Late last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons program. FULL ARTICLE=>

A Victory for Health -- FDA Forced to Admit That Mercury Fillings are Hazardous

Mercola.com

June 26, 2008

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally admitted that metal dental fillings containing mercury can cause health problems in pregnant women, children and fetuses. As part of the settlement of a lawsuit filed by several consumer advocacy groups, the FDA agreed to alert consumers about the potential risks on its Web site and to issue a more specific rule next year for fillings that contain mercury. FULL ARTICLE=>

Jun 28-29

Video: War Camp Kids Chant 'Ooh, aah, ooh, aah, I Want to Kill Somebody'

Climbing ropes and crawling in the mud under barbed wire, dozens of American high school kids at an unusual summer camp vied to see who could get most dirty as they tackled an Army obstacle course. FULL STORY=>

Ex-Mossad Agent Stirs the Iran War Soup Plot --- Could it Be he Needs Work?

A former head of Mossad has warned that Israel has 12 months in which to destroy Iran's nuclear programme or risk coming under nuclear attack itself. He also hinted that Israel might have to act sooner if Barack Obama wins the US presidential election. FULL ARTICLE=>

Barclays Warns of a Financial Storm as Federal Reserve's Credibility Crumbles

Barclays Capital has advised clients to batten down the hatches for a worldwide financial storm, warning that the US Federal Reserve has allowed the inflation genie out of the bottle and let its credibility fall "below zero". FULL ARTICLE=>

OPEC Leader Khelil Says Dollar Will Drive Oil to $170

PEC President Chakib Khelil predicted that the price of oil will climb to $170 a barrel before the end of the year, citing the dollar's decline and political conflicts. ``Oil prices are expected to reach $170 as demand for fuel is growing in the U.S. during the summer period and the dollar continues to weaken against the euro,'' Khelil said today in a telephone interview. The leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries also serves as Algeria's oil minister. FULL ARTICLE=>

Iran and Nuclear Consequences

When an Israeli cabinet minister said he thought an attack on Iran's nuclear sites was unavoidable, the price of a barrel of oil rose 9 percent to a new record in June. Nice, fat bonus for oil-producing countries, including Iran. FULL ARTICLE=>

LC Editor’s Comments: The magnitude of decrease in the dollar index (that is, inflation) over the past half-year cannot account for the huge increase in the price of crude oil ---and the price of gasoline--- in that time frame. However, speculation and the flooding of the mainstream news with articles strongly suggesting that Israel or the U.S. or both will bomb Iran’s nuclear research facilities in not all of Iran within the next few months certainly has that capability.

On the basis of reports coming out of the recent Bilderberger conference in Virginia, in which over 90 percent the European members of that international elitist decision making group stated emphatically that Iran must not be attacked, your commentator believes that unless George and Dick want to find themselves pushing up petunias they will steer clear of bombing that nation.

It’s not that the Bilderberger folks are nice people but rather their attempts to manipulate credit and money markets for the purpose of crashing the U.S. have gotten out of control. Many of these smart guys are themselves taking a licking financially, so much so they do not want to divert their attentions to messing around with a war with Iran.

Of course, many of them --- including representatives from the U.S., Israel and even Iran --- have their fortunes tied to the price of crude oil and its derivatives. So the ramping of stories coming out of the media on the possibility of imminent attacks of Iran has nicely feathered the pockets of these elites because it has been instrument in driving up the price of crude --- even crude sold by Iran! How about that?

Supremes Shoot Down D.C. Gun Ban Law

A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Constitution protects an individual's right to bear arms, while leaving room for governments to regulate gun ownership. FULL ARTICLE=>

Iran War Resolution - H. Con. Res. 362

LC Editor’s Comments: This is the so-called Iran War Resolution, termed war resolution by critics because it urges the president to take actions against Iran that (1) Mr. Bush may try to expand into a naval blockade of Iran, which would constitute an act of war under international law and (2) chokes Iran economically, just as did Franklin D. Roosevelt's actions choke Japan economically in 1940-41. FDR’s objective was to goad Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 in retaliation for his behavior.

Ostensibly the purpose of the Iran War Resolution is to bring Iran’s commerce to a halt for the purpose of causing enough economic pain to make that nation shut down its nuclear research program. Israel’s Olmert and the U.S.’s Bush claim without substantiation that the purpose of this program is produce nuclear weapons.

However, past behavior of the Bush administration has shown the world that the White House has a propensity for grossly exceeding any restrictions placed upon it. This could mean the Bush administration’s going well beyond the recommendations of this resolution for the purpose of egregiously damaging Iran’s economy and severely endangering the lives and health of it people.

The obvious purpose of the administration in doing so would be to goad Iran into attacking Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East and even imitating a war of terror in the U.S. homeland. The administration would use this response by Iran to justify a massive bombing attack on Iran, which is what it has wanted to do all along in support of Israel.

