Les Nouvelles Internationales est un site alternatif pour les gens qui veulent mieux comprendre ce qui se passe dans notre monde et pour mieux connaître notre histoire.
Ce site se veut un moyen de résister à la manipulation de la pensée par la désinformation et la propagande de masse.
Une population éduquée n`est pas manipulable. Cessons de nous faire violer psychiquement, protégeons-nous mentalement. Les ploutocrates dépensent des milliards pour contrôler notre pensée. Fermons la TV!
Voici une sélection de sans-hontes qui courent, ceux qui ruine une économie comme Alan Greenspan et ensuite blâme les autres, tout en admettant dans le même souffle que la FED n'a aucun compte à rendre aux États-Unis, et qu'elle est un parasite non nécessaire aux fonctionnement de l'économie; d'autre gens comme ceux qui recoivent 30 milliards$ des États-Unis en aide militaire, et qui comme si ce n'était pas déjà assez (!!!), demande de se faire payer en Euro au lieu de US$ tout en s'occupant fort bien de faire chanter les élus américains par des scandales sexuels horribles; en passant par les tyrants qui n'hésitent pas à tirer sur des moines bouddhistes au Myanmar pour leur faire la gueule; ou encore un président qui se prend pour un empereur et qui réclame près de 200US$ pour la continuation de ses entreprises épouvantables de guerre d'occupation en Iraq et Afghanistan, et qui en profite par le fait même pour s'auto-pardonner des crimes de guerres qu'il "aurait peut-être pu causer" (!!!!!). Alors ne manquez pas ça, ainsi que les solutions et actions de personnes qui ont décidé un jour que ça suffisait, et qu'ils n'en prendraient pas plus, qui ont dit NON à la folie des "leaders"!
The irreverent Stewart suffers none of the nervous ticks that prevent the cowardly cadre of so-called real "journalists" that staff America's news rooms from asking important questions during interviews. For instance, while talking with Greenspan, Stewart brought up the idea that America, supposedly, has a free market economy. "So, why do we have a Fed?" Stuart asked. "Wouldn't the market take care of interest rates and all that? Why would we have someone adjusting the rates if we are a free market society?"
Greenspan's answer: "You didn't need a central bank when you were on a gold standard."
Bingo! Somebody give that man a cookie!
It's worth watching the rest of Stewart's interview with Greenspan, but this is really the most important admission a central banker has ever made. A truly free market would be based on a standard of value that can not easily be manipulated for political or other purposes.
Since the move away from the gold standard and the creation of the Fed, that is exactly what has happened with the dollar. As Greenspan admits in the interview, we no longer have a free market where the currency is concerned, we have regulation.
We also have severe inflation through the "miracle" of fractional reserve banking and the inflationary monetary policies that the Fed has followed ever since it's creation. For more on that, see economist Murray Rothbard's The Mystery of Banking or get a copy of The Creature from JekyllIsland.
Or, just wait around for a few days or weeks here at the beginning of the 21st century. The consequences of the massively inflationary policies the Fed has followed for the last few years are sure to come home to roost sooner or later.
This week, former chairman of the Fed Reserve Alan Greenspan in an interview aired on PBS’ News Hour was asked by Jim Lehrer what should be the proper relationship between a chairman of the Fed and The President of the United States. In a shockingly honest tone Greenspan replies,
"Well, first of all, the Federal Reserve is an independent agency, and that means, basically, that there is no other agency of government which can overrule actions that we take. So long as that is in place and there is no evidence that the administration or the Congress or anybody else is requesting that we do things other than what we think is the appropriate thing, then what the relationships are don't, frankly, matter.”
This issue with the Fed being above government is one of the key things We The People need to understand in order to wake up to the awful situation that we have found ourselves in. Our wealth, our labor, and anything we gain buy being productive has been stolen from us since the Federal Reserve took over our money system in the 1913.
