As the Charlie Sheen story ends its second week and with cookie-cutter establishment hit pieces continuing to be churned out, the attack dogs are facing an intensifying backlash from a clear majority of educated American citizens who are sick and tired of the sneering elitism of the mainstream media.

Every now and then, amid all the grim stories in our world, you run across one that rings a special bell for you. Frida Berrigan's today is that for me. In fact, consider this week at Tomdispatch as a discordant hymn to the privatization disasters of the Bush administration. Michael Schwartz began it with his account of how the draconian economic privatization program Bush administration officials enacted on prostrate Iraq in 2003 led directly to the catastrophe of the moment in that country. We know as well that, under this administration, the Pentagon has been on its own privatization binge, turning what were once essential military activities over to Halliburton, its subsidiary KBR, and other private firms in a wholesale fashion.

NASA HQ Raided In Kiddie Porn Probe...

Q I want to be clear because I've heard you say this, and I've heard the President say it, but I want you to say it for my listeners, which is that the White House has never argued that Saddam was directly involved in September 11th, correct?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: That's correct. We had one report early on from another intelligence service that suggested that the lead hijacker, Mohamed Atta, had met with Iraqi intelligence officials in Prague, Czechoslovakia. And that reporting waxed and waned where the degree of confidence in it, and so forth, has been pretty well knocked down now at this stage, that that meeting ever took place. So we've never made the case, or argued the case that somehow Osama bin Laden [sic] was directly involved in 9/11. That evidence has never been forthcoming. But there -- that's a separate proposition from the question of whether or not there was some kind of a relationship between the Iraqi government, Iraqi intelligence services and the al Qaeda organization.

Harvard disowns attack on Jewish role in US policy...

Tens of thousands of New York Posts were dumped at two recycling centers yesterday morning, just hours after being printed, in a bizarre circulation ploy that has already come to the attention of newspaper circulation authorities.

Anyone could see that Bernice "Bea" Bogart, 83, was a fragile woman, Moon said. Bogart had breast cancer surgery in 1997, a total hip replacement after a fall in 1999, a major stroke in 2004 that caused dementia, and is hard of hearing.

Delphi moves to tear up union contracts...

The board that writes accounting rules for American business is proposing a new method of reporting pension obligations that is likely to show that many companies have a lot more debt than was obvious before.

A brutal purge of the senior staff at Popular Mechanics preceded the publication of last month's scandalous propaganda piece about 9/11. Pulling the strings is the grand dame of Hearst Magazines and behind the scene is her obscure husband, a veteran propaganda expert and former special assistant to the director of the C.I.A.

FLASHBACK: What was the Army doing with a Ryder Truck just before the Murrah blast?...

Yacoubi's call for Zalmay Khalilzad's ouster is the latest sign of growing divisions between the ruling Shi'ites and Washington and comes days after an Iraqi-U.S. raid on a mosque compound killed at least 16 Shi'ites and outraged many Iraqis.

The war in Iraq is a mistake. No its worse than a mistake. Lets quit pussy-footing around and call it like it is. The war in Iraq is a grand profiteering scheme gone awry and Americans need to take off their blinders and face the truth. As the cost of the war leaves a deeper black hole of debt for our great-grandchildren, people need to ask themselves whether the hundreds of billions spent thus far have helped anyone other than reconstruction companies and defense contractors. It takes no thought, the answer is no.

And after that, to paraphrase a powerful John Kerry comment from the Viet Nam era, Americans need think about which soldier will be the last to die for this mistake.

There has never been an investigation into Cheney's involvement in awarding Halliburton no-bid contracts making the company the number one war profiteerer in Iraq. Apparently people have forgotten about the March 5, 2003 e-mail between the Army Corps of Engineers and a Pentagon employee that stated the contract "has been coordinated w VP's office.

A study released in June 2005, originating from the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), revealed that overall, Halliburton had received roughly 52% of the $25.4 billion that has been paid out to private contractors since the war in Iraq began.

It is strange to hear George Bush and John Reid deny that a civil war is going on, given that so many bodies – all strangled, shot or hanged solely because of their religious allegiance – are being discovered every day. Car bombs exploded in the markets in the great Shia slum of Sadr City in early March. Several days later a group of children playing football in a field noticed a powerful stench. Police opened up a pit which contained the bodies of 27 men, probably all Sunni, stripped to their underpants; they had all been tortured and then shot in the head. Two and a half years ago, when the first suicide bomb targeting the Shias killed 85 people outside the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf, there was no Shia retaliation. They were held back by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the hope of gaining power through legal elections. Since the Samarra bomb this restraint has definitively ended: the Shia militias and death squads slaughter Sunnis in tit-for-tat killings every time a Shia is killed.

