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Latest News & Analysis
for MAY 2004

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MAY 15

DISINFORMATION: THE controlled news media's FLAVOR OF THE DAY, today¼and everyday!

The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them insomuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors .

— Thomas Jefferson

UK: Mirror editor fired over Iraqi abuse photos
" Piers Morgan, the editor of the Daily Mirror has been fired for publishing faked pictures of British soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners.¼Senior officers from the regiment accused the Mirror of putting the lives of British soldiers at risk. One picture showed a soldier apparently urinating on a prisoner. Editor fired as army wins battle over fake photos "Mr. Morgan was not even given a chance to clear his desk; he was escorted from the building by security guards. "

Boston Globe  apologizes for publishing fake photos of Iraqi prisoner abuse
"The Boston Globe yesterday apologized for publishing fake pictures of Iraqi prisoner abuse. The pictures, ostensibly depicting the gang rape of an Iraqi woman by an American soldier, originated from an internet pornography site. "US paper says sorry for 'fake' photos "The paper's stance is in stark contrast to the Daily Mirror's refusal to back down over its claims that photographs purporting to show British soldiers abusing an Iraqi prisoner were genuine."

Media cite newssite in 'rape' photo flap
"More media sources are citing WorldNetDaily in coverage of the Boston Globe fake "rape" photo debacle, while others, including Fox News, have left out the name of the newssite, which reported days before the New York Times Company paper published the images that they were fraudulent and had come from a pornographic website."

When seeing isn't believing
"In this world of Photoshop and other image-altering tools, what you see is not necessarily what you get. Once the absolute harbinger of truth, we're all now learning to be just a little bit suspect, one doctored photo after another."

Real News 24/7: For every time they get caught in a deception, the news media gets away with a thousand others. Of course, government sources take a back door to no one in the disinformation field. And while on the subject of hoaxes, here are a number of links from various sources questioning the authenticity of the Nick Berg video.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS.

Rabbi wanted his wife dead, hitman testifies
"A man who confessed to killing the wife of a prominent New Jersey rabbi testified Thursday that the religious leader offered him $30,000 to carry out the killing." (For more on this case, check under Rabbi Fred Neulander on the Good priests, bad rabbis webpage [be advised that some language on the page is crude and shocking]. )

Rabbi's son arrested in synagogue fire
"In what his parents say is a failure of the state's mental health system, the son of a rabbi has been taken into custody by police and charged with setting fire to his father's home and synagogue Wednesday afternoon."
(RN 24/7: Here's a preliminary story on the fire [note that the FBI and ATF were involved in the investigation!]:  Synagogue damaged by suspicious fires. Note that the first article describes the son as suffering from 'schizophrenia'; here's a feature story we've run across that may shed some light on  a possible source of that psychosis. Oh, yeah, here's a bit more on the problem, which might be called: "My father the Deadhead".)

Judge will hear Terri Schiavo's family's motion to restore visitation
"For a month and a half, the parents of Terri Schiavo have been prevented from visiting their daughter. They hope to change that by filing an emergency petition with Judge George Greer asking him to restore their visitation rights." Terri's website

 

 

MAY 14

ISLAM: Violence in the 'religion of peace'

Beginning in the 8th century, the followers of Hasan bin Sabbah (right), a band of trained killers who came to be known as the Assassins (or  hashshashin), dispatched their enemies in the name of Allah. Like today's suicide terrorists, they typically killed at close range, even when their own deaths were likely. Although an admittedly extreme sect of Muslims, the Assassins nevertheless represent a violent strain in Islam that can be traced from its origins up to the present. Of all today's major religions, it is the one with the bloodiest history, and while it shouldn't be judged solely from the likes of its worst elements, the religious justification for violent behavior is a longstanding one. 

 

Chopping heads
"The murder of Nick Berg, a 26-year-old American businessman, by a group of Islamist terrorists in Iraq continues to send shock waves through much of the West.¼

Berg is, of course, not the first to be murdered in such a gruesome manner. Nor, alas, is he likely to be the last. For the cutting of heads (in Arabic, qata al-raas) has been the favorite form of Islamist execution for more than 14 centuries.

¼In 1885, it was the turn of British General Charles Gordon (above, left) to have his head chopped off and put on a stick in Khartoum after it had fallen to the forces of the Mahdi."

(RN 24/7: Despite legitimate questions that have been raised concerning details of the reported beheadings of Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl [see below], there is no question that this spectacular form of killing was and continues to be favored by Mohammedans. Of course, this would be precisely the reason the Mossad and its allies might seek to utilize it in a video. After all, what better way to fire up war fervor than to come out with footage of what purportedly shows the beheading of an American Jew?) 

The assassination of US journalist Daniel Pearl
"Contrary to ill-informed media comment imbued with liberal assumptions, the kidnapping and decapitation of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan was not an act of 'senseless or irrational violence'; he was targeted for assassination by terrorists. His death was not 'tragic'; it was the result of an Islamic terrorist operation whose inspiration, and most likely training, was from Bin Laden.

"Pearl’s death was certainly not at variance with Islamic precepts and history, which has avidly employed assassination as a political tool and to humiliate targets for over fifteen hundred years."

Terrorism has 'everything to do with Islam,' author charges
"Robert Spencer, author of Islam Unveiled and an adjunct fellow at the conservative think tank Free Congress Foundation, believes Islam's theological foundation is creating many of today's terrorists and would-be terrorists. Spencer's book takes a critical look at the religion of Islam, its holy book, The Koran, its prophet Muhammad and concludes that the religion is producing violent behavior in a significant numbers of its adherents."

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related LINKS

Christianity and Islam: a quick look
"There may be 'moderate' Moslems with whom Christians can co-exist peacefully. But don't count on that. Here's Steven Terenzio's thumbnail sketch of their religious beliefs."

Muslim bro slits sis's throat in 'honor killing'
Jordanian law actually assists Muslim men who kill their women. The Jordanian lawmakers had a chance to write stricter laws against 'honor killing,' but they went for laxity rather than more stringent punishments.¼So it is this week in Jordan a brother slit his sister's throat. She was pregnant at the time. Eight months pregnant.¼"
Honor killing Honor killing is the practice of males killing their female relatives or spouses when the female relative or spouse is considered to have damaged the family honor through unwarranted sexual activity."

