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3/27/06 - 4/8/2006
Saturday 4/8/2006
US ambassador in Venezuela blocked from event, car pelted with eggs 4/8/2006 AFP: "Ambassador William Brownfield met with a hostile reception as he arrived at the sports center in the working-class suburb of Coche, south of the capital, to present a donation to a youth basedball team, embassy spokeswoman Salome Hernandez said.
An official who claimed to be from the Coche mayor's office told him he did not have permission to enter the building. After that incident and pressure from others who said they represented the city government, Brownfield was forced to leave."
US considers use of nuclear weapons against Iran 4/8/2006 AFP: "But the former senior intelligence official said the attention given to the nuclear option has created serious misgivings inside the military, and some officers have talked about resigning after an attempt to remove the nuclear option from the evolving war plans in Iran failed, according to the report.
"There are very strong sentiments within the military against brandishing nuclear weapons against other countries," the magazine quotes the Pentagon adviser as saying.
The adviser warned that bombing Iran could provoke "a chain reaction" of attacks on American facilities and citizens throughout the world and might also reignite Hezbollah.
"If we go, the southern half of Iraq will light up like a candle," the adviser is quoted as telling The New Yorker."
Global Warming Debate Suppressed 4/8/2006 Mother Jones
The Israel Lobby Redux - Colin Powell Disagrees With David Gergen’s Claim That There Is No Israel “Lobby” 4/8/2006 Selves & Others: "In his [Powell’s] own State Department there was a keen awareness of the strength of the Jewish lobbyists. Secretaries of State did not usually meet with lobbyists, but both Jewish officials and Jews that did not officially represent specific groups from Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League to Ronald Lauder, could meet with Powell on short notice.... At the State Department, Foxman had an aura of omnipotence. He was held responsible for the appointment of Indyk as Undersecretary of State under Clinton, and was thought to have played a role in the appointments of Secretaries of State Christopher and Albright. Powell related to Foxman almost as if he were someone to whom he must capitulate. Once Foxman told one of his deputies that Powell was the weak link. When the Secretary of State heard this he began to worry. He knew that in Washington a confrontation with the Jewish lobby would make his life difficult. Once he arranged a meeting with Foxman, but the busy Foxman postponed the meeting three times. When they eventually met, the head of the Anti-Defamation League apologized to the Secretary of State [for the postponements]. “You call, we come,” replied Powell, paraphrasing a well known advertisement for a freight company. That statement had much more meaning than just a humorous polite reply."
From Chavez’s Alleged Anti-Semitism to the Threat against Privileges 4/8/2006 Venezuela Analysis: "In other words, I know that it is a lie that the Jews killed Christ and that all of them are plutocrats, but the public does not know it and is the innocent victim of a perverse deception, more than Chavez who, as we all know is military ergo tyrant ergo Nazi ergo anti-Semitic ergo universally evil ergo we need to assassinate him and/or invade Venezuela. The discourse that is promoted by the CIA. There is something that perhaps explains this coincidence: On Jan 11, 2006, the Wiesenthal Center honored the media magnate Rupert Murdoch at the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Fox News anchor, Lauren Green, was master of ceremonies. Murdoch was presented with the “Humanitarian Laureate Award”.[7] Rotschild, Murdoch… It all makes sense.
The Confederation of Israeli Associations of Venezuela (CAIV) rejected that Chavez was anti-Semitic, as well as the Israeli government. The CAIV visited Chavez on Jan 31st and Freddy Pressner declared that “we did not come to resolve differences because there are no differences.” Attending on behalf of CAIV was its President, Freddy Pressner, and its Secretary General, David Bachenheimer, accompanied by the President in charge of the Caracas Israeli Union, Abraham Hammer; the presidents of the Venezuelan Israeli
Association, Salomon Cohen; from the Zionist Federation, Alberto Biernam; the official in charge of the Hebrew Brotherhood, Jorge Zelikovich and the person in charge of the Venezuelan Federation of Jewish Women, Ena Rotkopf. But our intellectuals are more Jewish than the Jews. How ridiculous! But the seed has already been sown through globalized disinformation. For Lionel Mesnard, this is not innocent coming on the eve of the VI World Social Forum in Caracas, Jan. 24- 29. Nor was the Wiesenthal Center’s appeal to Mercosur innocent, asking them to exclude Venezuela. Was it worth it? What values our intellectuals must lack for them stoop so low to do the dirtiest work of the media war."
Friday 4/7/2006
 The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney 4/7/2006 Counterpunch: "Journalists are reporting this story as though it were their job to "get" her, breathlessly revealing that the woman who receives more hate mail than Teddy Kennedy employs a part-time bodyguard, as though it proved something about her mental state.
But note, please, Rep. McKinney did not take back anything she has said about racial profiling in the nation's capitol. And the fact remains that, while each day's mail brings a new wave of personal threats, some of the people charged with protecting her affect not to recognize her. A Republican colleague offered the suggestion that she could announce "I am a Member of Congress" each time she passes a security checkpoint. But McKinney has served for eleven years, not eleven minutes."