Most people believe the Fed to be a government agency overlook by the President of the United States. Others fully believe the statements of Mr. Greenspan but don’t really understand what it means to have an “independent agency” (i.e. private banks) be above The Presidency, The Congress and Senate, and the Supreme court of the United States. This power to create money has been given over to a group of businessmen not beholden to our U.S Constitution; a document to protect our God given freedoms from tyranny. Hopefully enough of our rising generation can learn this sad truth and vote to return the power to regulate money back into the hands of those to whom it belongs…We The People.
"In the spirit of Yom Kippur, the United States will not hold Israel to any agreements obligating them to accept Dollars as payment for their foreigh aid. We will translate our obligations into Euros or whatever currency that best fits Israel's needs" Secretary RIce said in the Friday, Sept 21 announcement.
"... and we'll bend over just a bit further and hold them apart another few inches as well."
What this means is that as the dollar declines against the Euro, the US Government will have to spend even MORE than they already promised Israel. But hey, it isn't like it's their money. It's yours!
Ok so after John David R. Atchison tried to have sex with a five year old on the heels of story of Senator Larry Craig trying to elicit homosexual sex in a men's airport bathroom, which followed the sicko Mark Foley sending sexually explicit e-mails to a 16 year old page boy, desicribing how the 16 year old cums, and of course let's not forget Governor McGreevey sleeping with an Israeli national, I decided that it is time people take a look at the perverted sexual nature of Bush Administration Syndicate in gerneral for they are one messed up sexually dysfucntional family. Please see this for a better break down of the Evangelists, the flight schools used in 911, the Bushs and Abramoff who arranged trips for congressmen to islands know from sex slavery.
When one understands how deep the Mossad was in 911 and the flight schools and how Atta was spotted on Abramoff casino ships things start to break down with the religious right and how easily blackmailed these men can be with Israel almost literally holding them by the short hairs.
After smothering efforts by war critics in Congress to drastically cut U.S. troop levels in Iraq, President Bush plans to ask lawmakers next week to approve another massive spending measure -- totaling nearly $200 billion -- to fund the war through next year, Pentagon officials said.
Myanmar's military government issued an ominous warning on Monday to monks leading the strongest protest movement in two decades, telling senior Buddhist clerics that unless they restrained their juniors, the government would take action on its own.
The problem this government faces is exactly the same that every oppressive government faces in terms of cracking down on its citizens in ways that have nothing to do with democracy and peaceful process: it will be on the net, and around the world, in a heartbeat, making that government really look like the dictatorship it truly is.
Late 1945 and early 1946 saw what is likely the greatest troop revolt that has ever occurred in a victorious army. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American soldiers protested all over the world because they were not being sent home even though the war was over.
The GIs didn't realize it at first, but many soon came to understand that the reason they were being transferred from Europe and elsewhere to various places in the Pacific area, instead of being sent back home, was that the United States was concerned about uprisings against colonialism, which, in the minds of Washington foreign-policy officials, was equated with communism and other nasty un-American things.
Certains dans les milieux financiers et dans la sphère politique voudraient bien nous réassurer que la crise financière est déjà en train de se calmer et que le pire est déjà passé. Mais à la lumière de ce qu'est réellement notre système bancaire et financier, il est très improbable qu'on soit déjà sorti du bois. Les gros joueurs font tout pour faire en sorte que le crash soit graduel pour ne pas effrayer le petit peuple, qui ferait juste comme ce qui est arrivé en 1907, 1929 et la semaine passé en Angleterre: vider les banques de leurs épargnes et retirer leurs investissements dans le stock market, ce qui ferait en sorte que l'économie s'écroulerait quasi instantanément, ruinant les très riches aussi qui veulent juste tirer leur épingle du jeu avant nous. Il y a trop de petits joureurs qui diluent leur marge de profit, alors comme ils l'ont fait à plusieurs reprises dans le passé, les banquiers et ultra-riches font volontairement crasher le marché pour purger le "système". Et purge, il y a.
