http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt393.html

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Promoting democracy by the sword

WendyMcElroy.Com
by Wendy McElroy

11/18/09

A key concept behind the shift from civilized war to all-out version was the idea that it was the duty of some nations — mostly the United States — to police the world in order to impose certain social conditions, like democracy. (The irony of imposing democracy through munitions seems to miss most people.) This concept means that all local wars have the potential to become global convulsions; the selection of which local war should go global seems to be whichever one serves the self-interest of politicians in power. The new concept of war includes its role as a vehicle of social reform so that soldiers arrive with death in one hand and a CARE package in the other, all the while insisting they are there to protect women’s rights, promote democracy or provide some other social good...

http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.2868


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=police+state
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/engelhardt
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alfred+McCoy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Wendy+McElroy

The Paul-Grayson Amendment
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul608.html

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Grayson, Kucinich Lead Charge to Halt War Funding
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/12/15-8

Congressman Dennis Kucinich: Early Bipartisan Support for Privileged Resolution to End War in Afghanistan
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2009/12/15-14



http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=war+funding
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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Grayson
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http://www.lewrockwell.com/faber/faber29.1.html



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http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=com/faber