Peru looks set to elect region's next populist 4/7/2006 CSM: "Many of those plans include renegotiating contracts and hiking taxes for foreign-owned oil and mining companies, just as Chávez and Morales are doing. Peru is the world's third largest copper producer and last year overtook Russia to become the fifth biggest gold miner.
Humala also wants to make changes to the free trade agreement with the US that Peru signed in December, and plans to establish protections against cheap imports from China, which, he says, are wrecking industry here.
But his positions on trade are not all that worry his detractors. His vows to clamp down on crime and corruption play well, but his admiration for Gen. Juan Velasco, the left-wing military dictator who ruled Peru with a heavy hand from 1968 to 1975 gives some voters pause. And his promise to end US-sponsored coca- eradication programs, much as Morales has begun to do in Bolivia alarms Washington, which has spent hundreds of millions of dollars combating narcotraffiking in Peru, the world's second-biggest coca-leaf provider.
Also, many voters here question various positions staked by family members who Humala has distanced himself from, but rarely denounced. Humala's father, Isaac, an ultranationalist who founded a movement based on the superiority of the Indian race over Spanish descendents, has called for the release of jailed leaders of Shining Path, the Maoist guerrilla group that terrorized Peru throughout the 1980s and '90s. His mother, Helena, has suggested that homosexuals be shot so "there is not so much immorality in the streets." Humala's younger brother Antauro is in jail for leading a failed military uprising against President Alejandro Toledo last year in which four policemen were killed.
So, what is the essence of Humala's appeal?He is, many will say simply, "one of us - an outsider." It's the ultimate compliment in a country where frustration with traditional politicians has made being an "insider" synonymous with elitism, antipathy, and even corruption."
U.S. Officials Are Mulling Iran Strikes, Experts Say 4/7/2006 Forward: "Several experts and former officials interviewed by the Forward pointed to Vice President Dick Cheney as one of the key figures who has concluded that the ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring Iran before the United Nations Security Council and eventually slap the Islamic regime with sanctions will come to naught, forcing Washington to resort to force to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons… "Up until recently, I dismissed talk of military strikes against Iran as posturing or left-wing conspiracy theories," said Joseph Cirincione, the director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment. "But I recently changed my mind after friends close to the White House and the Pentagon told me that some people in government have already decided the military option was the only one and there was active military planning."
Thursday 4/6/2006
Cynthia McKinney as role model by WILBERT A. TATUM
Publisher Emeritus and Chairman of the Board 4/6/2006 Amsterdam News: "And today it is Cynthia McKinney from Georgia. Tomorrow it will be Maxine Waters from California. The next day it will be everyone and everybody who committed the crime of the century, as Oscar Brown Jr. would have put it, ''the crime of being Black, hungry and poor.''
Who is to say what the Capitol Hill policeman did to Cynthia McKinney, who is a six-term member of Congress and one of the most respected politicians in the Black community. Maxine Waters, who is more articulate than Cynthia McKinney and a whole lot more street smart, would have taken her switch blade if she had one and cut that turkey in the White House to ribbons for coming close to touching her, bringing up images of a slave time in a slave state."
Dutch Islands Caught Up in US-Venezuela Friction 4/6/2006 AntiWar: "Dutch Defense Minister Henk Kamp recently remarked that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is a "fanatic populist who has his sights set on Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao" – Dutch islands located off the Venezuelan coast.
Chávez responded by calling Kamp "ridiculous" and describing him as a "pawn" of Washington, which he has repeatedly accused of carrying out an international smear campaign against the Venezuelan government."
Grand Jury to Hear McKinney Run-In Case 4/6/2006 AP
Drug Leniency for the Privileged - Draconian Sentences for Blacks and Latinos 4/6/2006 Black Commentator
A Lesson from the Holocaust for Us All By ROBERT FISK 4/6/2006 Counterpunch: "Even more devastating is Klemperer's critique of Zionism--which he does not ameliorate even after Hitler's Holocaust of the Jews of Europe begins. "To me," he writes in June of 1934, "the Zionists, who want to go back to the Jewish state of AD70 ... are just as offensive as the Nazis. With their nosing after blood, their ancient 'cultural roots', their partly canting, partly obtuse winding back of the world they are altogether a match for the National Socialists..."
Yet Klemperer's day-by-day account of the Holocaust, the cruelty of the local Dresden Gestapo, the suicide of Jews as they are ordered to join the transports east, his early knowledge of Auschwitz--Klemperer got word of this most infamous of extermination camps as early as March 1942, although he did not realise the scale of the mass murders there until the closing months of the war--fill one with rage that anyone could still deny the reality of the Jewish genocide.
Reading these diaries as the RER train takes me out to Charles de Gaulle airport--through the 1930s art deco architecture of Drancy station where French Jews were taken by their own police force before transportation to Auschwitz--I wish President Ahmadinejad of Iran could travel with me.
For Ahmadinejad it was who called the Jewish Holocaust a "myth", who ostentatiously called for a conference--in Tehran, of course--to find out the truth about the genocide of six million Jews, which any sane historian acknowledges to be one of the terrible realities of the 20th century, along, of course, with the Holocaust of one and a half million Armenians in 1915.