Hizbollah condemns beheading
"The Lebanese political group Hizbollah has condemned the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq as an ugly crime that flouted the tenets of Islam." (RN 24/7: This is a self-serving denunciation, if ever we heard one, since the only legitimate criticism from the Islamic point of view would be that the beheading was criminal simply because the executioners had no authority to carry out the act. But the condemnation appears only to serve as a way to get Westerners' attention to the gist of the message, namely the implication that the Bush Administration had something to do with the Berg killing, which is an altogether separate [though relevant] line of inquiry.) 

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS.

Liberal churches turn to immigration to replace flock
"Big Business and its bottomless appetite for cheap labor are by no means the only pillars of the Open Borders Lobby that has helped flood the country with Third World immigrants. There are also the churches, themselves ever hungry for new members as their own religious liberalism drives away their old members. This week the Washington Post carried a story on how Protestant churches in the Washington area are using immigration to keep their collection plates full. [Prayers in Pr. George's Take On a New Dialect, Washington Post, May 8, 2004]"

Beheaded on camera: questions concerning Nick Berg's death
"It is remarkable, is it not, that Berg was captured on April 9, over a month ago and yet not a word of his capture was breathed in the US media about it until now, when he has met his savage end." (RN 24/7: Very remarkable, indeed, when other hostages have been in the headlines almost from the moment of their captures!)

Red Cross was told Iraq abuse 'part of the process'
"The Red Cross saw U.S. troops keeping Iraqi prisoners naked for days in darkness at the Abu Ghraib jail last October and was told by an intelligence officer in charge it was "part of the process," a report leaked on Monday said. The 24-page report added to the pressure on U.S. officials by revealing that commanders were alerted to apparent abuses at Abu Ghraib months before they opened a criminal investigation."
 

 

MAY 13

LAW OF THE SEA TREATY THREATENS TO SCUTTLE AMERICA'S SOVEREIGNTY

LOST [the Law of the Sea Treaty] was designed to put the Earth's oceans under the control of the U.N.

— Steve Forbes

Democrat Rep. Lantos presses Bush on UN's controversial sea treaty
"For the first time in history," [Center for Security Policy President Frank] Gaffney said, "we are being asked to submit to a supranational agency that has all the trappings of a world government: an executive, legislative assembly, a court, the ability to raise revenues [impose taxes], and of course the means to enforce its decisions."

Sink the Law of the Sea Treaty
"Under treaty provisions, the ISA [the United Nations' International Seabed Authority] would be the first and final judge of deep-sea disputes. It would get into the mining business itself with forced subsidies from private companies."

 Big trouble for Law of the Sea
"A United Nations treaty awaiting confirmation before the Senate, national security experts warn, would, if approved, cripple the U.S. Navy, empower potential enemies including China, make the nation vulnerable to submarine cruise-missile attack, and help terrorists."

Law of the Sea Treaty on hold — for now
"In late February, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee quietly approved the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (also called the Law of the Sea Treaty, or LOST), which surrenders control over the world’s oceans and the wealth therein to UN control. Ratification of the treaty is supported by the supposedly anti-UN Bush administration."

Law of the Sea Treaty and the Seventeenth Amendment
"You can expect to see a one world government, Communist controlled, under the United Nations. You will see the United Nations run up astronomical debts which we, under the terms of the treaty, are bound to pay."— the late Congressman James B. Utt

Sovereignty sinking but not LOST
"The more one reads the fine print of this treaty, the less there is to like. For that reason, concerned conservatives should visit the Senate Armed Services Committee website and find under hearings for April 8, 2004 the prepared testimony of Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick and Ambassador Middendorf."

Sea Treaty Is UN's Latest Power Grab
"The Senate could be on the brink of approving yet another giant step toward world government and a serious threat to this nation’s security in the war on terror."

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related LINKS

Law of the Sea Treaty Bodies
Links on the United Nations website

Readings on the Law of the Sea Treaty
Relevant documents from Congress

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Son of top Israeli official arrested in Tennessee with phony ID
"The leader of the two Israelis arrested after leading police on a high speed chase in a moving van last Saturday in rural Tennessee is the son of the spokesman for the Likud Party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the Mad Cow Morning News has learned. (More Israeli 'moving company' spies: New Jersey--September 11, 2001, Washington State--2002, Florida--2003 .)

Homosexuality and sadomasochism at core of Iraq prison scandal
"It’s becoming clear that the core of the Iraq prison scandal is, at least in part, the growing influence of homosexuals in our culture. But American newspapers are afraid to say that, largely because of the New York Times/Boston Globe complex, which is owned by Chairman Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., an apologist for homosexuals and also the prime advocate of homosexual 'marriage'¼across the country. He is also a chief critic of President Bush and the war in Iraq." Related article:  Iraq scandal is 'Perfect Storm' of American culture

Correcting Rush and his Dittoheads about Abu Ghraib
"Rush Limbaugh is way off mark here. Not only should the guilty soldiers be punished, so should the commanders who put them up to it, along with CIA personnel and other civilian contractors that were involved in the unnecessary atrocities that have come out of the prison at Abu Ghraib."

Beheaded American was arrested as a spy 'because of his Jewish name'
"Nicolas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been previously arrested by Iraqi police and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport, it emerged yesterday."

MAY 12

MURDER IN BAGHDAD

As for you Bush, dog of the Christians, anticipate what will harm you... You and your soldiers will regret the day you stepped foot in Iraq and dared to violate Muslims.

— from a statement read by Nick Berg's killer

American beheaded by Islamic extremists
"A video posted Tuesday on an al-Qaida-linked Web site showed the beheading of an American civilian in Iraq and said the execution was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

"In a grisly gesture, the executioners held up the man's head for the camera.

The American identified himself on the video as Nick Berg, a 26-year-old Philadelphia native. His body was found near a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday, the same day he was beheaded, a U.S. official said."

Qaeda Leader Beheads US Civilian in Iraq
"Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq beheaded an American civilian and vowed more killings in revenge for the 'Satanic degradation' of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, an Islamist Web site said on Tuesday."

FBI: Agents advised Berg to leave Iraq
"Before his grisly execution, American businessman Nick Berg reportedly refused U.S. offers of assistance to leave Iraq, U.S. military and federal law enforcement officials said Wednesday."
 

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS.

FAA manager mangled, cut, destroyed 9-11 tapes
"Information provided to the commission investigating the U.S. government's response to terrorist threats prior to September 11, 2001, names an FAA quality manager in the destruction of an audiotape made in the aftermath of the 9/11 hijackings."