L'argent ne disparait pas, il est transféré de nos poches vers celles des quelques riches qui possèdent déjà la planète, vers des paradis fiscaux, pendant qu'ils nous accusent de travailler au noir et d'être paresseux. N'oubliez pas: les banquiers privés impriment l'argent à partir de rien, ils le créent litéralement, l'impriment à la tonne et ainsi créent l'inflation et la dévaluation de la monnaie de papier. Enfin... informez-vous.
“The new capitalist gods must love the poor – they are making so many more of them.” Bill Bonner, “The Daily Reckoning”
“The hope of every central bank is that the real problem can be kept frompublic view. The truth is that the public---even professionals on Wall Street---have no clue what the real problem is. They know it has something to do with derivatives, but none of them realize that it’s more than a $20 trillion mountain of unfunded, unregulated paper that has just been discovered to not have a market and, therefore, no real value… When the dollar realizes the seriousness of the situation---be that now or sometime soon---the bottom will drop out.” Jim Sinclair, Investment analyst What the price of gold is telling usby Ron Paul
The financial press, and even the network news shows, have begun reporting the price of gold regularly. For twenty years, between 1980 and 2000, the price of gold was rarely mentioned. There was little interest, and the price was either falling or remaining steady.
Since 2001 however, interest in gold has soared along with its price. With the price now over $600 an ounce, a lot more people are becoming interested in gold as an investment and an economic indicator. Much can be learned by understanding what the rising dollar price of gold means.
The rise in gold prices from $250 per ounce in 2001 to over $600 today has drawn investors and speculators into the precious metals market. Beginning in March, though planned before Bernanke arrived at the Fed, the central bank discontinued compiling and reporting the monetary aggregate known as M3. M3 is the best description of how quickly the Fed is creating new money and credit. Common sense tells us that a government central bank creating new money out of thin air depreciates the value of each dollar in circulation. Yet this report is no longer available to us and Congress makes no demands to receive it.
A soaring gold price is a vote of “no confidence” in the central bank and the dollar. This certainly was the case in 1979 and 1980. Today, gold prices reflect a growing restlessness with the increasing money supply, our budgetary and trade deficits, our unfunded liabilities, and the inability of Congress and the administration to reign in runaway spending.
The bottom line is that you make money by making products. You cannot make money by taking other money and moving it back and forth with great rapidity, although a large percentage of Americans seem to think they can. With gamesmanship, you can look good for a short while trying to make money by shaking money back and forth, but in the end, if you have no products to sell, the money must and will run out.
The crisis in the US housing market risks spreading to the whole of the nation's economy, European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet said Monday on behalf of world central bankers.
Analysts in the United States said Sunday that the nation's economic outlook had darkened with data showing stalling job growth, which prompted fears the housing slump would lead to a full-blown recession.
State and federal lawmakers are calling for a crackdown on unscrupulous mortgage firms, saying that "predatory" lending practices have fed a growing national wave of foreclosures affecting millions of people with subprime home mortgages.
Some experts -- and hedge fund investors who have made big bets that the mortgage crisis will worsen -- are saying that's exactly what will happen. Some bond funds that invest in riskier short-term debt already have been whacked by soaring default rates on bonds backed by subprime loans made to borrowers with weak credit.
About 80 percent of debt in bonds backed by subprime loans is rated triple-A, the same rating on virtually risk-free U.S. Treasury bonds, experts say.
Britons have racked up so much debt on loans and credit cards that the total borrowed now exceeds the entire value of the economy, new research shows today.
A hedge fund is a private investment fund charging a performance fee and typically open to only a very limited range of qualified investors. In the United States, hedge funds are open to accredited investors only. Because of this restriction, they are usually exempt from any direct regulation by the SEC, NASD and other regulatory bodies.
A hedge fund's activities are limited only by the contracts governing the particular fund, so they can follow complex investment strategies, being long or short assets and entering into futures, swaps and other derivative contracts. They often hedge their investments against adverse moves in equity and other markets, because a common objective is to generate returns that are not closely correlated to those of the broader financial markets.