The plant will produce compact and subcompact vehicles, he said, adding that GM does not plan to sell any of them in the United States.

A Pentagon study obtained by ABC News finds that a new kind of voice lie detector used by the U.S. military and American police departments is no better than "flipping a coin" in detecting lies. Until the Pentagon ordered a halt to its use, the Voice Stress Analyzer was being used by military intelligence interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. Several suspected terrorists were released from custody based on the machine's results and former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariz Aziz was one of the many "high value targets" who were hooked up to the now discredited machine.

The tone of the report is harsh, it jars also for me. But the bottom line might read as follows: that defending the occupation has done to the American pro-Israel community what living as an occupier has done to Israel - muddied both its moral compass and its rational self-interest compass.

Nuclear Watchdog Chief Says Sanctions on Iran Would Be a 'Bad Idea'......

The Lobby Strikes Back...

It is good enough body armor that nine American generals in Afghanistan are wearing it in place of the standard "Interceptor OTV" armor issued to the troops they command. It offers such great protection that the U.S. Secret Service agents guarding the President of the United States wear it, and it is good enough that a civilian contractor in Iraq was shot eight times in the torso at close range and survived without even suffering soft tissue trauma. But the same armor, already in mass production, is apparently too expensive to provide to the men and women fighting and dying in the Global War on Terror (GWOT) every day.

The Bush faction's war profiteering and fraud -- on a scale surpassing anything ever seen in world history -- has fueled a ruthless political machine that, despite its growing unpopularity with the U.S. people, now controls all three branches of government and has overthrown the Constitution, openly declaring that its leader is beyond the reach of "judicial review, congressional oversight or international law," as The Washington Post reported, rather belatedly, this week. Swollen by the swag of aggressive war, the elite interests represented by the Bush regime -- oil, military-related industries and predatory venture capitalists like the Carlyle Group -- have had their already inordinate sway over American society and policy increased by several magnitudes. They will remain ascendant for decades to come, no matter what happens in Iraq, or in any U.S. election.

Unfortunately, Congress forgot itself. It remains perfectly legal for a member of Congress to buy and sell stocks based on information that's not available to the public. Last year it was reported that a "political intelligence" firm tipped off its clients to an undelivered speech by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on asbestos liability. The information was profitable to those in the know.

The hypocrisy of the Catholic Church -- especially the Archdiocese of Boston -- knows no bounds. When they're not defending child abusers, they're bashing gays. Now, they're defending and protecting Antonin Scalia. By now, everyone know Scalia made an obscene gesture and swore right in one of their churches. But, they are firing the photographer who busted Scalia:

A federal judge on Thursday rewrote a sentence to clarify a ruling that had suggested Timothy McVeigh received help from paramilitary militias in the Oklahoma City bombing and that the government had an informant in the bombing conspiracy.

The judge rewrote the sentence to eliminate the word "fact" and substitute: "The plaintiff claims that this document indicates that there was an undercover operative in with Timothy McVeigh and members of the various militia groups who aided and supported McVeigh."

Dealing a blow to US President George W. Bush's so-called "war on terror", two US federal officials were charged with hiding evidence to win conviction in a terrorism case against four Muslim men following the 9/11.

Top United Auto Workers officials say bankrupt Delphi Corp. (DPHIQ) may shed at least 14 U.S. factories, the latest sign of how bloody the restructuring of the nation's largest auto parts maker is becoming, The Detroit News reported in its Friday editions.

Veterans, many of them senior citizens, did not fair so well. The House committee cut the budget for medical care of veterans below even current levels for the rest of the decade. Democrats complained that would be something like a $10 billion cut after inflation and the growth in the number of veterans seeking benefits that is expected in the years ahead.

Al Qaeda insider predicts U.S. hit...

Bin Laden: I won't be taken alive...

"The threat of Islamic terrorism is so frightening, so unpredictable, so unknowable that in some ways it's easier and more manageable for some folks to think that our government is behind it all," writes Hart in a piece for Scripps Howard News Service.

If you are not absolutely angry after watching this then I suggest you watch it again but this time click off the United States casualties and then ask yourself, “what coalition?”

Ex-FBI Agent Indicted in Mob Killings...

The Secret Service did nothing. The dog did not bark.

The Secret Service should be in that video, but they are not. It is clear from their inaction that they KNEW FOR A FACT THAT THE PRESIDENT WAS NOT A TARGET OF ONE OF THE HIJACKED PLANES. The intended targets of the planes had to have been known.

The dog did not bark because the criminal was its master.

Quod Erat Demonstradum, the Bush administration was part of the 9-11 plot.

Venezuelan Government To Launch International 9/11 Investigation...

Atheism doesn’t mean amoral, it just means that external forces are not necessary for the formation of, and adherence to, a moral code.