Patrick Buchanan: A time for truth
"Iraq was an unnecessary war that may become one of the great blunders in U.S. history."

Serving two flags: Neocons, Israel and the Bush Administration
"Since 9-11, a small group of “neoconservatives” in the administration have effectively gutted—they would say reformed—traditional American foreign and security policy. Features of the new Bush doctrine include the pre-emptive use of unilateral force, and the undermining of the United Nations and the principle instruments and institutions of international law...all in the cause of fighting terrorism and promoting homeland security."

Having babies seen as 'patriotic duty' in Australia
"The Australian government is risking the ire of population-control advocates by urging -- and offering incentives for -- citizens to have more children. Announcing the conservative government's federal budget, Treasurer Peter Costello, the minister responsible for economic and fiscal policy, unveiled a 'family-friendly' $13.3-billion package that for five years starting in June will pay couples $2,000 for each new baby born." (RN 24/7: A much better solution for Australia and elsewhere is simply to stop allowing legal abortions.)

 

MAY 11

HURNDALL TRIAL BEGINS: WILL JUSTICE PREVAIL?

There is a moral and legal obligation that whatever evidence has been collected and which has led to the indictment of a soldier for manslaughter should be independently tested.

— Jocelyn Hurndall,
mother of the decedent, Thomas Hurndall

Israeli on trial for Briton's death'
"The trial of an Israeli soldier charged with killing a British student in the Gaza Strip opened yesterday with claims that the accused confessed only under duress. Lawyers for Sergeant Idier Wahid Taysir told the military court that his statements on the killing of Tom Hurndall, 21, should not be admitted in court because he was under severe pressure by interrogators and could not read or write.''

Israeli 'confessed under duress' to shooting Briton
"According to the indictment, which has been obtained by The Daily Telegraph, the Israeli soldier asked for his commander's permission to shoot an "armed man" moments after he had fired the fatal shot."

Israeli on trial for Briton's death
"The family [of Tom Hurndall] are challenging the Israeli army in Israel's supreme court to demand the military police report into the death."

Real News 24/7: Since British peace activist Tom Hurndall was mortally wounded last year in the Gaza Strip while protecting small children during an exchange of gunfire between Palestinians and the Israel Defense Force, there have been repeated efforts by the Israeli military to throw into darkness the details of his death. First, they said it was Palestinian fire that hit him; then, it was admitted that it had been an Israeli, but it was thought that Hurndall had a gun; next, it was said to be uncertain who shot him...and so on. Now, the sniper's attorney's are claiming that his confession was coerced and his family wants the charges dropped altogether, saying he's being made the scapegoat for the IDF. The question is: Will the Hurndall family ever get any justice for Tom? While, contrary to some critics of Israel, there have been instances where, quite against the common expectations of the Jewish state, justice has been served, even under conditions that clearly suggested a frame-up was in the offing. The case of Ukrainian-American John Demjanjuk, falsely accused of being a Nazi prison guard, was acquitted in a unanimous decision by the Israeli Supreme Court. Can the Hurndall family expect similar fairness? This remains to be seen. Since this is the case of a foreigner being killed by an Israeli soldier is being played out in international media, there may be a perceived need to make this 'look good' and find the soldier guilty (probably of a lesser charge). He may be prosecuted, too, to put the publicity to rest and protect the IDF. We will continue to monitor this case closely as it proceeds, not simply for its own merits, but also for its potential impact concerning investigations of the deaths of other non-combatants by the IDF, such as the American student Rachel Corrie.       

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related LINKS

The Thomas Hurndall Fund
A memorial website set up by Tom's family.

In the Line of Fire
"Did an Israeli soldier gun down British peace activist Tom Hurndall in the Gaza Strip?" (RN 24/7: This article, which appeared in Time a month after the shooting, is valuable because it includes early contradictory claims by the Israelis.)

Obituary: Tom Hurndall
From The Guardian of January 22, 2004.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Pennsylvania family says dead contractor in Iraq is their son
"The family of Nick Berg, 26, of West Chester, said they were informed by the U.S. State Department on Monday
that Berg was found dead near a highway overpass in Baghdad.¼The military said there were signs of trauma to the body. Suzanne Berg said she was told her son's death was violent but did not want to discuss details."

Abuse photos 'were staged in UK'
"Sources told the Daily Telegraph the photographs were set up in a Bedford MK lorry at Kimberley TA base in Preston. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said it was likely the pictures were a hoax."
(For more on alleged abuse photos, click here.)

Gun control march lacked numbers and impact, says critic
"It wasn't a 'Million Mom March' -- it was a 'thousand gang limp,' said one Second Amendment supporter, describing Sunday's anti-gun march in Washington."

Finding Negro: A cartoonish notion
"'I think Muslims have become the new Negroes in America. They are being mistreated at airports, by the Immigration, everywhere.' --- Jermaine Jackson, less talented brother of Michael and a convert to Islam himself. If  by 'new Negroes' he facetiously means a new, unfairly treated victim group, then race hustlers Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton aren't likely to be amused because nobody horns in on their territory without a fight. "
 

 

MAY 10

THE DARK SIDE OF BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACE

We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated.
The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective.
Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain.

— Dr. Jose Delgado, a publicly-funded pioneer of the technology of Electrical Stimulation of the Brain (ESB); his remarks of as they appeared in the February 24, 1974 edition of the Congressional Record, No. 262E, Vol. 118 and cited in The state of unclassified and commercial technology capable of some electronic mind control effects

There is much excitement in the computer and neurological research fields over the the potential use of brain-mounted circuitry to aid in everything from moving robotic limbs for the paralyzed and victims of Parkinson's Disease and similar illnesses to operating a computer with mental signals. But such possibilities for good should not blind us to the very real danger of governments forcing citizens to undergo implants for far less benign purposes.

Human-machine links could operate robots
"Before implanting electrodes in the experiment, the investigators recorded each patient's brain electrical signals with arrays of 32 microelectrodes, each thinner than a human hair."

Fine-tuning BMI
"Time to exterminate the mouse? In a giant theoretical leap over traditional input devices, brain machine interface (BMI) research is being conducted at I2R to fine-tune ways in which users can control computers by thought alone."

Company to start trial on brain implant devices
"For years, science visionaries have dreamed of machines that can read minds, then act on instructions as they are thought. Now, the first human trials of an early version of one such technology are set to begin."