In most countries hedge funds are prohibited from marketing to non-accredited investors, unlike regulated retail investment funds such as mutual funds and pension funds. As hedge funds are essentially a private pool of managed assets, and as their public access is commonly restricted by the government, they have little to no incentive to release their private information to the public.
Cette semaine sur l'émission de L'Autre Monde,j'ai commencé à aborder le sujet de l'état policier/ dictature aux États-Unis. Étant donné que ce volet est assez vaste, je vais faire une deuxième partie sur le sujet durant l'émission de la semaine prochaine, avec une panoplie d'articles qui vont suivre. À ne pas manquer!
-23 septembre 2007: Cette semaine, nous abordons l'état policier/dictature/répression aux USA, les multiples provocations au Moyen-Orient, les Desmarais, Bush et Sarkozy, PSP, B-52 et têtes nucléaires, l'actualité au Canada-Québec, ainsi que la crise financière mondiale ayant pour cause les USA.
Pour télécharger et écouter, simplement cliquer sur le lien;
Ou encore, visitez directement le site alternatif pour l'archivage des émissions de L'Autre Monde ici .
Voici donc une série d'articles et de vidéos chroniquant la descente des États-Unis dans une dictature, un état policier militarisé. Il y a plusieurs aspects qui démontrent bien à quel point cette marche vers le fachisme est déjà profondément enclenchée. Il y a les camps de concentration, la militarisation de la police, la branche exécutive du gouvernement Bush qui se prétend au-dessus des lois, les différents amendements et lois passés qui donne carrément des pouvoir dictatoriaux à Bush et Cheney, grosse répression des citoyens, de leur liberté d'expression, et de la dissidence politique et contre la guerre en Iraq, arrêstation de gens et de journalistes juste pour critiquer le gouvernement, et j'en passe.
Covert Actions Against American Citizens Living in America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zejpx_1Fs5w
Ron Paul @ Republican Fox Debate 9-5-07
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BB3NrSpRGE
What We Chose To Ignore
****What We Chose To Ignore
A brief summary of presidential directives, executive orders, and congressionally approved bills that where signed into law over the last 40 years or so.
In 1961 the Kennedy administration ordered a top secret study, to determine the problems facing the United States if the world moved from ...all »an era of war to a golden age of peace. By 1963, the selection of specialists had been made. The final study group consisted of 15 experts in various academic disciplines, selected for their expertise in their respective fields. Their first and last meetings were held at an underground nuclear survival retreat called IronMountain. This study was concluded in 1966. President Lyndon Johnson gave the order that the report was never to be released, due to the nature of the conclusions reached. One of the men involved in this study elected to release it to the public, at great risk to himself, under the name of John Doe. It was published in 1967 by Dial Press. The establishment promptly renounced it as a hoax. It was no hoax. IronMountain is now hard to obtain, but many large libraries still have copies of it. This report looks deep into the soul of the New World Order. IronMountain is the covert agenda to bring the world, and America, under the control of the United Nations. The conclusions reached are now being implemented upon the American people, without their knowledge or consent, as this documentary will prove beyond all doubt. What you are about to see and hear is real. 1993
Alex Jones from Waking Lifehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXspT2VtOE***The Begining Of The End Of America Olbermanhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VuqWK4S3zsWhere does Bush gets his staff?
My fellow Americans, it’s official now: We live in a fascist nation.
Now, the term "fascist" has been thrown around over the last fifty years in a loose way that has drained it of much of its meaning. If someone wanted to cut 5% off of a leftist professor's favourite welfare programme, the professor would call his opponent a "fascist." I’m not using the word like that. I mean honest-to-goodness, old-fashioned, 1930s style fascism, featuring such old favourites as:
Secret prisons – they’re back! Torture – we’re doing it. Spying on all citizens. Arrests and indefinite imprisonment without trial. Rampant militarism. Secret detention. Enforced disappearance. Denial and restriction of habeas corpus. Prolonged incommunicado detention. Unfair trial procedures.
The passage of the Military Commisions Act last week was the last nail on the coffin of the Republic, formerly known as the United States of America.