The outcome won't carry any legal weight here or in Washington. But if all the anti-war measures pass, politicians might not be able to ignore the results, says Kenneth Mayer, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"If enough people are willing to say 'enough,' and elected officials start thinking they need to be responsive, it will embolden opponents of the war and ... the administration will have to take that into account," he says.

Tony Rudy, a former top aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, has agreed to plead guilty to charges in the widening federal investigation of lobbyist fraud, a law enforcement official said Friday.

Eitan has Pollard document, spy´s wife says...

Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the U.S., but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 percent of its allocation to subsidize its own defense industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the U.S. opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the U.S. gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons. . . .

Since 1982, the U.S. has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. . . .

[S]aying that Israel and the U.S. are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. . . .

Blackwater USA says it can supply forces for conflicts...

Letter successfully seeking leniency for Jack Abramoff noted he ran a kosher deli 'at a loss'...

Pentagon block on move for safer water...

A retired FBI agent was indicted on murder charges Thursday for allegedly taking bribes from a mobster to supply him with inside information that led to four underworld slayings in Brooklyn.

Army officials told The Associated Press that the order was prompted by concerns that soldiers or their families were buying inadequate or untested commercial armor from private companies — including the popular Dragon Skin gear made by California-based Pinnacle Armor.

Award winning director, producer and actor Ed Asner is the latest high profile public figure to voice his support for Charlie Sheen's stance on 9/11 and share his own concerns about 9/11, the war in Iraq and the Neo-Cons.

"Of course it was an inside job," Bernie snorted. "Anyone who can connect even two dots without ramming one up his nose and the other into his forehead knows that. And anyone who's ever flown a Cessna 172 is roaring with laughter at the thought of those Muslim guys Bush fingered emerging from a dusty Florida airport, climbing into the cockpit of a Boeing 757, looking at the flashing lights, bells and whistles on its control panel, and know which button to push to even talk to the passengers, let alone get that 100-ton beast in the air. HAW HAW...

The US government attempted to sabotage the trip by putting Rodriguez, who has been decorated at the White House itself, and Walter on a no fly list.

Bravo Charlie...

Key, the father of four young children, told the hearing he joined the army for steady pay and medical coverage for his family. He said he initially went to Iraq as a willing participant because he believed U.S. intelligence claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But Key became disillusioned with the war during his service and decided to abandon his contract with the army during a two-week leave from Iraq in November 2003.

"The government cannot control the city," said Hamid Effendi, an experienced ex-soldier who is Minister for Peshmerga Affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government.

"We are not leaving the base in daytime because we know other bombers are waiting for us," said a soldier at a base near Mosul's city centre. For the moment nobody is wholly in control and most expect more fighting.

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

Iman tells of screaming soldiers entering her house in the Iraqi town of Haditha spraying bullets in every direction.

Fifteen people in all were killed, including her parents and grandparents. Her account has been corroborated by other eyewitnesses who say it was a revenge attack after a roadside bomb killed a marine.

Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons.

Pupils import torture tools to highlight UK arms loopholes...

Tinnelly said he believes it is important to teach the Holocaust, but apparently little was learned during the experiment.

Americas" href="http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article354473.ece" target="_blank"> The US propaganda machine: Oh, what a lovely war...

The disastrous foreign policies of the US have left it more isolated than ever, and China is standing by to take over

"Our soldiers are so good, our power such, that this may be a short and happy war. But I think it is the wrong war in the wrong place in the decidedly wrong time. A war that promises a hard and bitter peace."

Sometime in the next two years, the total amount of US government borrowing is going to break through the 10-trillion-dollar mark and, lacking space for the extra digit such a figure would require, the clock is in danger of running itself into obsolescence.

Why are “left wing” media outlets such as The New York Times and CNN not reporting the Palestinian side of the story? Well the simple answer is The New York Times and CNN are not liberal, nor honest. They cover injustices only when there is no risk of backlash from readers and advertisers. The media moguls are only “aware” and objective when it pays them to be. CNN and The New York Times must vet their content, so as not to be viewed as “pro-Palestinian,” in fear that advertisers will pull their ads or commercials, leading to a loss in revenue.

We have reached a much more fundamental and alarming conclusion: Western governments are frighteningly out of touch with the principal political currents in the Middle East.

Video of Bush giving his address to the world about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq...

The initial hurt reaction of such pro-Israel personalities as Alan Dershowitz and journalist Marvin Kalb could be described as inelegant outrage. Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY), one of Israel's strongest congressional supporters, weighed in noisly, calling the study "the same old anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel." In the New York Sun, he was quoted as saying,"Given what happened in the Holocaust, it's shameful that people would write reports like this."

