'US Troops Kill Five Iraqi Bystanders'

Iraqis witnessing the arrival of US infantrymen on their rooftop have lost their lives after their house came under a bloody attack by the American troops.

The Friday attack took place in al-Khanafsa area, south of Baghdad and near the holy city of Karbala, witnesses said, according to Reuters.

"The US troops came from here on foot patrol…," said one witness. "When they arrived, a man went to the roof of his house to look at them, they intentionally opened fire at him as they saw him and his wife who went upstairs to check what happened."

"They walked directly to the house after this," where they killed three other family members, the witness added.'

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Was the Obama Administration Involved in the Planning of the Israeli Attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla?

The Israeli attack of the Flotilla bears the fingerprints of a military intelligence operation coordinated by the IDF and Mossad, which is headed by Meir Dagan. It is worth recalling that as a young Coronel, Dagan worked closely with then defense minister Ariel Sharon in the raids on the Palestinian settlements of Sabra and Shatilla in Beirut in 1982.

There are indications that the US was consulted at the highest levels regarding the nature of this military operation. Moreover, in the wake of the attacks, both the US and the UK have unequivocally reaffirmed their support to Israel.'

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Drugs for Europe: Protected by Powerful Western Interests, Afghanistan Heroin Transits Through Kosovo

Two years ago a joke was being circulated on the Runet that a heroin producer has recognized its distributor’s independence. It was about Afghanistan, which was to the first to recognize the independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo which had illegally separated from Yugoslavia.

Kosovo has since become a transit point for drugs, channelled from Asia to Europe.

A Serbian military analyst and an authoritative expert on the situation in Kosovo, Milovan Drecun says that, according to the Europol and Interpol, the largest amount of heroin is delivered to Europe from Afghanistan via Kosovo. According to some estimates, some 65% of all the world’s heroin is channeled through the former Serbian province; while 90% of all drugs that reach Europe are shipped via Kosovo.

According to the Canadian detective Stewart Kellock, the Albanian drug mafia operates with the connivance of the United States. Mr. Kellock said in an interview that US diplomats prevent the detention in Kosovo of notorious drug traffickers.'

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'US Cluster Bombs Killed 55 in Yemen'

Amnesty International says the United States used cluster bombs on a cruise missile in Yemen, killing 55 people, most of whom were civilians.

The attack, according to the rights group, targeted Al-Maajala in the Abyan province at a time when Washington was pushing hard to project militants in the country.

"Amnesty International is gravely concerned by evidence that cluster munitions appear to have been used in Yemen," said Mike Lewis, the group's arms control researcher, AFP reported.'

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Rep. Sherman: Prosecute U.S. Citizens Involved with Gaza Flotilla

On a press call hosted by a pro-Israel organization, Rep. Brad Sherman, Democrat of California, told reporters that he intends seek the prosecution of any U.S. citizens who were aboard or involved with the Freedom Flotilla.

“The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 [PDF] makes it absolutely illegal for any American to give food, money, school supplies, paper clips, concrete or weapons to Hamas or any of its officials,” Sherman said on the Israel Project call, conflating Hamas and Gaza’s civilian population. “And so I will be asking the Attorney General to prosecute any American involved in what was clearly an effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization".'

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Estimates OK for Speeding Tickets, Court Rules: Let the Looting Begin!

Ohio's highest court has ruled that a person may be convicted of speeding purely if it looked to a police officer that the motorist was going too fast.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that an officer's visual estimation of speed is enough to support a conviction if the officer is trained, certified by a training academy, and experienced in watching for speeders. The court's 5-1 decision says independent verification of a driver's speed is not necessary.

The court upheld a lower court's ruling against a driver who challenged a speeding conviction that had been based on testimony from police officer in Copley, 25 miles south of Cleveland. The officer said it appeared to him that the man was driving too fast.'

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Gordon Duff: Slave America, Holocaust By Deceit

Millions of illegal aliens, thousands members of dangerous drug gangs, have taken over city after city, state after state. Do you really think our government couldn’t have closed the border in days? The illegals are here for a purpose. They killed trade unions, suppressed the minimum wage, worked as slaves for corporate agriculture, filled our prisons and courts, all of this and more was part of a plan. Follow the money. Illegal immigration is a product of lobbyists who fought to protect it, the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce in particular. Big agricuture spent millions to keep our borders open and their hero, California Governor Ronald Reagan, chief “coyote” of all time.

Give us one division out of Iraq and the border will be closed in 3 days, not just “talked about” but closed. This will never happen as long as massive illegal immigration hurts only America’s working classes, the only people actually paying taxes, actually working and fighting for America. Real Americans don’t matter, haven’t for years. It didn’t happen overnight but Americans are now slaves in their own country. We all know it but our slave masters are now the people telling us who to blame.'