What people can't seem to grasp is that the conditions put forward in this legislation affect not only the foreign-born: they affect every single citizen of this country.
The capability to define who is a so-called 'enemy combatant' is totally with in the hands of the executive now, with absolutely no checks and balances possible from the judiciary.
Operation Falcon is the clearest indication yet that the Bush administration is fine-tuning its shock-troops so it can roll up tens of thousands of people at a moment’s notice and toss them into the newly-built Halliburton detention centers. This should be a red flag for anyone who cares at all about human rights, civil liberties, or simply saving his own skin.
Falcon; new drills for a new world order
The Falcon operations can only be understood in the broader context of the ongoing assault on the constitutional system of checks and balances; including the repeal of habeas corpus, warrantless wiretaps and searches, and the use of torture.
For the last 6 years, the Bush administration has been busy dismantling the legal safeguards which protect the citizen from the arbitrary and, oftentimes, ruthless actions of the state. To that end, detention camps are being prepared by Halliburton within the U.S., secret courts have been established which deny due process of law, American citizens are arrested without charge, law enforcement is increasingly militarized, and the media has strengthened its alliance with the central government.
Additionally, in October 2006, George Bush quietly changed the Insurrection Act, which prevented the President from deploying troops inside the United States. Bush’s revision effectively overturns the Posse Comitatus Act which put strict limits on the executive’s power to use US troops in domestic situations. Just days earlier Bush signed a similar bill, "The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" which gives Bush the power to take command of National Guard units across the country which are traditionally under the control of the state governors.
Without fanfare, Bush has taken control of all armed forces and militias inside and outside of the country and now has a monopoly on all the state-sanctioned tools of organized violence. It’s a coup that could never have succeeded without the tacit cooperation of the media.
Bush is now free to declare martial law in response to a natural disaster, a pandemic or a terrorist attack. The congress is powerless to stop him.
Also, Bush recently signed the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which allows the president to arbitrarily declare citizens and non citizens “enemy combatants” and imprison them indefinitely without charge. The new law gives Bush the authority to disregard the Geneva Conventions and the 8th amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment and apply “harsh interrogation” which may include torture. The act effectively repeals habeas corpus, the cornerstone of American jurisprudence and the Bill of Rights.
The Military Commissions Act cannot coexist with the US Constitution; the two are mutually exclusive.
The Military Commissions Act, The John Warner Defense Authorization Act, the Homeland Security Act, the Patriot Act, and the myriad presidential signing statements have conferred absolute power on George Bush. The question is whether or not some incident will arise that will persuade Bush to use his extraordinary new powers.
General Tommy Franks predicted that a “massive, casualty producing event” might cause “our population to question our own Constitution and begin to militarize our country;” a scenario that many see as likely now.
Is that it? Will another terrorist attack provide the rationale for overturning republican government and declaring martial law?
If so, then we should know what to expect.
According to FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) it would mean “the suspension of the normal functions of civilian government, implying the cancellation or postponement of state and federal elections.” (Global Research) It would also “close public and government facilities not critical for continuity of essential operations.” (FEMA)
Northern Command would assume control and under “the classified 'Continuity of Government” (COG) Operations Plan' a secret 'shadow government' would become functional, redeploying key staff to secret locations.” (Global Research)
Also, “all forms of public gatherings or citizen's protests which question the legitimacy of the emergency procedures and the installation of a police state” would be banned. The military would be deployed to carry out “police and judicial” functions.
Martial law in the US would be applied with the utmost attention to public sensibilities and perceptions, avoiding the garish display of force we see in Iraq. It would be a “kinder and gentler” martial law with a limited number of military personnel on the streets (just enough to remind us that things have changed) and an emphasis on “preemptive” policing operations. (Expect Falcons’ 4, 5 and 6 etc) It would probably be disguised by a carefully crafted public relations campaign and a predictably cheery moniker, such as, “The Security Enhancement and Homeland Fortification Act”. The possibilities are limitless.