This is typical of what any objective critic of Israel receives from the Israel lobby and its supporters. It deliberately obfuscates and generally does not deal with factual analysis. The drumbeat of condemnation has been only partially balanced by responses by such figures as Professor Juan Cole of the University of Michigan, who noted that "a sliver of the political spectrum, falsely insisting that it represents all American Jews, manages to skew U.S. politics and reporting on the issue of Palestine."

According to the paper by Kennedy School academic dean Stephen M. Walt and University of Chicago political scientist John J. Mearsheimer, American Jewish groups, leading Christian evangelicals, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Brookings Institution, and other think tanks have all contributed to sacrificing of US security needs to the interests of Israel.

A handy, who-knew guide for 77 foods, beauty products, and household goods

They are a publicity nightmare for the US military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict who are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.

Ms. Carroll, whose abduction generated international attention, said in an interview shown on Baghdad television that her captors "never hit me and never even threatened to hit me."

As the justices of the Supreme Court took their seats Tuesday morning to hear Osama bin Laden's former driver challenge the Bush administration's plan to try him before a military commission, one question — perhaps the most important one — was how protective the justices would be of their jurisdiction to decide the case.

The answer emerged gradually, but by the end of the tightly packed 90-minute argument, it was fairly clear: highly protective.

Judge hints he could dismiss AIPAC case...

Sectarian threats purge 30,000 Iraqis from homes...

Masahiro Kawai, the ADB's head of regional economic integration, said on Tuesday: "Any shock hitting the US economy or the global market may change investors' perceptions given the existing global current account imbalance.

"Our suggestion to Asian countries is: Don't take this continuous financing of the US current account deficit as given. If something happens then East Asian economies have to be prepared."

China exported $713 billion worth of manufactured goods in 2005, a catalog that predictably included such low-tech products as footwear and textiles and apparel, but more importantly also featured higher-tech goods such as office equipment and telecommunications equipment. Indeed, among China's six largest manufacturing export sectors in 2005, export growth among higher-tech goods -- which included electrical machinery, non-electronics machinery and chemicals in addition to office and telecommunications equipment - -was greater in percentage terms than for textiles and apparel. Exports of textiles and apparel grew 21% to $115.3 billion while export growth ranged from 26% to 29% among higher-tech goods; exports of higher-tech goods totaled $360 billion. "The picture that emerges is a global competition in trade in manufactures dominated by the EU, China, and the U.S., with Japan in a strong fourth position, followed by South Korea, and with [these] 'big five' together accounting for two-thirds of global exports of manufactures."

Pentagon blocked move to make water safer...

The Pentagon hired agencies to do everything from designing Web sites, drafting a logo for the Air Force to placing ads for leisure travel, bowling and "football frenzy." The U.S. Army spent millions of dollars in media messages and staff to promote the "strategic perspective in the Global War on Terrorism

John Kennedy's death, and the doubts that surround it to this day, marked the beginning of the end of America's idealism. The cynicism grew with the lies of Vietnam and the senseless deaths of too many thousands of young Americans in a war that never should have been fought. Doubts about the integrity of those we elect as our leaders festers today as this country finds itself embroiled in another senseless war based on too many lies.

John Connally felt he served his country best by concealing his doubts about the Warren Commission's whitewash but his silence may have contributed to the growing perception that our elected leaders can rewrite history to fit their political agendas.

Had Connally spoken out, as a high-ranking political figure with doubts about the "official" version of what happened, it might have sent a signal that Americans deserve the truth from their government, even when that truth hurts.

David Walker, the US Comptroller General, predicts economic disaster for the U.S. (with video)...

Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear programme, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reports in its latest edition, citing western security sources.

The fading dollar can be held responsible for our troubles. It isn't the dollar's fault, because it is merely a piece of paper, which is un-backed, and the product of a printing press. It is those who administer and spend it recklessly, who have caused its demise, and who are wrecking our economy and nation. What repercussions does a dollar debasement have? Let's examine them. Remember, it is in no way the fault of the citizenry. It is totally the fault of government and the D.C. Gang. All of us are merely the victims.

As they march across America to protest against the war they reveal their own experiences of the conflict, make some disturbing allegations about military practices in Iraq and reflect on how it feels to come home.

``We are very close today to taking the first major step in the Security Council to deal with Iran's nearly 20-year-old clandestine nuclear program,'' Bolton said.

The George W. Bush administration failed to enter into negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program in May 2003 because neoconservative zealots who advocated destabilization and regime change were able to block any serious diplomatic engagement with Tehran, according to former administration officials.

Masahiro Kawai, the ADB's head of regional economic integration, said on Tuesday: "Any shock hitting the US economy or the global market may change investors' perceptions given the existing global current account imbalance.