BrainGate Neural Interface System
"¼the BrainGate™ System has the potential to afford people the opportunity to use the computer as a gateway to communicate and control assistive devices in their environment."

Mind Control: Technology, Techniques, and Politics
"This page contains information about devices which can be implanted into a human body and used as part of a mind control operation. As the page will make clear, such devices exist right now in commercial form and have been researched for decades. This page also contains items related to nanotechnology."

Mind Control Index
From Chapter 6 of How to create a mind-controlled slave: "In 1978, Samuel Chavkin warned in his book The Mind Stealers : 'With the increasing sophistication and miniaturization of electronics, it may be possible to compress the necessary circuitry for a small computer into a chip that is implantable subcutaneously. In this way, the new self-contained instrument could be devised, capable of receiving, analyzing and sending back information to the brain, establishing artificial links between unrelated cerebral areas, functional feedbacks, and programs of stimulations contingent on the appearance of predetermined wave patterns.'"

Government Mind Control webpage
Numerous links include: Cybergods, an extended excerpt from David Rorvik's  As man becomes machine: the evolution of the cyborg, and much of Jose Delagdo's Physical control of the mind .

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related LINKS

Brain Implants
"By the end of this century, I don't think there will be a clear distinction between human and machine."— Ray Kurweil, major figure in computer innovation. A page loaded with many photos and links.

The status of brain-machine interfaces
"Take another look at those cables: They snake into the back of the computer and then out again, terminating in a cap on the monkey's head, where they receive signals from hundreds of electrodes buried in its brain. The monkey is directing the robot with its thoughts." EARLIER RELATED ARTICLE: Brain-machine interfaces - what? - when?

Animal machine interface
"Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, American and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings: 'the semi-living artist.'" Plus several other links on similar topics.

DARPA Defense sciences office - Human assisted neural devices
Official webpage of military research.

Frankensteins in the Pentagon: DARPA's creepy bioengineering program
One example from DARPA's "human-enhancing" project: "The 'Continuous Assisted Perfomance' program hopes to find biotechnological ways (implants, metabolic manipulation, etc) to make it possible to push exhausted soldiers on without loss of performance for up to seven days without sleep.

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES ON THE DARPA PROJECT: DARPA's fingerprints: FDA approves human brain implant devices, Defense research agency seeks to create supersoldiers, DARPA To Support Development Of Human Brain-Machine Interfaces, Defense Department funding brain-machine work,

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Kerry will be no less pro-Israel than Bush
"John Kerry, if elected president, is not likely to follow a policy on the Middle East much different from that of President George Bush, as a speech given to the Anti Defamation League (ADL), a high-powered and well-funded Israel support group, this week shows."

Bush's backing of Rumsfeld shocks and angers Arabs
"Arab commentators reacted with shock and disbelief on Monday over President Bush's robust backing of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld against calls for his resignation."

Integrity of electronic voting questioned
"'My nightmare scenario for the 2004 presidential election is to have a reasonably close race decided by paperless electronic voting machines that we have no way to independently check did the right thing," said Stanford
University professor David Dill, who publishes a Web site called Verifiedvoting.org ."

Global warming propaganda coming to movie screens
"According to The Day After Tomorrow, a $125 million disaster movie opening on May 28, man-made pollution is causing nature to strike back with catastrophic retribution."

Bush caught in 'coma' quarrel
"A battle over whether a woman who has been in a coma for 14 years can be allowed to die has sparked a controversy involving Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a brother of current US president George W Bush." Terri's website

 

MAY 9

CAFTA & THE EMERGING NEW WORLD ORDER

"The 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up. ... An end run around sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault."

— Richard Gardner,
former deputy assistant Secretary of State
cited in The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) & the New World Order
 

CAFTA: Stepping Stone to the FTAA
"'Transgovernmentalism is emerging as the real new world order, rapidly becoming the most widespread and effective mode of international governance,' Harvard Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter (CFR) approvingly proclaimed in 'The Real New World Order,' her 1997 essay for the CFR journal Foreign Affairs. 'The state is not disappearing,' she noted, 'it is disaggregating into its separate, functionally distinct parts. These parts — courts, regulatory agencies, executives, and even legislatures — are networking with their counterparts abroad, creating a dense web of relations that constitutes a new, transgovernmental order.'"

CAFTA: Wall Street vs Main Street
"Have you heard of CAFTA - Central America Free Trade Accord? Well, if you are glued to the 24 hour news cycle, you still might have missed that this agreement is starting to move on the fast track. But for those who are familiar with this extension of the NAFTA disaster, south of the Mexican border, you might wonder where are the voices of mainstream conservatives? The noise that does exist, mostly comes out of the 'progressive' left, if not the liberal side of the Congressional aisle. How come?"

US Democrat says CAFTA trade pact in trouble
"A free-trade pact with five Central American countries is in trouble in Congress because of the Bush administration's failure to address Democratic party concerns on labor, a senior lawmaker said Tuesday.

'Isolationists' threaten CAFTA pact - Zoellick
"'The reason that CAFTA has trouble is that we have a bunch of economic isolationists using labor as an excuse' to oppose the pact, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick told Rep. Sander Levin, a Michigan Democrat who also is critical of the pact, during a heated exchange."

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related LINKS

Office of the United States Trade Representative
Includes fact sheets, press releases and more information from Bush's Zionist appointee, Robert Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative. (Zoellick was one of the neo-cons who pushed for the Iraq invasion. As part of the Project for the New American Century, he urged this when he co-signed a Letter to President Clinton on Iraq. For more on Zoellnick's Israel Firstism, see World War IV and Greater Israel -- What Does It Really Mean? , and his on globalist economic agenda, Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood".)

Foreign Agricultural Service's CAFTA page
This United States Department of Agriculture agency provides its analysis of CAFTA and numerous links.

World bank seeks to ensure CAFTA helps reduce poverty
"The World Bank supports a growth and poverty reduction strategy in Central America that includes enhancing private sector productivity to take advantage of the opportunities that international trade offers."

Resources and Links
A webpage with editorials, reports and official information about CAFTA, plus Insider links, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Leftist slant, however.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Hail exclusion--Divisive is normal
"The multiculturalists would have you swallow that self interest is divisive if it conflicts with their frenzied agenda. At the core of this fallacy is that discord is worse than freedom. These quacks would have you believe that Populist Nationalism is the most dangerous of human aspirations."