The best reply to Ahmadinejad's childish nonsense came from ex-president Khatami of Iran, the only honourable Middle East leader of our time, whose refusal to countenance violence by his own supporters inevitably and sadly led to the demise of his "civil society" at the hands of more ruthless clerical opponents. "The death of even one Jew is a crime," Khatami said, thus destroying in one sentence the lie that his successor was trying to propagate."
Racial Profiling from the Halls of Congress to the Studios of MSNBC - The Assault on Cynthia McKinney - By REMI KANAZI 4/6/2006 Counterpunch: Remi Kanazi is the primary writer for the political website www.PoeticInjustice.net He lives in New York City as a Palestinian American freelance writer, poet and performer. - "It didn't concern Scarborough that a class action lawsuit has been filed by black Capitol Hill police officers against the United States Capitol Police department or that McKinney has been targeted by the brave protectors on Capitol Hill in the past. Race just isn't an issue in America anymore-we all learned that after Hurricane Katrina. Apparently it wasn't enough to bash McKinney alone, so Scarborough brought on founding editor of Wonkette, Ana Marie Cox (the quintessential apologist democrat). Cox echoed Scarborough's assertions and added, "I worry [as a democrat] that she [McKinney] makes us all look a little crazy." Cox need not worry, incompetence and feebleness trumps craziness, and the democrats have enough to go around."
A BLOW FOR US ALL - McKinney strikes back 4/6/2006 Greg Palast: "When McKinney landed her response, she landed it for Duane - and for Rosa Parks who was arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger; for the Black folk stopped by the cops when trying to flee flooded New Orleans into the safety of the white Metairie; for Willie Steen, a Black man in Florida stopped from voting because he looked like a "potential felon". And she landed one for me and for you, for all of us of all races afflicted with the racism that remains in the DNA of the body politic.
So here's to you, Cynthia, our champ, still undefeated."
The Road to 9/11: Chapter 8: Al Qaeda and the U.S. Establishment 4/6/2006 Peter Dale Scott: 'In one former Soviet Republic, Azerbaijan, Arab Afghan jihadis clearly assisted this effort of U.S. oil companies to penetrate the region. In 1991, Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, and Ed Dearborn, three veterans of U.S. operations in Laos, and later of Oliver North’s operations with the Contras, turned up in Baku under the cover of an oil company, MEGA Oil.[15] This was at a time when the first Bush administration had expressed its support for an oil pipeline stretching from Azerbaijan across the Caucasus to Turkey.[16] MEGA never did find oil, but did contribute materially to the removal of Azerbaijan from the sphere of post-Soviet Russian influence.
Secord, Aderholt, and Dearborn were all career U.S. Air Force officers, not CIA. However Secord explains in his memoir how Aderholt and himself were occasionally seconded to the CIA as CIA detailees. Secord describes his own service as a CIA detailee with Air America in first Vietnam and then Laos, in cooperation with the CIA Station Chief Theodore Shackley.[17] Secord later worked with Oliver North to supply arms and materiel to the Contras in Honduras, and also developed a small air force for them, using many former Air America pilots.[18] Because of this experience in air operations, CIA Director Casey and Oliver North had selected Secord to trouble-shoot the deliveries of weapons to Iran in the Iran-Contra operation.[19] (Aderholt and Dearborn also served in the Laotian CIA operation, and later in supporting the Contras.)
As MEGA operatives in Azerbaijan, Secord, Aderholt, Dearborn, and their men engaged in military training, passed “brown bags filled with cash” to members of the government, and above all set up an airline on the model of Air America which soon was picking up hundreds of mujahedin mercenaries in Afghanistan.[20] (Secord and Aderholt claim to have left Azerbaijan before the mujahedin arrived.) Meanwhile, Hekmatyar, who at the time was still allied with bin Laden, was “observed recruiting Afghan mercenaries [i.e. Arab Afghans] to fight in Azerbaijan against Armenia and its Russian allies.”[21] At this time, heroin flooded from Afghanistan through Baku into Chechnya, Russia, and even North America.[22] It is difficult to believe that MEGA’s airline (so much like Air America) did not become involved.[23]"
How American Elections Became a Criminal Enterprise by Michelle Mairesse - Part One 4/6/2006 The New Enlightenment: focuses on 2000
How American Elections Became a Criminal Enterprise by Michelle Mairesse - Part Two 4/6/2006 The New Enlightenment: focuses on 2004, has a link to Black Voter Network.
Israeli lobby and U.S. foreign policy 4/6/2006 Tribune Media Services
Zulia secessionists' espionage support from within the US Caracas embassy 4/6/2006 Vheadlines: "However, while the Bush administration and its Dutch lackeys charge Chavez with having territorial designs on the ABC islands, the military-industrial oligarchy in Washington and Houston may be fomenting a separatist movement in western Venezuela's oil-rich Zulia state."
Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House 4/6/2006 Washington Post
Documentary makers decry Smithsonian deal 4/6/2006 Washington Post: "Two well-known American documentary filmmakers have come out against a recent agreement between the Smithsonian Institution and Showtime Networks Inc.
The New York Times reports Ken Burns, who directed The Civil War, Jazz and Baseball documentary series, called the deal "terrifying." Burns said the agreement means he would have been prohibited from making some of his documentaries that rely on archival material from the institution.