"Our suggestion to Asian countries is: Don't take this continuous financing of the US current account deficit as given. If something happens then East Asian economies have to be prepared."

Disgraced lobbyist Abramoff gets 6 years...

President George W. Bush said the instability in Iraq today is a legacy of Saddam Hussein's regime and not the result of the U.S. invasion that toppled his government.

Hatfill may have been libeled by the press. He was certainly smeared by the U.S. government. Then-attorney general John Ashcroft called Hatfill a "person of interest," which as any TV watcher knows, is merely a euphemism for "the guy who did it."

Except in this case, it's not at all clear that Hatfill did do it. The government has never provided any evidence that he - or anyone else for that matter -- was connected to the attacks. Instead the Justice Department destroyed Hatfill's life through innuendo. "Steven Hatfill once worked in Zimbabwe. Did you know there was once an anthrax outbreak in Zimbabwe." That sort of thing.

At that time, millions of us were protesting around the world. We all knew Bush wanted war - that's why we were protesting! - but Bush insisted publicly that he did not, and the Corporate Media let him get away with his lies.

The "White House Memo" proves that Bush was lying - saying one thing in public while saying the opposite in private. In private, he told Tony Blair that war was inevitable, and that it didn't matter if WMD's were found or if the U.N. adopted a resolution actually authorizing the invasion.

In fact, Bush was so desperate for war that he proposed painting a U.S. spy plane with U.N. colors and flying it over Iraq to provoke an attack. But even if Saddam refused the bait, Bush told Blair the bombing would begin on March 10. Bush wanted war, no matter what.

US envoy 'calls for new Iraqi PM'...

Anderson took to the podium following President Bush's speech at the Salt Palace. Anderson spoke in front of more than 500 people gathered at the park in protest of President Bush's visit to Utah.

The United States cut all diplomatic ties with the newly-sworn in Hamas government this evening as it pushed the Palestinian Authority further towards isolation.

Chevy's commercial contest...

Morris Dees, who makes a lucrative career out of smearing many decent U.S. organizations, was visibly shaken at what he expected to be a “sweetheart” event when a pro-Southern group on his hit list challenged him on his lurid past, The Times Examiner of Greenville, S.C., reports.

9/11 Truth Calling Oprah...

Fundamental changes in government are almost universally external. The spark of the French Revolution was massive foreign debt (including funding the American Revolution as a method of covert war with England ) resulting in extreme taxation of which an absence of fiat money offered no veil of disguise. The Romans imploded against Germanic tribes, and the Nazis fell to American carpet bombings. The collapse of the USSR was not at all a proletariat revolution, but a combination of internal corruption and superior American fiat finesse (a point of pride for many Reaganites, but ultimately no better than proudly proclaiming, "My rapist is slicker than yours!").

So why, in the face of history, do we insist we can manufacture lightning and catch it in a bottle?

The conclusion to all of this is one that even I did not want to think of until recently. But the Revolution will not be American. Not anymore. We have learned our lessons well. Modern Americans are riddled with apathy. If you want to know how far it can go, think of the worst atrocities the Nazis committed and realize there were no crowds storming the gates of Auschwitz . Foreign, invading soldiers opened those gates. And so shall it be with us.

Every passing day, this new world order, this so called "free trade", is eroding 150 years of the hard won gains for American labor, but very few people seem to care.

How effective the propaganda has been. Americans don't know who they are anymore.

With the American raid on the Mustafa mosque, the occupation of Iraq is rapidly reaching a point at which it is no longer tenable: as the Shi'ite giant awakens, the country is about to become a battleground in a much larger war, one that will envelop much of the Middle East.

Further investigation and probing of several other CNN sources closely connected with the production of the Asner segment on Showbiz Tonight reported that high-level members of CNN management advised the producers of the show to "kill it. " This statement was clearly made to stifle any further coverage of 9/11 despite the admitedly huge ratings boost and response garnered from the recent coverage of Charlie Sheen's statements on 9/11.

The (US) Navy will send an aircraft carrier strike group, with four ships, a 60-plane air wing and 6,500 sailors, to Caribbean and South American waters for a major training exercise, it was announced Monday.

Some defense analysts suggested that the unusual two-month-long deployment, set to begin in early April, could be interpreted as a show of force by anti-American governments in Venezuela and Cuba.

Fed props up economy with TONS of new cash...

It may seem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace, but the second part of the federal investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete, with attorneys and government officials who have remained close to the probe saying that a grand jury will likely return an indictment against one or two senior Bush administration officials.

Concern has mounted in recent months among veterans and their advocates that it is money, and not science, that may set the VA's PTSD-related mental health agenda in the years ahead. Not only could this revised agenda have a potentially disastrous impact on the well-being and readjustment of today's returning veterans, but it has already caused considerable anxiety among veterans who have been rated with PTSD in recent years and who fear their benefits may be unjustly curtailed.