Syrian, Saudi rulers blame terror woes on “the Zionists”
"The teaming up of al Qaeda terrorists with Iraqi guerrillas on a Middle East rampage against American, British, Jordanian, Saudi, Syrian and Israeli targets last month exposes three dangerous developments.¼" (RN 24/7: This is from the Debka, an Israeli website devoted to covering geopolitical affairs.)

If I were the devil
I would gain control of the most powerful nation in the world;
I would delude their minds into thinking that they had come from man's effort, instead of God's blessings;
I would promote an attitude of loving things and using people, instead of the other way around¼

Terri Schiavo's parents, pro-life groups respond to judge's decision
"The parents of Terri Schiavo, and pro-life organizations that have been closely monitoring the years-long legal battle they have waged to save Terri's life, are deeply disappointed by a local judge's ruling striking down a law that allowed Terri's feeding tube to remain in place." Terri's website
 

 

MAY 8

Tax protests (pro and con) and alternate tax pROPOSALs

The taxpayer—that's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take a civil service examination.

— Ronald Reagan
 

IRS sues over no-tax websites
"The suit asks for a judge to stop [anti-IRS web manager Dana C.] Ewell and the company through which he conducts business, !Solutions! Group, from promoting allegedly fraudulent tax schemes and impeding the collection of federal income taxes. "  !Solutions! Group The website offensive to the IRS.

" It's so simple, It's ridiculous "
"[Bob] Schulz has stopped paying federal income tax, and he isn’t afraid to let anyone, including the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), know it. Not only is he not paying, but he’s also leading a national movement telling everyone else they shouldn’t pay either."

The Claremont Institute: Regressive thoughts on a progressive tax
"This decision holding the federal income tax to be unconstitutional is one of the few Supreme Court cases ever to have been overturned by constitutional amendment. In 1913, the adoption of the sixteenth amendment removed all limitations on the imposition of federal income taxes."

The federal income tax is unconstitutional
"Most people believe that the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorized the federal government to impose a federal Income Tax. However, few realize that the original intent of the Sixteenth Amendment was only to authorize Congress to impose an Income Tax on the earnings of the wealthy in this country."

Devvy Kidd -- This is what your 'fear' is protecting, America
"Millions of Americans have read the Joseph Banister story. For those who may not know of this courageous individual, a short refresher is in order. Joseph was an IRS CID agent (Criminal Investigation Division) for a little over five years. In late 1996, he happened to hear some information about the nature of the income tax on a radio show. After two years of trying to prove the so-called 'tax protesters' wrong regarding their beliefs, he finally concluded that the 'tax honesty' individuals were indeed correct in their analysis of the income tax and its voluntary nature. "

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related LINKS

31 questions and answers about the IRS
A protest page with Q&A such as:

3. By what legal authority, if any, has the IRS established offices inside the 50 States of the Union? 

Answer:  After much diligent research, several investigators have concluded that there is no known Act of Congress, nor any Executive Order, giving IRS lawful jurisdiction to operate within any of the 50 States of the Union.

Tax protester FAQ
A site that challenges the numerous claims of tax protesters.

Avoid these tax protest scams like you would avoid the plague
The title says it all.

The tax protester movement
Proof that P.T. Barmum was right.

Taxes & the IRS: What to do about them
Rep. Bill Archer: "Americans are fed up with the current federal income tax system, and for good reason. It's complicated, burdensome and unfair.¼ In order to get the Internal Revenue Service out of the lives of every individual American, we should scrap the current tax code and begin afresh with a consumption tax. " This and other alternate tax plans examined on this site.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Bill would make State Department worldwide "anti-Semitism" police
"On April 28, 2004, with little or no fanfare, members of the House Committee on International Relations introduced a bill, H.R. 4230 to make the United States Department of State responsible to "Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism" everywhere in the world."

Terri Schiavo's parents forced to pay to visit their daughter
"In what is being a called a slap in the face just days before Mother's Day, Mary and Bob Schindler, the mother and father of Terri Schiavo, have been told that they may visit their daughter -- but only if they pay a 'security fee.'" (RN 24/7: More proof, if any is needed, of how ethically-challenged Terri's estranged husband, Michael Schiavo, is.) Terri's website

The crimes at Abu Ghraib are not the worst
"The worst U.S. crimes in Iraq have received far less press than the photos of U.S. soldiers having fun and games with the prisoners at Abu Ghraib – not that the prisoners were anything but terrified by these vile amusements – but the truly terrible crimes have not gone totally unreported, especially in the news media outside the United States."

MAY 7

FDA rejects WIDER ACCESS TO morning-after pill

"Federal drug regulators yesterday rejected a drug maker's application to sell a morning-after pill over the counter because of concerns about whether young girls would be able to use it safely.

"This latest ruling by the Food and Drug Administration told the pill's maker, Barr Pharmaceuticals, that before the drug could be sold without a prescription the company must either find a way to prevent young teenagers from getting it from store shelves or prove, in a new study, that young girls can understand how to use it without the help of a doctor."

FDA issues not approvable letter to Barr Labs; outlines pathway for future approval
Official government press release concerning its decision

FDA nixes over-the-counter sales of morning after' pill
 AUDIO  A report from National Public Radio's Judie Rovner

Pro-lifers, pro-family groups hail FDA decision
"Pro-family groups are praising the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for it refusal to approve the emergency contraception product known as Plan B or "the morning-after pill" for sale over the counter."

American Life League response to the FDA's decision
"While we are quite pleased that the Food and Drug Administration has advised Barr Laboratories that it will not grant over-the-counter status for Plan B at this time, the action is far from being totally satisfactory."

Care Net applauds FDA decision on 'morning after pill'
Care Net President Kurt Entsminger applauded the decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Thursday to reject over-the-counter sales of the "morning-after pill" due to concern over teenagers' health.

Concerned Women of America praises FDA for rejecting morning-after pill bid 
"Concerned Women for America (CWA) praised the FDA for refusing to approve the morning-after pill for over-the-counter distribution. 'The FDA is right to be cautious about making a potent drug that can harm women available next to candy bars and toothpaste,' said Wendy Wright, CWA's senior policy director. 'We are very grateful that the FDA put concern for women's health over political pressure.'"

Groups outraged at FDA contraceptive decision
"Can girls under age 16 safely use the morning-after pill without medical supervision?

"Although studies show that giving easy access to emergency contraception does not encourage risky or irresponsible behavior, none have focused on younger teens or preteens - mostly because unwanted pregnancy is not a big problem among this age group.