The agreement, cemented in early March, restricts film and television shows which are using Smithsonian materials from offering their work to public television or other non-Showtime broadcast outlets, unless they first offer it to Smithsonian on Demand, the institute's new broadcast outlet, or Showtime.
Burns told the newspaper the Smithsonian has "essentially optioned America's attic to one company."
Filmmaker Laurie Kahn-Leavitt said she had been told that her film Tupperware! - a historical recreation of the rise of the food-storage containers - would have fallen under the deal. The documentary was shown on PBS.
Kahn-Leavitt said a public archive should not be used on "an exclusive basis to anyone," reported the New York Times."
Immigration Debate Wakes A 'Sleeping Latino Giant' 4/6/2006 Washington Post: "Organizers are eager to draw other immigrant groups, including Asians and Africans, into Monday's protest. But it is the involvement of so many previously apolitical elements of the Latino community that might prove a watershed in the political and cultural evolution of Hispanics, whose influence has lagged behind their growth into the nation's largest minority.
The mobilization has drawn into the political mainstream the organizations that have sustained daily life in the Latino community -- churches, Spanish-language radio and social groups.
"I'm not sure anybody totally understands this phenomenon. . . . But we are happily stunned," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy at the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights organization based in Washington. "We're all very aware that this is history in the making, and the country will be transformed by it."
The protests will come as Congress begins a two-week recess. The Senate made progress yesterday in resolving differences that have stalled immigration change legislation, but a vote to cut off debate today seemed destined to fail, probably dooming the chance for a final vote before tomorrow's recess.
With the legislation in play, organizers of Monday's demonstrations can sustain the urgency of their appeal for support.
According to a count maintained by the New American Opportunity Campaign, a coalition of national groups based in Washington, there have been more than 30 pro-immigration rallies across the country this year with at least 1,000 participants -- and often the number was far higher.
The movement has attracted informal immigrant social groups -- including at least 10 in the Washington area -- whose previous focus has been exclusively on raising money for charitable projects back in Central America.
Thousands of Hispanic youths, coordinating their actions by text-messaging on cellphones, have staged walkouts at high schools across the country, including several in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs.
Many Latinos say they were first spurred to action by a House bill passed in December that would make it a felony to be in the country illegally or to provide assistance to illegal immigrants."
Wednesday 4/5/2006
Supporters surround Rep. Cynthia McKinney after incident with Capitol Police 4/5/2006 SF Bay View
Venezuela Takes Over Two Foreign Operated Oil Fields 4/5/2006 Venezuela Analysis
Tuesday 4/4/2006
Harvard Takes On the Israel Lobby 4/4/2006 Alternet
Why the US May Be Acting Against Its Own Interests in the Middle East - The Israel Lobby and Beyond 4/4/2006 Counterpunch
DeLay implicated in Florida gangland hit of casino boats owner 4/4/2006 Wayne Madsen: scroll down to April 4, 2006 - "WMR sources report that Broward County prosecutors are livid about the failure of the FBI to inform them that Moscatiello was an FBI informant at the time of the Boulis murder. They are convinced that the George W. and Jeb Bush administrations in Washington and Tallahassee, respectively, deliberately blocked the prosecution from linking Moscatiello to the criminal cases against Abramoff and Kidan. Kidan placed Moscatiello and Ferrari on the Sun Cruz payroll after Abramoff assumed control of the company. Abramoff and Kidan were sentenced to over 5 years in prison last week for lying to financers in their purchase of Sun Cruz from Boulis. The light sentences were the result of plea agreements in which they prmised to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
However, the Sun Cruz case goes far beyond Abramoff and involves DeLay, according to informed sources. The Broward County prosecutors believe that the FBI's written summaries (FD-302s) of their interviews with Moscatiello were withheld from the prosecution by the FBI in order to protect senior GOP officials. Had the prosecution known Moscatiello was an FBI informer, he could have been offered a plea bargain in return for his cooperation against Republican politicians in Florida and Washington, DC."
Sunday 4/2/2006
1491 4/2/2006 Atltantic Monthly: published 3/02 - "A few years ago it occurred to me that my ancestor and everyone else in the colony had voluntarily enlisted
in a venture that brought them to New England without food or shelter six weeks before winter. Half the 102
people on the Mayflower made it through to spring, which to me was amazing. How, I wondered, did they
survive?
The Atlantic Monthly, March 2002 1491 by Charles Mann Page 3 of 15
In his history of Plymouth Colony, Bradford provided the answer: by robbing Indian houses and graves. The
Mayflower first hove to at Cape Cod. An armed company staggered out. Eventually it found a recently
deserted Indian settlement. The newcomers—hungry, cold, sick—dug up graves and ransacked houses,
looking for underground stashes of corn. "And sure it was God's good providence that we found this corn,"
Bradford wrote, "for else we know not how we should have done." (He felt uneasy about the thievery,
though.) When the colonists came to Plymouth, a month later, they set up shop in another deserted Indian
village. All through the coastal forest the Indians had "died on heapes, as they lay in their houses," the
English trader Thomas Morton noted. "And the bones and skulls upon the severall places of their habitations
made such a spectacle" that to Morton the Massachusetts woods seemed to be "a new found Golgotha"—the
hill of executions in Roman Jerusalem.