DeLay made no mention of his own political troubles, including a looming trial on state charges of campaign money-laundering. The indictment in Travis County last fall forced DeLay to step down as House majority leader, a position that had cemented his power in Washington. DeLay has denied wrongdoing.

Iraqi and American special forces who attacked an insurgent headquarters in Baghdad were not aware that their target contained a mosque until after the battle, America's most senior soldier said yesterday.

The (US) Navy will send an aircraft carrier strike group, with four ships, a 60-plane air wing and 6,500 sailors, to Caribbean and South American waters for a major training exercise, it was announced Monday.

China's reserves of dollars and other foreign currencies hit $853.7 billion in February, an official Chinese newspaper said on Wednesday, allowing China to overtake Japan as the world's largest holder of foreign exchange reserves.

Today the US shamelessly has more people behind bars than any other nation including China with over 4 times our population. And things have become especially repressive against those in society least able to defend themselves including immigrants of color and our newest head of the queue demon - Muslims. The Bush administration has made a bad situation far worse taking full advantage of their fear-induced "permanent state of war" and sham "global war on terrorism" to target all those seen as a potential threat to their plan for global dominance and full control at home.

Australia's gross domestic product is expected to grow 3.5 percent, according to Macquarie Bank Ltd. in a research report dated March 24. The economy expanded 2.7 percent in the three months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier. It grew 2.5 percent in 2005, the slowest pace in four years.

``Growth in business investment is likely to be strong,'' said Macquarie Bank economists, led by Richard Gibbs in Sydney. ``The external sector is likely to see a steady improvement, while consumption is likely to remain fairly subdued, at least until mid-year,'' the report said.

The Bush administration likely will back Israeli leader Ehud Olmert's plan to withdraw settlers from the West Bank and set borders because it is consumed with Iraq and wary of peacemaking while Hamas is governing the Palestinians, analysts said.

With the American raid on the Mustafa mosque, the occupation of Iraq is rapidly reaching a point at which it is no longer tenable: as the Shi'ite giant awakens, the country is about to become a battleground in a much larger war, one that will envelop much of the Middle East.

They have certainly set the stage, on the diplomatic front, with a full-scale assault on Tehran's nuclear ambitions in the UN. On the political front, they are accusing the Iranians of interfering in Iraq's internal affairs – an odd charge, coming from the overseers of a military occupation – and of sending arms to their Iraqi proxies.

"We have received a list of questions from our American colleagues that require additional agreements that we thought had been settled long ago," Putin told a meeting of top businessmen. "The negotiations process is being artificially set back."

The Pentagon has once again investigated itself! And - have a seat, get the smelling salts, hold all hats - the Pentagon has once again concluded the Pentagon did absolutely nothing wrong and will continue to do so. In this particularly fascinating case, the Pentagon investigated its own habit of paying people to make up lies about how well the war in Iraq is going, and then paying other people to put those lies in the Iraqi media, thus fooling the Iraqis into thinking everything in their country is tickety-boo. Well, if we can't fool them, whom can we fool?

Five former judges on the nation's most secretive court, including one who resigned in apparent protest over President Bush's domestic eavesdropping, urged Congress on Tuesday to give the court a formal role in overseeing the surveillance program.

In a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the secretive court, known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, several former judges who served on the panel also voiced skepticism at a Senate hearing about the president's constitutional authority to order wiretapping on Americans without a court order. They also suggested that the program could imperil criminal prosecutions that grew out of the wiretaps.

He has given fresh momentum to Sharon‘s policy of disengaging from conflict with the Palestinians by planning to uproot isolated settlements in the West Bank while expanding larger blocs if peacemaking remains frozen. Olmert has said he would seek American approval for the plan.

The disastrous foreign policies of the US have left it more isolated than ever, and China is standing by to take over

As coffins of shooting victims rolled past wailing mourners, Iraq's dominant Shiite Muslim political alliance Monday condemned the United States for a weekend raid that left at least 16 people dead in a Shiite neighborhood and said it was for now dropping out of U.S.-guided talks aimed at forming a unity government.

The raid also widened a split between the Sunni Arab-led Defense Ministry, which oversees the Iraqi troops who took part in the operation, and the Shiite-dominated police force. Rivalry between the two security forces has fueled apprehension that the sectarian violence could drag them into a civil war.

Certain key elements of the Alternative Media, this site among them, have consistently exposed the one-sidedness of the MSM in protecting Israel and extending this protection therefore to the Bush administration. That is precisely what empowers the administration as a regime. And what it doesn't say in the report, is the astonishing control those sympathetic to Israel, and therefore supportive of the Bush crime machine, overwhelming own, manage and operate print and TV and cable electronic news reporting. This subject wasn't even touched on.