"Now, this younger group is at issue."

Real News 24/7: The latest Food and Drug Administration ruling further confirms much of what we already knew about that agency and about the dishonesty of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and the controlled national news media. Its letter to the drug's manufacturer confirms that it hasn't the slightest interest in promoting the defense of human life or purity in adolescents, but simply wants the company to demonstrate that young girls (by which is meant those under the age of 16) are able to take the pill without the aid of a physician. It's position concerns itself a great deal with the physical safety of the child, but not at all about her spiritual wellbeing. Meanwhile, Kerry used the ruling to make political hay, stating: "The White House is once again choosing ideology over science." Notice immediately that Kerry, the abortion industry's fair-haired boy, by making the issue 'ideology' versus 'science,' keeps faith and morality out of the equation. He doesn't ask the all-important question as to whether these pharmaceutical companies should be allowed to sell what some scientists argue are abortifacients in the first place. And as far as 'ideology' goes, the abortion 'rights' lobby is the only real ideology in discussion, because it seeks to secure as a 'right' what no one has a right to do: Kill innocent life. That's ideology at its ugliest and not the movement to preserve God-given right to life. Kerry calls good evil and evil good. Just as repugnant are the media. Article after article referred to how upset 'women's groups' were with the ruling, as though the only organizations deserving of the name were leftwing, feminist baby killers. What about the Concerned Women of America? What are they, if not a women's group?! But it's the same sort of deception we see time and again from media to advance a humanist agenda. Just as the national media avoids any acknowledgment of groups like Jews against Zionism Jews Against Zionism and Jews Not Zionists , because they want to perpetuate in the public consciousness the myth that all Jews are supportive of the Zionist state of Israel, so, too, a pro-life, pro-family group such as Concerned Women of America doesn't fit the socially subversive mold favored by the major news media. This is just one way that supposed news articles are really disguised advocacy pieces. What's most dishonest about this practice is that they feign the objectivity of a report, all the while subtly advancing their destructive agenda. For example, a paragraph into the article above, 'Groups outraged at FDA contraceptive decision,' the writer states: "studies show that giving easy access to emergency contraception does not encourage risky or irresponsible behavior ." But this is what they've claimed about any contraceptives [along with sex education, sexually explicit songs and videos, etc.], while the reverse has always been true. In reality, the Pill was and is at the very center of the Sexual Revolution that began forty years ago. That revolution--and it really is a revolution--hasn't abated, despite occasional setbacks, but rather has escalated, especially with the horrible emergence of the homosexual 'rights' offensive. Later in that article, the writer uses the slang 'EC,' short for emergency contraceptives, which is introducing feminist rhetoric, just as 'mainstream' pro-sodomite propaganda uses 'gay,' which is a term originating in that subculture. Using the revolution's rhetoric in a non-critical sense helps give it acceptance to general public. In the present case, it's actually assisting young girls become users by getting them accustomed to saying the easier expression, as in, 'Can I get some ECs.' Also there is the persistent attack by critics as to how it didn't listen to its 'advisors,' who said Plan B should be given its approval. Of course, all the advisors in the world should be heeded if they give bad advice. But the media only mentions those advisors it wants the public to be aware of and selectively ignores, those, such as the pro-life biochemist Dr. Dianne Irving, who argued against giving the okay. Dr. Irving's media suppressed letter to the FDA can be read here. Worst of all, those who control what America knows do nothing to promote sexual abstinence and chastity for teens, but glorify as role models those who flout traditional values. Below we've included a few pro-purity sites along with pro-life links.) 

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related LINKS

American Life League
Pro-life—without exception, without compromise, without apology

Care Net
Pro-life pregnancy resource centers (Click on 'About,' 'Options Line' then 'Find a Center' to access directory of centers.)

Chastity
"Chastity is the virtue which excludes or moderates the indulgence of the sexual appetite. It is a form of the virtue of temperance, which controls according to right reason the desire for and use of those things which afford the greatest sensual pleasures.¼"

Concerned Women for America
A public policy dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Biblical values for all American citizens.

Good Morals
A website with numerous purity links.

Sexual Purity
"This page is dedicated to those who are committed to premarital sexual abstinence and to maintain sexual purity." Included are many links.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Apologetic Rumsfeld says worse could be coming
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld offered "my deepest apology" Friday to Iraqi prisoners abused by military personnel and warned that videos and photos yet to come could further inflame worldwide outrage." (RN 24/7: It would be criminally insane [or, perhaps, simply criminal or simply insane] to have these other pictures made public, if for no other reason that it will place our troops and hostages in even greater danger by encouraging further 'hate America' sentiment among Arabs. Already, those showing the degradation of Muslim men at the hands of US female GIs is enough to fuel their undying enmity, but to broadcast ones said to be worse surely will be like pouring gasoline on a fire! On this point, Rumsfeld's exactly right.)   

Democrats demand Rumsfeld resign
"President Bush apologized Thursday for the humiliation suffered by Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers while he defended Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld over his handling of the incidents."

Yet another account of shocking Iraqi prison assault
(It's not what you think.)

Greenspan: More globalization of US trade needed 
"Continued globalization and innovation are helping reduce the dangers of a disruptive correction of the U.S. international trade imbalance, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday." Globalization and the One World Government

Judge strikes down "Terri's Law"
"As expected, Circuit Court Judge Douglas Baird struck down Terri's Law, the measure approved by the Florida state legislature that authorized Governor Jeb Bush to ask doctors to reinsert the feeding tube that provided Terri with food and water." Terri's website

MAY 6

Expert warns that electronic voting systems vulnerable, flawed

On a spectrum of terrible to very good, we are sitting at terrible. Not only have the vendors not implemented security safeguards that are possible, they have not even correctly implemented the ones that are easy.

 —Aviel  D. Rubin,Johns Hopkins University computer science professor

"Scientists told a federal panel Wednesday that electronic voting isn't completely reliable and suggested a backup paper system might be the only way to avoid another disputed presidential election in November.

"But the commission's chairman said he didn't expect the bipartisan panel would issue national standards requiring paper receipts when it makes preliminary recommendations next week, followed by more detailed guidelines next month. "

Transcript of Aviel Rubin's testimony (linked to his home page)

Back to paper ballots for Missouri?
"Missouri could be the first state to introduce legislation that would require hand-counted paper ballots and the banning of all voting machines. A bill to restore hand-counted paper ballots was introduced in the state legislature on April 20."