To the Pilgrims' astonishment, one of the corpses they exhumed on Cape Cod had blond hair. A French ship
had been wrecked there several years earlier. The Patuxet Indians imprisoned a few survivors. One of them
supposedly learned enough of the local language to inform his captors that God would destroy them for their
misdeeds. The Patuxet scoffed at the threat. But the Europeans carried a disease, and they bequeathed it to
their jailers. The epidemic (probably of viral hepatitis, according to a study by Arthur E. Spiess, an
archaeologist at the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, and Bruce D. Spiess, the director of clinical
research at the Medical College of Virginia) took years to exhaust itself and may have killed 90 percent of
the people in coastal New England. It made a huge difference to American history. "The good hand of God
favored our beginnings," Bradford mused, by "sweeping away great multitudes of the natives ... that he
might make room for us."
By the time my ancestor set sail on the Mayflower , Europeans had been visiting New England for more than
a hundred years. English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese mariners regularly plied the coastline,
trading what they could, occasionally kidnapping the inhabitants for slaves. New England, the Europeans
saw, was thickly settled and well defended. In 1605 and 1606 Samuel de Champlain visited Cape Cod,
hoping to establish a French base. He abandoned the idea. Too many people already lived there. A year later
Sir Ferdinando Gorges—British despite his name—tried to establish an English community in southern
Maine. It had more founders than Plymouth and seems to have been better organized. Confronted by
numerous well-armed local Indians, the settlers abandoned the project within months. The Indians at
Plymouth would surely have been an equal obstacle to my ancestor and his ramshackle expedition had
disease not intervened."
Iran: High-speed underwater missile test-fired 4/2/2006 CNN: "The Iranian-made underwater missile has a speed of 223 miles per hour, said Gen. Ali Fadavi, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guards' Navy.
That would make it about three or four times faster than a torpedo and as fast as the world's fastest known underwater missile, the Russian-made VA-111 Shkval, developed in 1995. It was not immediately known if the Iranian missile, which has not yet been named, was based on the Shkval."
Editor hits back over Israel row 4/2/2006 Guardian: "Wilmers believes, too, that the most angry denunciations of anti-Semitism - while designed to serve the purpose of censorship by those attempting to forestall criticism of Israel - may actually encourage anti-Semitism in the long run.
'It serves a purpose. No one wants to be thought of as anti-Semitic because it is thought of as worse than anything else, although it is not worse being anti-Semitic than being anti-black or Islamophobic.
'Really, one of the most upsetting things is the way it can contribute to anti-Semitism in the long run just by making so many constant appeals and preventing useful criticism of Israel. No one can say Israel's posture does not contribute to anti-Semitism, yet charges of anti-Semitism are used to justify that policy.'"
Why are Jews so powerful? 4/2/2006 The News, Pakistan: "William James Sidis, with an IQ of 250-300, is the brightest human who ever existed. Guess what faith did he belong to?
So, why are Jews so powerful? Answer: Education."
Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism - U.S. Experts Wary of Military Action Over Nuclear Program 4/2/2006 Washington Post
Saturday 4/1/2006
1965 Voting Rights Provisions to Expire 4/1/2006 AP: "It also has generated rumors, mostly on the Internet, that black Americans will lose the right to vote en masse next year. The rumors have prompted officials at the U.S. Justice Department to post a notice on their Web site.
"It's important for folks to know that the right to vote — even if those sections expire — will not expire," said Justice Department spokesman Eric W. Holland.
The provisions — last renewed by Congress in 1982 for 25 years — cover a wide range of protections. They allow the government to approve new voting procedures in areas with histories of discrimination and send election monitors to make sure voters are allowed to cast ballots and their votes are counted. The provisions also send officials to register voters in counties where blacks are refused registration.
"It's a myth that we stand to lose the right to vote, but we do stand to lose critical protections that have allowed us to participate fully in the political process," said Debo Adegbile, associate director of litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "We've seen consistently, even with the provisions in place, continuing efforts to weaken minority voices in the electoral process.""
McKinney Says Police Officer Touched Her 'Inappropriately' 4/1/2006 AP
Wiseguy defendant doubled as FBI snitch - The star defendant in the murder of Konstantinos 'Gus' Boulis had secretly been playing both sides of the law. 4/1/2006 Miami Herald: "In the Boulis case, Moscatiello, 67, is not the only defendant, but he is by far the most infamous. The other two charged in the case -- mob wannabes Anthony ''Little Tony'' Ferrari and James ''Pudgy'' Fiorillo -- don't come with the Gotti glitter.
What's more, Moscatiello is pals with Adam Kidan.
Moscatiello advised him on his Long Island bagel chain long before Kidan teamed up with powerful Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff to buy SunCruz in 2000.
Soon after the deal, Boulis was shot dead in his BMW on a Fort Lauderdale street as he was leaving his office in February 2001. Ferrari, Fiorillo and Moscatiello were arrested Sept. 26, 2005 -- more than four years after Boulis' death.