About Moussaoui, much ado about nothing...

Award winning actor, director, producer, and pioneering anti-Iraq war activist Ed Asner is scheduled to appear live on the CNN Headline News program Showbiz Tonight (6pm CST). Asner is reportedly going on to support Charlie Sheen's bold and brave stance calling for a real investigation of the events on September 11th, 2001 as well as to raise his own questions.

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear what will almost certainly be one of the landmark cases of the past 50 years.

Since the Court agreed to hear Hamdan's case, the administration of George W. Bush filed an extraordinary motion to dismiss it. The government argues that a law passed by Congress late last year was intended to deny the right of habeas corpus to all prisoners in U.S. custody – including not only new cases, but those that were pending at the time Congress acted.

Top Ten Mistakes the Bush Administration Is Repeating from Vietnam...

Senior ministers from the three main Shia factions united yesterday to denounce an American raid on a Baghdad mosque complex in which at least 20 people died, opening the biggest rift between the US and Iraq's majority Shia community since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

On March 24, Assistant Secretary of State Anne Patterson told Colombia’s Radio Caracol that, while the United States would not initiate any unilateral military action to capture FARC leaders, it would intervene if invited by the Colombian government. Given that the U.S. government’s intervention in Colombia already involves everything but the deployment of U.S. combat troops, it is clear that Patterson’s comments were intended to illustrate the Bush administration’s willingness to deploy U.S. troops to Colombia to combat FARC guerrillas.

Speaking on condition of anonymity because he is involved in the current Iraqi political process, a leading Middle East expert said, "Because the US did not understand Iraqi culture, it did not anticipate the insurgency. Because it did not anticipate the insurgency, it could not have planned for the huge sums that would have to be spent on security."

Critics of the Bush administration see the end of US reconstruction funding as vindicating this position. Typical is Beau Grosscup, professor of international relations at California State University at Chico.

"Having destroyed Iraq, the US now refuses to put it back together again," he said. "This decision reflects the disastrous reality of the US occupation for the Iraqi people as it is obvious there won't be peace until the US leaves. Meanwhile, the makeover of the Iraqi economy has been completed."

London, Mar. 27 – The United States has postponed direct talks with Iran on the situation in Iraq, a British daily claimed on Monday.

New Anti-Terror Training Manual Says ''Property Rights Activists'' Are Terrorists...

In fact, Zacarias Moussaoui is a stark raving lunatic, given to paranoid outbursts in the courtroom, and he was deemed sane for the simple reason that the government needs a conviction to prop up its ludicrous whitewash commission fairy tale about “al-Qaeda” cave dwellers attacking America on September 11, 2001.

The FBI knows of a man who was caught entering the lab where the Anthrax used in the letters was kept, after he had been fired for a racially motivated attack on a co-worker. So, why is the FBI wasting its time with Steven Hatfill?

That control is exercised by the "Wolfowitz cabal," led by Paul Wolfowitz (No. 2 man at the Defense Department and key Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld confidant) and the 18-member Defense Policy Board. Fellow travelers include Richard Perle (chairman of the Defense Policy Board), Douglas J. Feith (Under Secretary of Defense for Policy), Elliott Abrams (director of the National Security Council's office for democracy), Josh Bolten (Deputy Chief of Staff), and Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff to the Vice President). All of these guys are Israel-centric Jews. They're the shock troops of the Israel First federation.

Some may remember Sony BMG's mistake of putting rootkit technology on people's computers without the users knowledge even if he or she reads or rejects the terms and conditions. Some may also remember Sony BMG encoding their albums with spyware technology regardless if the user accepted the EULA (End User License Agreement.) One may have thought that no other company would possibly repeat such an offensive mistake. One would be sorely mistaken.

America's most dangerous enemy, by far -- the enemy seeking to destroy our way of life and eliminate our freedoms -- is the enemy in our midst -- the enemy in our White House.

Media that won't report that fact, is media that's aiding and abetting the enemy.

A Virginia training manual used to help state employees recognize terrorists lists anti-government and property rights activists as terrorists and includes binoculars, video cameras, pads and notebooks in a compendium of terrorist tools.

Condoleezza Rice thinks Moscow informed Saddam Hussein of imminent US-led invasion of Iraq...

The activist actor, who was road-testing his own potential talk show, called Hannity a "no-talent whore" and an "incredibly ignorant boob from Long Island.

If you're looking for a reason why Zacarias Moussaoui suddenly testified today to a version of the 9/11 plotline that sounds more like the Official story than even the official Whitewash Commission report, this video may have the answer.

In it, NBC news reporter Pete Williams lets slip that Moussaoui is wearing a "Stun belt" underneath his clothing controlled by US Marshals.