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Growing Homelessness in America

In the world's richest country, the trend is shocking, disturbing and appalling. In its 2009 report on "Hunger and Homelessness in US Cities," the US Conference of Mayors stated:

"Hunger and homelessness (are) at record levels in US cities," citing an overall 26% demand increase over the past year and 19% more homelessness. Yet worsening conditions leave millions on their own and out of luck because Washington has other priorities excluding them.

"At a time of historic economic crisis, the issues of hunger and homelessness in America are more prevalent than ever." Cities are hard-pressed to handle them, and planned budget cuts and revenue shortfalls will strap them well into the future.'

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Israel's Nuclear Weapons Capabilities: Secret Report Reveals Weapons-grade Uranium Diversions from the U.S. to Israel

The 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is underway at UN Headquarters in New York. A working paper calls for a nuclear-free Middle East. It would require member states of the NPT to “disclose in their national reports on the implementation of the resolution on the Middle East all information available to them on the nature and scope of Israeli nuclear facilities and activities, including information pertaining to previous nuclear transfers to Israel.” On May 6, 2010, the Government Accountability Office (formerly known as the General Accounting Office) released the previously secret 1978 report “Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion” [.pdf]. It fills in important historic gaps about weapons-grade uranium diversions from the U.S. to Israel.

U.S. presidents have long acquiesced to “strategic ambiguity” – a policy of neither confirming nor denying that Israel even possesses nuclear weapons. This pretext has allowed the U.S. to deliver the lion’s share of its foreign assistance budget to Israel, despite clear legal prohibitions imposed by the Glenn and Symington amendments to the Foreign Assistance Act. UN member countries have long suspected that the United States either turns a blind eye or actively supports the transfer of know-how, weapons-grade uranium, and dual-use technology to Israel. The 62-page General Accounting Office investigation and correspondence confirms the United States refuses to mount credible investigations that would enable warranted prosecutions of the perpetrators.

“Nuclear Diversion in the U.S.? 13 Years of Contradiction and Confusion” investigates the period between 1957 and 1967 when the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) received over 22 tons of uranium-235 – the key material used to fabricate nuclear weapons. NUMEC’s founder and president Zalman M. Shapiro was head of a local Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) chapter and a sales agent for the Defense Ministry of Israel in the U.S. In the early 1960s the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) began documenting suspicious lapses in security at NUMEC’s plant at Apollo, Pa. In 1965 an AEC audit found NUMEC could no longer account for over 200 pounds of highly enriched uranium. Subsequent estimates spiraled to almost 600 pounds.

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Out of Iraq? Don't Hold Your Breath

President Obama will not get the United States out of Iraq in his first term. If he wins a second term, it is highly unlikely he will get us out of Iraq before he finally leaves office.

Print that out and tack it to your wall. Six years from now, it will still be hanging there, yellow and curled, but entirely correct. We're not going anywhere.

Yeah, yeah, I know, the word from the White House ever since Obama first began to campaign has been that we'll be out of Iraq by 2011. That was the promise, oft-repeated, and I'm here to tell you that it's a load of bull. Iraq is the 51st state, now and forever, so praise the Lord and pass the taxpayer-funded ammunition, amen.'

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CLIMATEGATE - Kerry/Lieberman Rebrand 'Cap and Trade' as 'American Power' and Hope You Won't Notice.

Today at 1:30 pm Eastern time Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) will host a press conference announcing the fifth Senate reinvention of "cap-and-trade" global warming legislation since 2003, the "American Power Act". Call it the American Power Grab Act, instead, for reasons that will become obvious momentarily.

The orchestrated spectacle, with a cast expected to be in the dozens which massive alignment of special interest groups is apparently supposed to persuade you of the justness of their cause, is in fact a manifestation of all that is wrong with Washington and what Americans have become increasingly enraged by.

At this press conference, Sens. Kerry and Lieberman have both already indicated, they will insist that their scheme isn't "cap-and-trade" because... they aren't going to use that term this time around. Kerry has even said that "this is not an environment bill." It seems that the public aren't buying that argument, either, so it's really about whatever appeals to you. Just not what it was about the previous four times they've tried to slip this Power Grab past you. Except that a summary of the bill makes plain it is, too, cap-and-trade. And worse. It includes billions of dollars each year in gas tax revenue to underwrite the wealth transfers these companies are so in favor of.'

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White House Aims to Use Deepwater Disaster to Win Votes for US Climate Bill

Senators are set to take a last run at producing a climate and energy law tomorrow, betting on the spectre of environmental disaster raised by the BP oil spill to build support for a comprehensive overhaul of America's energy strategy.

But despite a strong push from the Obama administration, there are concerns the debate about the energy future could be lost in the wrangling about offshore oil drilling permits.

The official roll-out by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman caps eight months of negotiations with political figures and industry executives aimed at getting broad support in Congress for shifting the economy away from coal and oil and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Climate legislation passed by the US Senate could unblock a major obstacle which prevented agreement on a binding global deal at last year's Copenhagen summit.'