A simple way to make computer voting safer
"If we are going to use any form of computerized vote-tallying, we need to implement procedures to mitigate risks. One of the most important procedures, after a voter-verified paper ballot for auditing, is to post polling-place results."

The Computer Ate My Vote
"The computer ate my..." sounds like the setup for a bad excuse you'd hear in grade school. But the headline of this column, which appears on T-shirts from the activist group True Majority, points to not-so-funny problems that some voters encountered in past elections, and that may affect others in November.

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related LINKS

Ad Hoc Touch Screen Task Force

BlackBoxVoting.org

Electionline.org

Election Systems and Software

Global Election Management System (Diebold)

Help America Vote Act

National Association of State Election Directors

Rebecca Mercuri's electronic voting site

The Risks Digest

Sequoia Voting Systems

Verifiedvoting.org

Votefraud.org

Votescam.com

Voting Technology Project

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Rumsfeld stays; Bush apologizes
President calls prison scandal 'stain on our country's honor'

The Meaning of Fallujah
"U.S. polls that show one-third of Americans now believe Iraq was never a threat. Half of us now believe the war was a mistake, 41 percent believe Bush's policies have increased the threat of terrorism, and 71 percent say his policies have damaged our image in the Arab world."

War propaganda
"If you step back a moment and think about it, you will realize that you are constantly being propagandized to approve of war — not just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but war generically."

Reinstating the military draft
"Under which scenario is war cheaper for the Defense Department – the volunteer army or the draft? Obviously, it's the draft since the Defense Department doesn't have to pay the higher wages to get men to sign up voluntarily."

Straight guy with a Catholic eye: A pro-life Democrat's response
"¼while it is obviously true that not all Democrats are evil, the sad fact is a vast majority do fully support the pro-death, libertine platform of their party. It's fair to say, then, that there are many more pro-life Republicans than pro-life Democrats."

MAY 5

John Kerry: Radical Internationalist

I’m an internationalist.  I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.

—John Kerry, 1970 Congressional campaign

 

"Despite Kerry’s protestations on Meet the Press, the Massachusetts senator has consistently supported the gradual removal of sovereignty from the United States, and the empowerment of the United Nations and its affiliated international bodies. For example, Kerry recently called for UN control over the Iraq operation, claiming that he would like to 'de-Americanize the effort and begin to put it under the United Nations umbrella.'"

Kerry's 'progressive internationalism"
"The leading mouthpiece for the New Democrats' radical interventionist program could be our next president. John Kerry, the frontrunner in the quest for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, has been promoting a foreign policy perspective called 'progressive internationalism.' It's a concept concocted by establishment Democrats seeking to convince potential backers in the corporate and political world that, if installed in the White House, they would preserve U.S. power and influence around the world, but in a kinder, gentler fashion than the current administration."

John Kerry on foreign policy
From On the Issues: Every political leader on every issue

Kerry urges UN control of US troops
Old Crimson interview reveals a more radical John Kerry, plus more.

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

The Media: Make it go away
"The media sees its conceits, not as duplicity, but as romance. Never called to account, the mediacrats seem to retain their tenancy forever."

Photos that will never make the news
"Here is a collection of pictures from Iraq which show the humanity that can still exist in war, and the obvious toll this endeavor has taken on our American troops. You'll never see these pictures in the news though... and we wonder why." (RN 24/7: It's good to see these, especially in light of the Abu Ghraib. Not all soldiers--or even most of them--are depraved torturers, and these show that other side quite nicely.)

 Austrians angry at Arnold's holocaust remarks
"The man once proudly referred to as 'our Arnie' has virtually become persona non grata in his own country after a wave of nationwide euphoria over native son Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California."

Methodists maintain stance opposing gays
"The United Methodist Church's legislative body on Tuesday upheld the denomination's stance that homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching, defeating a movement that sought to leave room for differing opinions."

MAY 4

Using torture to fight the War on Terror: Inside the Cells of Abu Ghraib

"The unanimity in American law-enforcement circles is striking. Torture is no longer simply a topic for debate. The debate has been won."

Despite the recent shocking photos of subhuman abuse on Iraqi prisoners, there has been, since the terrorist attacks on 9-11, more or less support for torture in media circles and a quieter thumbs-up from military and government sources. Will the exposure at Abu Ghraib end the abuse or merely make its perpetrators more careful?  (Right,  The body of a Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghrabib; wrapped in cellophane and ice, it bears the marks of torture.)

 CIA Privatized Torture at Abu Ghraib
"It is not simply a proliferation of cheap electronic cameras that revealed how US military and intelligence officers and agents work over detainees, but a secret US Army internal investigation report leaked to the New Yorker and handed over to ace investigative journalist Seymour Hersh played an important role as well.

"According to the author of the report, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, reservist military police at Abu Ghraib were instructed by Army military officers and the CIA to 'set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses' -- in other words they were to be tortured until they were reduced to well-disposed porridge."

Real News 24/7
The above article notes that two private corporations whose employees linked to charges of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib: The Titan Corporation, a firm whose homepage carries the banner, "Information and Communication Solutions for National Security," and identifies its clients as "the Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, and other government customers" and CACI International, another IT solutions company that has been working with the Federal Government over four decades, including, most recently, surveillance systems for Homeland Security such as "IMPASS^TM, the Immediate Multi-Sensor Perimeter and Area Security System." At least one civilian contractor has been accused, but can't be charged because he's outside of military jurisdiction. How convenient.

The CIA's secret manual on coercive questioning
"Faced with a FOIA lawsuit, the Central Intelligence Agency recently released an interrogation manual to the Baltimore Sun that details brutal methods of extracting information from resistant sources. The 'KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation' manual does more than simply outline various psychological and physical torture tactics: it demonstrates a real-world application of the CIA's mind control research and offers clues on the agency's role in human rights abuses around the world." A passage from the manual: "The principal coercive techniques are arrest, detention, the deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, and drugs."

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Real News 24/7
Have members of the controlled news media since 9-11 subtly been preparing Americans to accept torture? The below articles show beyond a doubt that the answer is yes. When the first calls came a little more than a month after the terror attacks, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth noted with some relief that "To the government's credit, it's not the government proposing this. It's various commentators." But like so many other forms of social engineering it's the columnists and commentators that are the ones who soften up the public for the onslaught that follows. In the case of torture, liberals and conservatives both are guilty of having supporters of the unspeakable. We begin with the first nationally circulated support of torture, Jonathan Adler's Newsweek column, Time to Think About Torture .