Please read the assertions line by line made in this resolution and write to me telling me which assertion you believe are backed up by hard evidence and which assertions are not outright lies or guesses or do not represent gross distortion of the fact or are based on so-called evidence provided by informants who have already been discredited by the U.S. intelligence community!

The fingerprints of the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) are all over this resolution, and all evidence suggests it has been (figuratively) strong-arming the members of Congress to get it voted on and passed quickly. Informal polling of the member of Congress reveals that it will pass easily. This is not surprising because as is generally knowing in D.C. members of Congress who don’t play ball with AIPAC risk not being reelected the next time around. Readers may learn more about AIPAC by perusing The Israel Lobby by Mearsheimer and Walt.

Co-sponsors of the resolution include Democrats Rep. Robert Wexler, of Florida and Rep Henry Waxman, of California, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government. Wexler, known for his opposition to the Bush administration’s userping the power of Congress and Judiciary, is a practicing Orthodox Jew and Waxman is known for his dedication to Jewish causes and the support of Israel.

June 25, 2008

Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent

To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false. MORE =>

California Newspaper to Outsource its Editiing to Company in India

An Indian company will take over copy editing duties for some stories published in The Orange County Register and will handle page layout for a community newspaper at the company that owns the Pulitzer Prize-winning daily, the newspaper confirmed Tuesday. MORE=>

Senator Feingold will Filibuster FISA

It's being described as the most significant revision of the nation's surveillance law in three decades. The Senate is preparing to vote on rewriting the nation's Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and giving immunity to phone companies involved in President Bush's secret domestic spy program. We speak with Senator Russ Feingold (D–WI), who has been the leading congressional voice against the Bush administration's warrantless spy program since it was exposed nearly three years ago. MORE=>

Law School Dean Calls Conference to Plan Bush War Crimes Prosecution

The dean of Massachusetts School of Law at Andover is planning a September conference to map out war crimes prosecutions, and the targets are President Bush and other administration officials.

The dean, Lawrence Velvel, says in a statement that “plans will be laid and necessary organizational structures set up, to pursue the guilty as long as necessary and, if need be, to the ends of the Earth."

Other possible defendants, he said, include federal judges and John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who wrote one of the so-called torture memos.

“We must insist on appropriate punishments,” he continued, “including, if guilt is found, the hangings visited upon top German and Japanese war criminals in the 1940s." MORE=>

Bugliosi v. Bush

In early June, a much-awaited Senate committee report formally concluded what had already become common wisdom: that President Bush and members of his Administration made false claims about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein in order to build a public case for war.

These are grounds for impeachment, some argue--adding that it's not too late. Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich introduced thirty-five articles of impeachment against President Bush on June 9, accusing the President of war crimes and deceiving the public.

But famed prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, foreshadowing the Senate committee report with much of the same damning evidence, argues in a new book that Bush "deserves much more than impeachment"--a penalty he considers incommensurate with the crimes committed. In The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, the New York Times bestselling author and prosecutor lays out the legal case for prosecuting President Bush in a US courtroom after he leaves office. MORE=>

Iran War Resolution May Be Passed Next Week

LC Editor's Comment: If this resolution does pass, we will know that our republican form of government has morphed into a dictatorship. Congress will itself not have declared war as required by the Constitution, but it will have simply rubber-stamped its approval for George Bush to engage in hostile activities tantamount to acts of war against the sovereign nation of Iran. That would imply that Mr. Bush has for all intents and purposes assumed the position of dictator.

As to the intention behind this resolution, it looks to this commentator as if Mr. Bush is colluding with AIPAC (most powerful lobbying group in the world --- it works for Israel) to get Congress to pass a resolution that will authorize him to strangle Iran economically and politically and virtually isolate it from the economies of the rest of the world. There is talk of a blockade. If the U.N. does not authorize that blockade, the Bush administration’s imposing a block will constitute an act of war against Iran by the United States.

What has happened to the good old U.S. of A, since George W. Bush became president? Look how far our nation has fallen into the abyss leading Hell on earth under his leadership! Once a bastion of liberty, “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, our constitutional republic has become an aggressor state lead by a man who calls himself “the decider”, condones the use of torture for interrogation of prisoners, and says he thinks of the U.S. Constitution as nothing more than “a goddamned piece of paper!”

It’s puzzling for many Americans how easily and completely a band of disgruntled, aggressive Trotskyites who had disguised themselves as Republicans and a ne’er do well son of a CIA spook turned oil man and then President of the United States were able to transform our republic into a virtual dictatorship and police state in less than eight years.