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U.S. Food Prices ‘Spiraling Out of Control’

U.S. food prices jumped by 2.4% in March 2010 in the largest monthly leap in more than 26 years, and the sixth consecutive monthly increase.

The National Inflation Association (NIA) issued an alert to its members April 22 warning that the sharp upswing in U.S. food inflation will soon lead to a situation as severe as that currently plaguing India.'

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The Revenant: Brief Glimpses of Empire's Reality

Last week, the reappearance of a figure from the recent past briefly stirred the amnesiac fog that enfolds the brutal reality of the American empire. Former Panamanian ruler Manuel Noriega was taken from the American prison which has been his home for the past 21 years and flown to Paris, where he is to stand trial for decades-old drug-trafficking charges.

The extradition was itself illegal. Noriega, who was captured after the illegal American invasion of his country in 1989, was classed by the United States as a "prisoner of war." In fact, he is the only official POW in American hands today; the empire's innumerable Terror War captives have been denied this designation and its legal protections under the Geneva Conventions. But of course the United States long ago stopped paying even lip service to those "quaint" strictures, as the Noriega case once again demonstrates. Under the Geneva Conventions, POWs cannot be sent by their captors to a third country. But Washington wants to keep Noriega – a former CIA asset who left the rez and defied his imperial paymasters – under wraps, even though his U.S. sentence for drug charges has now been served. So off he went to France at the order of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – convention, and Conventions, be damned.'

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US Dividend Tax to Increase From 15% to 43.4%

As the big tax increase day of January 1, 2011 approaches, the Democrats running Congress are beginning to lay out their priorities. Get ready for bigger rate increases than previously advertised.

Last week the Senate Budget Committee passed a fiscal 2011 budget resolution that includes an increase in the top tax rate on dividends to 39.6% from the current 15%—a 164% increase. This blows past the 20% rate that President Obama proposed in his 2011 budget and which his economic advisers promised on these pages in 2008.'

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Hamas Official: US Seeks to Bribe Palestinian Authority

A Hamas official says the US seeks to "bribe" the Palestinian Authority (PA) into relinquishing a call for a complete freeze in Israeli settlement construction.

US Mideast Envoy George Mitchell only has the proposals that were given to him by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Ar-Rashiq added.

During his visit to the region, the US envoy held separate talks with Netanyahu and acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas.'

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Iran Rightfully Calls for America to be Suspended From IAEA

The leader of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has rightfully called on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to suspend America for constantly threatening to use nuclear weapons against his country and other states; and his bold stance could be a significant opportunity for the non-European world to stand up to western terrorism.'

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Pedophilia and Male Prostitutes in the White House: the Franklin Affair and Bush’s Jeff Gannon

Paedophilia is at the core of US government. Fully documented and called “The Franklin Affair,” the CIA ordered that a child prostitution ring involved with political “leadership” of both parties not to be investigated, despite damning evidence.

Most Americans are unaware that a gay male prostitute was allowed over 200 visits to the Bush White House between 2003 and 2005 with a “press pass” issued by White House leadership. According to Secret Service public records of check-in and check-out dates and times (here and here), most of the prostitute’s visits included several hours of time before and/or after press conferences, 32 times on days without press conferences, and 14 visits without checking-out in apparent overnight stays at the White House residence of Mr. Bush.

The prostitute, Jeff Gannon, had no previous experience as a journalist and no association with any media when he began attending White House press conferences. The 3-minute video from the new documentary Invisible Empire below shows pictures of Mr. Bush kissing, fondling and embracing Mr. Gannon. Despite this damning evidence of Mr. Bush engaged in prostitute sex during White House business hours on our tax money, Congress refused to investigate.

Let’s review both of these histories.'

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It’s Yours If You Want It (To Honor Tax Slavery Day)

How do 545 people—a president, 535 congressmen, and nine judges—control a nation of over 300 million people? Certainly not by physical force. Could 545 gangsters gain control of the country by suddenly announcing that they are the legitimate government deserving of your allegiance? Obviously not, because you would not choose to grant them power over you. This example shows that the source of federal power—not right, but power—is the people’s own “consent” to be governed. The American people hold the keys to their own jail cells between their ears and can leave the prison of tyranny any time a sufficient number of them choose to be free.'

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Hudspeth County Sheriff Tells Citizens to Arm Themselves

I just heard this and wanted to get the entire story before saying anything about it. Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County, the third largest county in Texas has told his citizens to arm themselves, that he can no longer provide protection for them against spillover violence in the border areas. I’m sure the sheriff did not take this lightly, the violence pouring over the Mexican/American border is rapidly getting beyond what local and state authorities can contain. The sheriff made the statement at a town hall meeting. Governor Rick Perry has already activated the Texas border violence spillover contingency plan, in which he requested federal aid.

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