The three men pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and other charges.
Neither Kidan nor Abramoff has been charged in connection with his murder.
Moscatiello claimed that Ferrari told him it was Kidan who ordered the hit on Boulis. Kidan, who once had Moscatiello and Ferrari on SunCruz's payroll, had been publicly feuding with Boulis after the sale of his gambling-ship empire."
America's war on the web 4/1/2006 Scotland Sunday Herald
Friday 3/31/2006
The Lobby Strikes Back - Harvard study of Israeli lobby's influence costs the dean of the Kennedy School his job 3/31/2006 AntiWar
Lawyer Says McKinney a Victim in Scuffle 3/31/2006 AP
An Act of State - The Execution of Martin Luther King 3/31/2006 Counterpunch: review of Pepper's book by his investigator.
Will the Real Daniel Ellsberg Please Stand Up! The Clash of the Icons by Douglas Valentine 3/31/2006 Counterpunch: published 3/03 - "Today only questions remain. Why did Conein meet the Corsicans in 1965? Was the rumor of an assassination attempt on Ellsberg concocted to provide Conein with a plausible cover story for his "truce" with the drug smuggling Corsicans? If so, why does Ellsberg deny that his CIA comrades, Lansdale, Conein and Scotton, were involved in drug smuggling, as McCoy contends? And, finally, was McCoy deliberately led by Conein in a wide circle around the CIA's unilateral drug smuggling operation?
Unless these questions are resolved, the truth about Watergate and the Pentagon Papers will continue to elude historians, and this quiet discrepancy will serve, like the TV movie based on Ellsberg's autobiography, only to perpetuate the myths, mysteries, and half-truths that define American history--a history that hauntingly reflects standard CIA operating procedures."
The Strength of the Wolf 3/31/2006 Douglas Valentine: ""This fascinating and engrossing account of early US efforts to control the illegal drug trade is also much more. Valentine deeply examines the practices of the CIA, carefully and skillfully making a connection between it and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). The book exposes the close relationship between organized crime and those in intelligence. From the Cold War to the 1960s, FBN director Harry Anslinger, in a desperate bid to outflank the FBI, entered into a "suicidal" relationship with the CIA. In 1962, the FBN began "its descent into knave spookery and internecine warfare."
"Valentine also smartly examines the CIA's role in using drugs as a weapon to turn foreign agents and supply funds to anti-communist organizations. His account of MKULTRA--the CIA experiment with LSD--is fascinating and nicely documented. Exploring the deep politics defined by Peter Dale Scott (Deep Politics and the Death of JFK, CH, Mar. '94), Valentine deftly plumbs the hidden roots of the early war on narcotics and proves that foreign policy considerations always trumped public health." "
US professors accused of being liars and bigots over essay on pro-Israeli lobby 3/31/2006 Guardian: ""The University of Chicago and Harvard University have behaved admirably in difficult circumstances. We have had the full support of our respective institutions," Prof Mearsheimer said."
Student Protests Echo the '60s, but With a High-Tech Buzz 3/31/2006 LA Times: "Using modern technology — mostly their communal pages on the enormously popular MySpace website — they pulled off an event with surprising speed and dexterity. Planned in mere hours on little sleep, lacking any formal organization, the protests were chaotic and decentralized and organic.
They were also a reminder that there are more than 35 million Latinos in the United States, about 40% of them in California. At least 8 million are in the country illegally. But many of their children — including many of the student leaders — are citizens by birth. And they represent a voting bloc that could help shape the politics of the West for years to come."
McKinney Faces Arrest for Scuffle 3/31/2006 News 11
THE WAR DRUMS ARE GETTING LOUDER AND SENDING A CLEAR MESSAGE 3/31/2006 Uruknet: "On March 28, the Virginia Pilot of Norfolk, VA (that's where the biggest US naval force is based and where I once lived for a year) reported that the US Navy is sending an aircraft carrier strike group composed of four ships and 60 aircraft to Caribbean and South American waters for a "major" training exercise. All four ships are capable of launching cruise missiles that might and could be armed with nuclear warheads. By my reckoning, that's a provocative and hostile act.
Now combine that with the growing hostile rhetoric coming out of Washington directed at Hugo Chavez. I wrote in a previous article that Latin American expert James Petras wrote (now some months ago) that the US has a strategy to overthrow President Chavez by military force and at the same time destroy the Cuban revolution in a "two step" process - "first overthrow the Chavez government in Venezuela, cut off the energy supply and trade links (to Cuba) and then proceed toward economic strangulation and military attack." He also believed then the US would employ a "triangular strategy" to overthrow Chavez - "a military invasion from Colombia, US intervention (by air and sea attacks plus special forces to assassinate key officials) and an internal uprising by infiltrated terrorists and military traitors, supported by key media, financial and petrol elites.""