White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.

Amnesty International has revealed the results of research into the use of the electro-shock tasers in the US.

Their report states that since June 2001, 152 people have died in the US after being shot with tasers. There were 61 deaths in 2005. Most who died were subjected to multiple or prolonged shocks.

The US pays 22 per cent of the regular budget of about USD 1.8 billion annually excluding contribution to the peacekeeping which is determined seperately

Soldiers flee to Canada to avoid Iraq duty Duncan Campbell Tuesday March 28, 2006 The Guardian Hundreds of deserters from the US armed forces have crossed into Canada and are now seeking political refugee status there, arguing that violations of the rules of war in Iraq by the US entitle them to asylum.

A decision on a test case involving two US servicemen is due shortly and is being watched with interest by fellow servicemen on both sides of the border. At least 20 others have already applied for asylum and there are an estimated 400 in Canada out of more than 9,000 who have deserted since the conflict started in 2003

U.S. commanders in Iraq on Monday accused powerful Shi'ite groups of moving the corpses of gunmen killed in battle to encourage accusations that U.S.-led troops massacred unarmed worshippers in a mosque.

Giving the first U.S. military briefing on Sunday's events in Baghdad, Chiarelli said the raid by about 50 Iraqi special forces troops backed by some 25 U.S. "advisers" had been the fruit of long intelligence work. But he said he did not know the religious affiliation of 16 "insurgents" who were killed.

White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.

IRAQ'S ruling parties have demanded US forces cede control of security as the government investigated a raid on a Shiite mosque complex that ministers said involved "cold blooded" killings by US-led troops.

U.S. President George Bush again reassured Americans last week they were winning the war in Iraq.

Please, Mr. President, no more "mission accomplished," no more victories. Your debacle in Iraq recalls King Phyrrus' famous lament, "One more such victory and we are ruined."

Amidst the flood of propaganda these days on behalf of what must be the most breathtaking expansion of Presidential power since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, especially glaring are the assertions of self-styled "conservative" media personalities that nothing is amiss, because: (i) the President is "Commander in Chief;" (ii) in that capacity he supposedly enjoys "inherent" power to take whatever actions he may deem necessary to protect this country from "terrorism;" (iii) assertion of this Presidential power is especially vital now, with this country engaged in a "war on terror;" and (iv) in any event, Congress has broadly authorized the President to use "force" in "the war on terror." None of these contentions can withstand even cursory scrutiny.

The FBI’s War on Rock Stars

"Don't publish that," Scalia told the photographer, the Herald said.

The Herald today calls it "conduct unbecoming a 20-year veteran of the country’s highest court - and just feet from the Mother Church’s altar."

Noting his "don't publish that" statement, it noted that "one of his sworn duties is to uphold the freedom of the press."

Documents obtained by The Australian reveal that almost 400 serious adverse reactions have been reported to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, some involving children as young as three.

In October, Tumpey and a team led by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology announced they had achieved a remarkable feat. Not only did they discover the virus' entire genetic code, they brought it back to life in a tightly controlled laboratory at CDC offices in Atlanta.

The virus that had swept the globe, infecting more than one-fourth of the world's population, existed on earth once again.

I believe one of the greatest threats facing this nation is the willful economic ignorance of the political class. Many of our elected officials at every level have no understanding of economics whatsoever, yet they wield tremendous power over our economy through taxes, regulations, and countless other costs associated with government. They spend your money with little or no thought given to the economic consequences of their actions. It is indeed a tribute to the American entrepreneurial spirit that we have enjoyed such prosperity over the decades; clearly it is in spite of government policies rather than because of them.

"Have you noticed how Bush, Blair, and the right-wing columnists have shifted their rhetoric over the last few weeks? Not so long ago their whole Iraq dialogue was about evil Sunni Baathist terrorists. Now it’s all about evil Iranian Shiites and they’re saying the Tehran mullahs are supplying the roadside bombs used to target Coalition troops.

Justice Scalia flips the finger in church...

Facing renewed U.S. pressure, Iraqi leaders held more negotiations on forming a government on Sunday but there were no visible signs of progress as sectarian violence left more bodies on the streets of Baghdad.

The article indicates that the military is putting pressure on mental health professionals treating these soldiers to minimize the extent of their problems and to declare them fit for return to Iraq and combat. For example, some Army doctors are reporting that they are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of the more serious post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Further, the article reports that professionals treating emotionally disturbed soldiers “are under pressure” to approve their redeployment to Iraq.

Baghdad Burning is a visceral first-hand account of how the war has destroyed the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens.

The author, a twenty-something university graduate who writes under the pseudonym Riverbend, chronicles the “three years of occupation and bloodshed” the city has endured and calls on the US to withdraw.