NSPD 51 has barely been reported by the mainstream media. There was no press briefing by the White House or by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, which would be the normal practice, given the significance and implications of NSPD 51. The text of NSPD /51 HSPD 20, announced by the White House is not even mentioned on the DHS's website.
This Combined Directive NSPD /51 HSPD 20 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. NSPD 51 allows the sitting president to declare a “national emergency” without Congressional approval The adoption of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement.
The exercise which is slated to run from October 15th to October 20th is described as a way to prepare, prevent and respond to any number of national crises. The exercise is simply a test case scenario for the implementation of martial law.
President Bush, again defying Congress, says he has the power to edit the Homeland Security Department’s reports about whether it obeys privacy rules while handling background checks, ID cards and watchlists.
In the law Bush signed Wednesday, Congress stated no one but the privacy officer could alter, delay or prohibit the mandatory annual report on Homeland Security department activities that affect privacy, including complaints.
But Bush, in a signing statement attached to the agency’s 2007 spending bill, said he will interpret that section “in a manner consistent with the President’s constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.”
Memo to Congress: you all might as well resign: you have nothing more to do, in this administration, except take your wonderful pensions and brilliant medical programs home with you and play some golf.
You're simply a rubber-stamp to this administration, and do nothing of value for the people you allegedly represent.
But of course,those people don't really matter: it's which corporations can buy your vote most effectively, that's what matters.
President Bush this week asserted that he has the executive authority to disobey a new law in which Congress has set minimum qualifications for future heads of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
To shield FEMA from cronyism, Congress established new job qualifications for the agency's director in last week's homeland security bill. The law says the president must nominate a candidate who has ``a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management" and ``not less than five years of executive leadership."
"Qualifications? We don't need no stinking qualifications for the head of FEMA, or any other Federal Agency!" - Official White Horse Souse.
President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
READ THIS CAREFULLY, AND READ IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Is this a "trial balloon" to see if Americans will sit still for a dictatorship?
If you thought Stu Bykovsky's call for a new 9/11 was the lowest the Neo-Cons could sink, think again. A right-wing foundation with links to Dick Cheney has called for Bush to be made lifetime president, ruler of the world, and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed of Arabs by means of a nuclear holocaust.
Personally I see such comments as a sign of desperation on the part of the Neo-Cons.
The United States is in trouble. We're in danger of becoming a fascist dictatorship where big government and big business combine to rule, and where the people are considered just a source of labor. The marriage of government and the investor class has succeeded in exporting our jobs, importing illegal aliens to provide a pool of cheap labor, and thus driving down wages for all American workers and destroying the middle class. Their foreign and military policies have led us into unnecessary wars of aggression to gain raw materials and enhance profits of the global robber barons. Their trade policies have resulted in capital flight, job loss, trade deficits, and the ownership of much of our infrastructure by foreign interests.
We've gotten into this fix because our presidents, of both parties, have been servants of the global investors, and because our representatives in Congress, again of both parties, have abdicated their Constitutional responsibilities and subjected themselves to an imperial presidency.
"A coup d'etat ... or just coup ... for short, is the sudden overthrow of (taking over from) a government. Unlike a revolution, which usually takes large numbers of people to take over, a coup can be done by a small number of people, or even one person, if they, for example, control the country's army," Wikipedia
Generally, a coup is seen as the overthrow of those in power by another - usually with support of at least part of the military. Often this is imagined as a swift move followed by a consolidation operation (kill or expel those who were previously in power). However, a coup seems to be occurring in the United States, but it is a slow coup. It may be culminated by one drastic move that consolidates the plan, but the pieces are being clearly put in place for a coup of the entire government with the eradication of democracy and the Constitution. I will constrain my discussion to three areas: executive power, intelligence, and military reach.
Executive Power
Bush has consistently operated under the philosophy of the unitary executive.