Cynthia McKinney 3/31/2006 Wayne Madsen: scroll down to one of the March 31, 2006 - "For all those on the right-wing and the neo-con press like the fatally-flawed neo-con Atlanta Journal-Constitution who are reporting that Georgia Democratic Representative Cynthia McKinney will be arrested next week for an altercation with a Capitol Hill cop, unless the US Constitution has been suspended, McKinney cannot be arrested. The immunity clause -- Article 1, Section 6, of the U.S. Constitution -- protects members of Congress from harassment by law enforcement as they travel to and from Congress in the conduct of the business of either legislative chamber. Although the language is arcane, it appears the Capitol Hill cop was the first to breach the peace as a result of his incompetence in failing to properly identify a member of Congress. Most of these cops just stand around all day, the least they can do is study the provided photographs and learn the names of the members. Every lobbyist and journalist worth a salt in Washington is capable of no less. Hey, main stream media, for once, could you please get it right?"
More on African American NSA analyst Ken Ford and his crooked trial 3/31/2006 Wayne Madsen: scroll down to one of the March 31, 2006 - "In yesterday's sentencing hearing for former NSA analyst Ken Ford, Federal Judge Peter Messitte mentioned the defense's contention that the classified NSA documents Ford was accused of removing from NSA had been planted in Ford's home. Messitte also stated, "no one knows how he [Ford] ended up with these documents." Messitte also referred to Florida resident Tonya Tucker [one of many aliases], the government's confidential informant who initiated the sting against Ford, a "curious figure." Yet, even with such doubts about the case against Ford, Messitte sentenced Ford to six years in prison. In fact, the prosecution engaged in gross and illegal misconduct for the duration of the trial and pre-trial. The prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney David Salem, relied on false affidavits, perjured testimony, and a tainted jury -- complete with a government plant who did not identify himself as a former employee of NSA contractor Northrop Grumman, and coached witnesses to get his conviction against Ford, the only U.S. intelligence employee who has been jailed as a result of his expressed doubts about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Ford prepared a May 2003 NSA signals intelligence report, based on intercepts of Iraqi communications and interviews with NSA counter-proliferation specialists, that disproved the Bush administration's theory about Iraqi WMDs. That report eventually ended up in Vice President Dick Cheney's office. The same type of retaliatory "work up" used on Ambassador Joe Wilson and his covert CIA wife was launched against Ford. However, as a young GS-9 and African American, Ford was much more vulnerable to being set up in a criminal sting than the more savvy and experienced members of the US Intelligence Community."
Thursday 3/30/2006
Iraq leader warns U.S. to stop interfering 3/30/2006 IHT: "In the face of growing pressure from the Bush administration for him to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq on Wednesday vigorously asserted his right to stay in office and warned the Americans against undue interference in Iraq's political process.
Jaafari also defended his recent political alliance with the radical anti- American Shiite cleric Moktada al- Sadr, now the prime minister's most powerful backer, saying in an interview that Sadr and his thousands-strong militia were a fact of life in Iraq and needed to be accepted into mainstream politics."
Exposé on Jewish role in US policy is disowned 3/30/2006 Times, London
Wednesday 3/29/2006
Colombia: New York Chapter Issues Call for Support 3/29/2006 Colombia Support Network
Israeli Elections: What Happened? by Uri Avnery 3/29/2006 Global Research: "AT THE beginning of the campaign I wrote that the whole of the political system was moving to the left.
Many thought that that was wishful thinking, sadly removed from reality. Now it has actually happened.
The main result of these elections is that the hold of the nationalistic-religious bloc, which has dominated Israel for more than a generation, has been broken. All those who announced that the Left is dead and that Israel is condemned to right-wing rule for a long, long time have been proved wrong.
All the right-wing parties together won 32* seats, the religious parties 19. With 51 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, the rightist-religious wing cannot block all moves towards peace any more.
This is a turning point. The dream of a Greater Israel, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, is dead."
After criticizing Bush, Harry Belafonte says he was disinvited from delivering eulogy at the Coretta Scott King funeral 3/29/2006 SF Bay View: "Harry Belafonte: It is in culture that I think we come to know one another. And we are in countries murdering, killing, destroying people, and we have never heard their song. And perhaps if we had and perhaps if we would listen to their song, we might find that we are not capable of sending off our sons and daughters to murder (them).
It's a great place to be, in the arts. It's a gift that's very hard to define. So many great practitioners of art have already said so much, but there is a spirit in it. There is an essence in it, that if it's applied to the human heart, if it's applied to inspire people to trust, I think the rewards from it are forever.
One of the things that was a mechanism and a device used to cruelly punish artists who would speak out was to cut them off from their livelihood. They did it to Paul Robeson. They wouldn't give him a passport. Carnegie Hall wouldn't hire him or give - or rent him the hall.
Many of the places that he had sung, where people loved him, were closed to him for a long period of time. But when that case was fought and won in the courts, he was nourished again, because everybody in the world were waiting for him.
And what has permitted me to sustain my own life in the midst of so much cruelty and degradation - I've lost a lot from those who control culture, those who will not let my song be in the environment of their sponsorship - just my remarks on President Bush, that he's a terrorist, I lost a lot of work, even in universities, not even singing, just fraternities and students that have invited me to come to speak.
Many of those doors in those universities were closed to me, because those who sit on the board and the board of trustees said we are displeased with what he said. "He'll have no place in this institution. And if he does, you'll no longer have our support." So the president and the dean become frightened and become concerned. And it's easier to let go than it is to stand against the oppressor. "
Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy!
