Democracy in America is a useful fiction

Chris Hedges writes: "Corporate forces, long before the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, carried out a coup d'etat in slow motion. The coup is over. We lost. The ruling is one more judicial effort to streamline mechanisms for corporate control. It exposes the myth of a functioning democracy and the triumph of corporate power. . . .

"Corporations have 35,000 lobbyists in Washington and thousands more in state capitals that dole out corporate money to shape and write legislation. . . .

"Our transformation into an empire, as happened in ancient Athens and Rome, has seen the tyranny we practice abroad become the tyranny we practice at home."

Detroit imam shot 21 times — while handcuffed

Next generation iPod Touch?

Add built-in speakers, microphone, and a SIM card tray to the iPod Touch. With AT&T's $15 a month plan, I would buy it today.

Holocaust remembrance is a boon for Israeli propaganda

Gideon Levy of Haaretz (Israel) writes: Wednesday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and an Israeli public relations drive like this hasn't been seen for ages. The timing of the unusual effort - never have so many ministers deployed across the globe — is not coincidental: When the world is talking Goldstone, we talk Holocaust, as if out to blur the impression. When the world talks occupation, we'll talk Iran as if we wanted them to forget.

The kidnapping of Haiti

Oil was found in Haiti's waters decades ago and the US has kept it in reserve until the Middle East begins to run dry. More urgently, an occupied Haiti has a strategic importance in Washington's "rollback" plans for Latin America. The goal is the overthrow of the popular democracies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, control of Venezuela's abundant petroleum reserves, and sabotage of the growing regional co-operation long denied by US-sponsored regimes.

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Aafia Siddiqi trial a 'travesty': foreign media denied full access

Mauri Saalakhan, of the Peace & Justice Foundation, reports: What I witnessed in yesterday's proceeding was a TRAVESTY! Midway into the morning's proceedings, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was removed from the courtroom due to her inability to remain quiet while being assaulted from the witness stand by what she asserts are a battery of "lies."

Yesterday's real travesty, however, centered around the physical manipulation of the courtroom itself, and the shameful treatment accorded certain media representatives (esp. foreign media) who were denied the usual protocol normally afforded media personnel; simply because they failed to secure a special media pass during the pretrial hearings — a requirement they had no knowledge of.

Another appalling manipulation at yesterday's proceeding revolved around TWO OVERFLOW COURTROOMS PACKED WITH AAFIA SUPPORTERS and non-favored media reps (esp. Pakistani journalists), while EMPTY SEATS REMAINED IN THE MAIN COURTROOM! I was in one of the overflow courtrooms in the morning, and in the main courtroom in the afternoon. I noted that in the main courtroom the whole left side of the room had rows of empty seats marked "reserved," while folks outside the door were still being directed to one of the overflow courtrooms with the stated lie "There's no room left!"

What is Haiti owed?

Haiti's vulnerability to natural disasters, its food shortages, poverty, deforestation and lack of infrastructure, are not accidental. To say that it is the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere is to miss the point; Haiti was made poor — by France, the United States, Great Britain, other Western powers and by the IMF and the World Bank.

Straw's leaked letter to Blair on Iraq

"A legal justification is a necessary but far from sufficient pre-condition for military action. We have also to answer the big question – what will this action achieve? There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything. Most of the assessments from the US have assumed regime change as a means of eliminating Iraq's WMD threat. But none has satisfactorily answered how that regime change is to be secured, and how there can be any certainty that the replacement regime will be better."

Ft Hood: How did shooter get 'ammunition available ONLY to our special operations troops'

. . . when Dr. Hasan went on his terror campaign at Ft. Hood using an FN Herstal 5.7mm 20 round assault pistol with classified ammunition available ONLY to our special operations troops, ammo specially designed for penetrating body armor, newspapers, TV, everyone was silent.

Images provide intimate look at Guantánamo captives

'US-Israeli complicity in terror plots exposed"

Evidence is mounting of U.S. and Israeli complicity in this latest plot. The father Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab of the young terrorist, is an accomplished Nigerian banker and ran the national arms industry (DICON) in patnership with Israel, Nigeria has extensive intelligence links to Israel.

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Viva Palestina aid convoy arrives in Gaza, 'situation desperate'

170,000 Muslims were fingerprinted and interviewed — not one produced a terrorism conviction

Gary Younge of the Guardian (UK) writes: In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 the US government undertook the "preventative detention" of about 5,000 men on the basis of their birthplace and later sought a further 19,000 "voluntary interviews". Over the next year, more than 170,000 men from 24 predominantly Muslim countries and North Korea were fingerprinted and interviewed in a programme of "special registration". None of these produced a single terrorism conviction.

Patriots erect billboard on I-40 questioning 9/11

Nigerian bomber a patsy?

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