"This theory argues that the executive branch of government, held in the hands of the President, has the sole right to ignore all law (including the Constitution and international agreements), and without oversight by Congress, or checks by the Supreme Court. In short, the President is above the law and has all the authority of government, and the right to order without challenge all branches of government. This includes the ordering of the U.S. military into war without authorization by Congress. In short, the "unitary executive," as vested in the person of the President, is a king, an emperor, or a dictator. It represents one individual with total control of the full resources of the United States to take any action Bush sees fit.Wolf
Many are raising alarm about Bush's use of "signing statements." While Bush has not vetoed any legislation that has come his way, he has used the signing statement to exempt the executive branch from obeying the laws he has signed. While many of Bush's signing statements have, and are being challenged in court, the signing statements "function as directives to executive branch departments and agencies as to how they are to implement the relevant law" (John Dean, 1/13/06).
Bush has utilized the signing statement an estimated 750 times to effectively overrule legislation that has come before him.
An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the 'failed state'. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book, America's leading thinker explains how his country lost its way
From Hitler to Pinochet and beyond, history shows there are certain steps that any would-be dictator must take to destroy constitutional freedoms. And, argues Naomi Wolf, George Bush and his administration seem to be taking them all
"In the 2-1 decision, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel found that the federal Military Commissions Act doesn't strip Ali al-Marri of his constitutional rights to challenge his accusers in court," Associated Press reports. "It ruled the government must allow him to be released from military detention."
The court panel said that "to uphold such extraordinary power would effectively undermine all of the freedoms recognized by the Constitution."
While this appears to be a breath of fresh air from the US judiciary (and a recollection of what the Constitution and Bill of Rights is supposed to mean), don't expect any real movement before it's either run all the way to the supreme court, or quashed by one of Bush's executive orders.
The military tribunals, scheduled to begin tomorrow, will take place behind closed doors and away from the scrutiny of the media. ... None of the suspects will be able to have a lawyer present.
Judge Kangaroo, please report to the Star Chamber. Judge Kangaroo, to the Star Chamber...
Kellogg Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is constructing a huge facility at an undisclosed location to hold tens of thousands of Bush's "unlawful enemy combatants." Americans are certain to be among them.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 governing the treatment of detainees is the culmination of relentless fear-mongering by the Bush administration since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Because the bill was adopted with lightning speed, barely anyone noticed that it empowers Bush to declare not just aliens, but also U.S. citizens, "unlawful enemy combatants."
With the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 last week, the idea that there are concentration camps already built inside the US doesn't seem so far-fetched, does it.
And as you read this letter from Congressman Bill Hefner, about the "civilian inmate labor program" recall, that all of the Nazi camps were labor camps, in which the inmates were forced to make products for the German War Machine.
Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license.
In other words, a fee will be due every time for the operation of moving a music file from one system (your home computer) to another (your mp3 player).
This law is also an attack on blogs using clips of news stories to illustrate government wrongdoing.
According to the Washington Post, "The Bush administration argued in court papers this week that the White House Office of Administration is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act as part of its effort to fend off a civil lawsuit seeking the release of internal documents about a large number of e-mails missing from White House servers."
Federal prosecutors are trying to force the American Civil Liberties Union to turn over copies of a classified document it received from a source, using what legal experts called a new extension of the Bush administration’s efforts to protect national-security secrets.
The novelty in the government’s approach is in its broad use of a grand jury subpoena, which is typically a way to gather evidence, rather than to confiscate all traces of it. But the subpoena issued to the A.C.L.U. seeks “any and all copies” of a document e-mailed to it unsolicited in October, indicating that the government also wants to prevent further dissemination of the information in the document.
Translation: the federal government is really terrified aobut what these documents contain, and the degree to which it would be embarrassed by their release.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday she has already answered the questions she has been subpoenaed to answer before a U.S. congressional committee and suggested she is not inclined to comply with the order.
Cool! I didn't know you could reject a subpoena! Thank goodness for Condi; she has set a legal precedent we can all use when those pesky court papers get served on us!
In court papers seeking to end the case, the Justice Department said the White House Office of Administration has no substantial authority independent of President Bush and therefore is not subject to the disclosure requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.
Translation: the executive branch is now above the law of the land.
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