Anyone still care about the heap of disturbing, unsolved questions surrounding Our Great Tragedy? 3/29/2006 SF Chronicle
Venezuela Refuses to Extradite Man Wanted in the US for Drug Trafficking 3/29/2006 Venezuela Analysis: "In a move likely further increase friction in the already tense relations between Venezuela and the US, Venezuela released Mateo Holguin Ovalle, a Dominican wanted by the US for drug trafficking.
The decision was based on a Venezuelan law which requires extradition for those wanted for organized crime, except in cases where the receiving country does not guarantee not to apply the death penalty, life imprisonment, or a sentence that exceeds 30 years, according to a release by Supreme Court Judge Héctor Coronado Flores.
The move comes exactly a week after Venezuela’s embassy in the US put out a strongly worded statement asking the US to either extradite or prosecute Posada Carriles, an anti-Castro terrorism suspect. Previously, a US judge had ruled that Carriles could not be extradited to Venezuela, on the grounds that he may be tortured here."
Tuesday 3/28/2006
Divine Destruction: Dominion Theology and American Environmental Policy 3/28/2006 Buzzflash: "But, as "Divine Destruction" explains, a key underpinning of the Bush anti-environmental policy is based on extremist religious thinking. This includes the "Dominionists" who claim Biblical justification for the outlook that God gave the earth to men and women to use for their comfort and wealth. In fact, many "Dominionists" regard conservationists as unholy "pantheists" who make the mistake of seeing God in nature.
As an adjunct to the "Dominionist" movement (and we are simplifying this complex fanatical religious overview here for the sake of brevity), many hardcore right wing fundamentalist supporters of Bush believe in the "End Time" theory that Jesus will return to earth and lead the true Christian believers to heaven. The despoiling of the earth (and a world torn apart by war) isn't really anything to be concerned about because the world is nearing "Rapture" (the return of Christ) anyway."
Ten Lessons from the Criminalization of Dissent 3/28/2006 Earth First!
The Israel Lobby? 3/28/2006 Znet: "Another problem that M-W do not address is the role of the energy corporations. They are hardly marginal in US political life -- transparently in the Bush administration, but in fact always. How can they be so impotent in the face of the Lobby? As ME scholar Stephen Zunes has rightly pointed out, "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races.""
Monday 3/27/2006
The Anti-Minutemen Five - Think Twice Before You Oppose the Minutemen 3/27/2006 Counterpunch
Will Lawrence Summers Take Action? Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist? 3/27/2006 Counterpunch: [published 9/03, describes the sins that Dershowitz is now blaming on Walt/Mearsheimer and their Israel Lobby paper.]
New City-sized Iceberg Created Near Antarctica 3/27/2006 Live Science: "The iceberg is about 8 miles wide and 15 miles long. It broke free of the Fimbul Ice Shelf, a large glacial ice sheet along the northwestern section of Queen Maud Land, in the eastern Weddell Sea near Antarctica."
Students Rally On Streets, Downtown Freeways
Mayor Meets With Students To Discuss Immigration Bill 3/27/2006 NBC4, LA: "The Senate Judiciary Committee approved election-year immigration legislation Monday that clears the way for millions of undocumented workers to seek U.S. citizenship without having to first leave the country.
After days of street demonstrations that stretched from California to the gounds of the U.S. Capitol, the committee also voted to strip out proposed criminal penalties for residents found to be in this country illegally.
The panel's vote cleared the way for the full Senate to begin debate Tuesday on the emotional immigration issue.
"All Americans wanted fairness and they got it this evening," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who played a pivotal role in drafting the legislation, approved 12-6."
To the Streets! Hispanic Media at the Forefront of Protest March 3/27/2006 Pacific News
Security Council presidential statement commends Haiti on elections, says opportunity exists to break with violence, instability of past 3/27/2006 UN: "IMERIA NÚÑEZ DE ODREMÁN ( Venezuela) reiterated her wish that the will of the Haitian people would be fully respected, so that they and the Government would be able to consolidate a democratic system, whose ultimate objective should be ensuring the well-being of the country and its people. That would require the unwavering support of the international community. In that context, President Hugo Chavez made public his view, expressed to President Préval, that Haiti be incorporated in the energy cooperation processes under the Petrocaribe agreement. That would make it possible for Haiti to finance 50 per cent of its oil purchases for the next 25 years. She welcomed CARICOM’s decision to readmit Haiti and to provide support to it. She added that, within the OAS, Venezuela had raised the possibility of reactivating the Group of Friends of Haiti, and had referred to the need to channel the financial support that was currently being held in multilateral banks."
Nigeria`s interests worry U.S. 3/27/2006 UPI: "A recent report published by the National Intelligence Council, a U.S. government think tank, said Nigeria`s collapse is the most serious risk Africa faces today.
'While currently Nigeria`s leaders are locked in a bad marriage that all dislike but dare not leave, there are possibilities that could disrupt the precarious equilibrium in Abuja (the capital),' the report said. 'If Nigeria were to become a failed state, it could drag down a large part of the West African region.'"
"There
is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and
security to all, but especially to Democracies as against despots:
suspicion." -- Demosthenes
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