Were they to do the job alone it would have never been accomplished as smoothly, thoroughly as it was. But they did not to it alone. They had help, lots of it, including compromised and bought off members of Congress, the so-called Jewish Lobby as manifested by AIPAC, the mainstream media, which lied and still lies for the White House, and the vast majority of the American people, whose brains have been fogged by decades of exposure to television loaded with just the right kind of subliminal messages, food containing artificial sweeteners and drinks made with fluorided water and so on.

So now we have madmen running our nation out of the White House, which might just as well be called what it is, the Emperor’s Palace, who just relish the thought of starting a war with Iran. And --- if you have already read the article --- the madmen and women in Congress think they already have the votes lined to pass a resolution that will encourage them to do just that.

Be aware, however, that it’s not a Declaration of War, which is required by the U.S. Constitution for a President to become the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and go to war. Instead it is a War Resolution and without Congress having issued a Declaration of War any war Mr. Bush decides to start would necessarily be an illegal war.

By the way, you will observe that ever since the war in Korea members of Congress have elected to issue resolutions authorizing military actions rather formally for declarations of war. They do this because they do not want to be held responsible for directing the president initiate a war that might turn into something they might not want to be held accountable for by the International Court of Justice, the American people that might survive and all out nuclear world war or historians who would end up writing about that war 100 years from now.

What should we do to “head off George at the pass’ so we don’t end up by gagging on the radioactive dust in the air a few months from now? How about a 100 million-man march on Washington as protest? But these warmongers don’t listen and don’t care.

How about praying and talking to God about this situation? At least believers say He always listens and that he sometimes takes appropriate action. At least choosing this option will eliminate the need for protestors to spend their meager savings on buying gasoline needed to drive their vehicles from Podunk, USA to Washington or to submit to the embarrassment of being frisked and having to contents of their carry on satchels picked over by airport inspectors prior to their boarding flights heading for the District of Criminals.

Habeas Corpus: The Bulwark of Our Liberties

By: The U.S. Supreme Court, June 13, 2008

The following is an excerpt from the majority opinion in yesterday’s Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush. Citations to books and articles have been removed to facilitate reading. For the complete opinion of the Court, including citations, click here (pdf file).

We begin with a brief account of the history and origins of the writ. Our account proceeds from two propositions. First, protection for the privilege of habeas corpus was one of the few safeguards of liberty specified in a Constitution that, at the outset, had no Bill of Rights. In the system conceived by the Framers the writ had a centrality that must inform proper interpretation of the Suspension Clause. Second, to the extent there were settled precedents or legal commentaries in 1789 regarding the extraterritorial scope of the writ or its application to enemy aliens, those authorities can be instructive for the present cases. MORE=>

June 23

EU Approves Sanctions Against Iran’s Biggest Bank

LC Editor's Comments: The use of economic stong-arming is the latest move on the part of the anti-Iran cabal to force Iran into giving up its nuclear program. But it is becoming evident that there is more than meets in eye in Washington's, Tel Aviv's and now the EU's obsession with shutting down Iran's nuclear electric power development program.

Washington, Tel Aviv and the EU claim that the primary goal of Iran’s program is to produce highly enriched uranium for use in making nuclear weapons, not the moderately enriched uranium Iran says it intends to use as fuel for the nuclear electric power generating plant currently under construction in that country.

Contradicting this claim the IAEA, which routinely inspects Iran's facilities as a representative of the Nuclear Anti-Proliferation pact nations, all past inspectors of nuclear facilities in Iraq and the dozen or so spook agencies that contributed to the last Nation Intelligence Estimate report say that Iran shut down its nuclear weapons development program entirely in 2003, five years ago. Furthermore these sources report that there is no evidence whatsoever of the presence of any bomb quality uranium at any of Iran’s nuclear project sites nor that Iran had resumed working on its abandoned weapons program.

Then what is behind the obsession on the part of the US and its allies to shut down a project that evidence shows to be an "atoms for peace" program in Iran? What’s actually at stake is actually in plain sight. That is, having Iran shut down a research and development program that will ultimately allow it to produce its own fuel for the nuclear electric power generating station will force it into buying new nuclear fuel rods from manufacturers in the EU and the US. Also, Iran will have to pay to have these manufacturers reprocess fuel rod taken from Iran's power stations once they have reached the depleted stage of the fuel cycle. On the other hand, Iran’s producing its own fuel and reprocessing depleted fuel for the group of power stations it has on the drawing board will be far less expensive than requiring it to buy from EU and US producers.

But there is another reason. Iran wants to be and deserves to be seen as the new kid on the technology block in the Middle East by promoting peaceful nuclear technology. It wants to be regarded as the country to lead the less highly technologically developed countries in that region of the world into the nuclear generation electric power age. Furthermore, Iran's leaders probably believe that once Iran gets its first nuclear power station (currently under construction with the assistance of Russian engineers and workers) on line and up and running it will be in a position to reap huge financial