US lawyer seeks to sue US over Iran threats

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:41:23
By Chris Gelken, Press TV, Tehran

An American lawyer has offered to represent Iran in an international lawsuit against Israel and his own government in an effort to stop Washington and Tel Aviv from initiating further sanctions against Tehran.

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There’s No Hope at the Ballot Box: In Memory of George Carlin

by Matt Reichel / June 28th, 2008

The second errant claim made by the Obama camp is that he was against the war from the beginning. Now can someone explain to me how an impassioned opponent of war entering the U.S. Senate could possibly vote repeatedly to fund the war he was supposedly against from the beginning? Where was he when the Democrats took over the Congress and the anti-war American public was waiting for a leader in Washington to take charge of getting it done? One would expect a supposedly progressive and popular senator to do just that. Instead, he just went babbling on about how Iran should be wiped off the map if real evidence were found to demonstrate their intent to develop one measly nuclear warhead in a world plagued by the peril of 20,000 American nukes.

While the grassroots gave Obama and the Democrats everything they needed to run this administration and its wars out of Washington, Obama was too busy stumping for the annihilation of Hamas, voting for the appointment of Condoleeza Rice, and calling out fellow Illinois Senator Richard Durbin for making the obvious comparison of Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and a Nazi concentration camp.

All that I have learned from Obama’s brief tenure in the Senate is that he isn’t even the more progressive of Illinois’ two senators, and he most certainly is not a skilled leader. During a time when a good leader would be like Dennis Kucinich in the house and demand a debate on impeachment, organize members of Congress to vote against war funding, and spearhead a movement for a cabinet level Department of Peace, Obama was out writing books in preparation for his presidential bid.

He was out praising Ronald Reagan and denouncing the ’68 movements for being naïve and divisive. Ronald Reagan is his man: the architect of the Latin American holocaust of the ‘80’s, wherein the United States dropped bombs everywhere from Nicaragua to El Salvador and Grenada.

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Imagine how quickly . . .

"Imagine how quickly we'd be out of Iraq if we raised taxes to pay for it now instead of leaving the bill for our grandchildren."

article at HuffPo

Wall Street Socialism

re: Freddie and Fannie

"If the guarantees work, private speculators, having driven the stock down, will clean up on the upside. And the bank's CEO's will continue to pocket the multi-million dollar salaries that are de rigueur on Wall Street. Call it Wall Street socialism. Their losses are socialized; their profits are pocketed. You and I will pay for their failures. And if conservatives have their way, their families will pocket their successes, without even having to pay a tax for the transfer of the estates we've helped to create."

Huffington Post

LA Times campaign distractions

LA Times "Top of the Ticket" blog ignores facts to spawn another typical MSM campaign "issue"

" Obama website's opposition to successful surge gets deleted

A funny thing happened over on the Barack Obama campaign website in the last few days.

The parts that stressed his opposition to the 2007 troop surge and his statement that more troops would make no difference in a civil war have somehow disappeared.

. . .

read it all

Commentors respond:

The surge has been successful because the United States has been paying militias to back off. It has very little to do with increased troop deployment.

I count the slimy assertion "the successful surge" inserted in this and other "news" pieces as pro-war propaganda.

Posted by: Brad Eleven | July 16, 2008 at 04:21 AM

" It's not about alliance building, it's not about Iraq. It goes back a longer time than Bush and Obama.

America is built on fake money. Used to be gold, now it's oil.

Now, Iraq doesn't need America's fake money any more. It has Euros.

And our government can print as much money as it wants.

This screws everything up. It will continue to screw everything up.

Until you people understand what Ron Paul has been saying, you are wasting your time and letting the gov waste your country's potential. Instead of chatting on these boards, read about what Ron Paul says. Think. We have to pressure our congress and Fed's standards --- before things get more screwed up. They are already getting there. The countries with oil are winning thanks to our greed and consumerism.

Posted by: Rich | July 16, 2008 at 05:02 AM "

An analysis by the New York Times found that the main success by the surge was brought about by an air attack surge which usually entails taking out family living quarters (and often the family) when someone fingers an insurgent in the area. It seems to me that neo-Stalinist tactic was doable without a troop surge. In fact, that kind of extreme violence against an occupied nation has surged into Afghanistan in recent weeks. Remember the 47 people including the bride killed at a wedding last week?

Funny, but the same kind of air war was done over and over again in Vietnam even while our military and government talked about "Winning 'Hearts and Minds' ". And we all saw how that war worked out.

Posted by: Bill Lenner | July 16, 2008 at 04:04 AM

Carbon tax with 100% dividend

Bad habits.

If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests who aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore, and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for a short-sighted self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy source.

Moving from fossil fuels to clean energy is challenging, yet transformative in ways that will be welcomed. Cheap, subsidized fossil fuels engendered bad habits. We import food from halfway around the world, for example, even with healthier products available from nearby fields Local produce would be competitive if not for fossil fuel subsidies and the fact that climate change damages and costs, due to fossil fuels, are also borne by the public.

in California comes from passenger vehicles. © US Environmental Protection Agency" title="Almost 40% of carbon dioxide emissions in California comes from passenger vehicles. © US Environmental Protection Agency" vspace="0" align="top" border="0" hspace="0">

Almost 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions in California comes from passenger vehicles. © US Environmental Protection Agency

A price on emissions that cause harm is essential. Yes, a carbon tax. Carbon tax with 100 per cent dividends is needed to wean us off fossil fuel addiction. Tax and dividend allows the marketplace, not politicians, to make investment decisions. Carbon tax on coal, oil and gas is simple, applied at the first point of sale or port of entry.

The entire tax must be returned to the public, an equal amount to each adult, a half-share for children. This dividend can be deposited monthly n an individual’s bank account. Carbon tax with 100 per cent dividend is non- egressive. On the contrary, you can bet that low and middle income people will find ways to limit their carbon tax and come out ahead. Profligate energy users will have to pay for their excesses. Demand for low-carbon high-efficiency products will spur innovation, making our products more competitive on international markets. Carbon emissions will plummet as energy efficiency and renewable energies grow rapidly. Black soot, mercury and other fossil fuel emissions will decline.

A brighter, cleaner future, with energy independence, is possible. Washington likes to spend our tax money line-by-line. Swarms of high- riced lobbyists in alligator shoes help ongress decide where to spend, and in turn the lobbyists’ clients provide “campaign” money
The public must send a message to Washington. Preserve our planet, creation, for our children and grandchildren, but do not use that as an excuse for more tax-and-spend. Let this be our motto: “One hundred per cent dividend or fight!”

Dr James Hansen directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a laboratory of the Goddard Space Flight Center and a unit of the Columbia University Earth Institute. He spoke this week at the National Press Club and gave a briefing to the House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming. He is co-author of "Target atmospheric CO2: where should humanity aim?" The His proposed “tax and 100 per cent dividend” is based largely on the cap and dividend approach described by Peter Barnes in “Who Owns the Sky: Our Common Assets and the Future of Capitalism”, Island Press, Washington, D.C.,2001.

© People & the Planet 2000 - 2008 - COMPLETE ARTICLE

also see:

• CapAndDividend.org - How to curb global warming while protecting the incomes of American families. Download PDF
• Markey climate bill is best yet
• A Climate Change Proposal With Cash - U.S. News & World Report