Pro-Pain Pundits: Torture advocates defy US, international law
"Alter’s column did say that legalizing physical torture wouldn’t work in the U.S. Instead, he suggested we consider using 'legal' forms of psychological torture at home, while 'transferring some suspects to our less squeamish allies.' In other words, send them overseas for the real thing."

Torture Seeps Into Discussion by News Media
"¼on CNN's 'Crossfire,' the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said: 'Torture is bad.' But he added: 'Keep in mind, some things are worse. And under certain circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils. Because some evils are pretty evil.'"

Time to torture?
"Americans are debating whether torture should be used against terrorists. But the case of Israel shows that brutality in the name of morality doesn't pay."

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related LINKS

Babbin, No Thumbscrews for Terrorists (National Review)
Buchanan, The Case for Torture (World Net Daily)
Chapman, Should we use torture to stop terrorism?  (Chicago Tribune)
CNN, Dershowitz: Torture Could Be Justified (Dershowitz and Roth debate) (CNN transcript)
Derbyshire, We Have Our Ways . . . (National Review)
Dershowitz, Let America take its cues from Israel regarding torture (Jewish World Review)
The Economist (US), Ends, Means and barbarity -- Torture: The use and abuse of torture
Solomon, The Case Against Torture (The Village Voice)

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Can Americans trust John Kerry?
"There is a name for Kerry's credibility problem: Bill Clinton. Like Al Gore before him, Kerry works in the shadow of the master. Clinton's gift, or affliction, for making everyone he spoke to believe he had heard what he wanted to, never quite caught up with Clinton himself the way it did with Gore during the 2000 campaign and, now, with Kerry."

Anti-Americanism is a globalist ploy
"The Iraq war is like the Korean and Vietnam wars. It is designed to be lost. It will cause a lot of suffering and make its perpetrators rich. But the hidden agenda is to further undermine American pride and power and increase anti-Americanism around the world. Let's not fall into that trap by becoming anti-American. There is nothing inherently wrong with the United States. The problem is the traitors who run it. The U.S. has been subverted."

 Look who's teaching Johnny about Islam
"A top textbook consultant shaping classroom education on Islam in American public schools recently worked for a school funded and controlled by the Saudi government, which propagates a rigidly anti-Western strain of Islam"

MAY 3

Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry and Bush Melt into one

Georgie Bush and John Kerry
Agreed to have a battle,
For Johnny thought that Georgie
Did nothing but war and prattle.

Just then appeared a monstrous terror,
As evil as a tar-barrel,
Which evaporated our heroes' valor,
So they quite forgot their quarrel.
 

"It occurred to me after Kerry's performance on Meet the Press this weekend that Americans have a choice this coming November between George Walker Bush or George Kerry Bush, the Tweedleddumb and Tweedledeedumb proffered to us by the Republicrats Party. How clever: one party with two candidates playing at politics for the amusement of the world. John pretends to have disagreements with George on taxes and outsourcing of jobs while he obsequiously crawls behind the President when asked about Israel, and, in that shadowed place, regurgitates the policies of Bush that have locked the US into a 'war' of terror. ¼"

Bush, Kerry differ on war only in degree of delusion
"The good news for opponents of the war in Iraq is that President Bush's challenger has finally called for a rapid American withdrawal.

"'Every day the U.S. military remains in Iraq,' he said, 'we imperil U.S. security, drain our economy, ignore our nation's domestic needs and prevent democratic self-rule from developing in Iraq.'

The bad news is that the challenger's name is Ralph Nader."

Bush or Kerry? No Difference
"A myth equal to the fable of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction is gaining strength on both sides of the Atlantic. It is that John Kerry offers a world-view different from that of George W Bush. Watch this big lie grow as Kerry is crowned the Democratic candidate and the 'anyone but Bush' movement becomes a liberal cause celebre."

No difference between Kerry, Bush
"Both gentlemen favor federal government spending on education, space travel, health care, retirement, day care and a slew of other projects for which the U.S. Constitution does not grant power to either the president or the Congress to perform.¼"

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Selective Service eyes proposal to draft women
"The chief of the U.S. Selective Service System has proposed registering women for the military draft and requiring that young Americans regularly inform the government about whether they have training in niche specialties needed in the armed services." (For more on the feminizing of the military, see our Special Report,  Women in Combat.)

US weighs tougher steps against Cuba
"A government commission is recommending to President Bush a series of measures to cut U.S. dollar flows to Cuba as part of a broader policy to hasten the end of the country’s communist system, an administration official said Sunday night." (RN 24/7: While in principle we support the ouster of all God-hating regimes such as Cuba, nothing good can be expected from Washington as it's currently constituted. Can anyone honestly believe that a government that bestows Most Favored Nation trade status to the butchers in Red China really cares a hoot about human rights? The proposed moves against Fidel Castro and Co. nothing to do with opposing Communism and everything to do with opening a potentially lucrative new market and another pool of cheap labor 90 miles from our shores.) 

City of Death: A stark reminder of why some Iraqi children need to be killed
"'I knew the soldier would think I was only a child and would not fire at me,' he said. He was right. As he approached the American position, the sniper turned away. The boy promptly knelt in the road, lifted his Kalashnikov and killed him."

MAY 2

ANNIVERSARY OF U.S. 'VICTORY' IN IRAQ GREETED WITH RECORD MONTH OF GIs KILLED, CALL FOR MORE TROOPS

 On May 1, 2003 aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President George Bush stood beneath a 'Mission Accomplished' banner and declared that major combat had come to an end for U.S. troops in Iraq. A year later those same troops emerge shell-shocked from the deadliest month since the invasion began in March 2003. Meanwhile, David Kay, who led the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, say as many as a quarter million additional troops may be needed.

Bush: We'll Finish Job In Iraq
VIDEO   TEXT
"President Bush says the United States will successfully pursue its work in Iraq in the face of a violent insurgency that seeks to undermine a peaceful transfer of power to Iraqis on June 30. 'Despite many challenges, life for the Iraqi people is a world away from the cruelty and corruption of Saddam's regime' and 'we will finish our work,' Mr. Bush said Saturday in his weekly radio address.

"His comments come exactly a year after his declaration that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, a point he noted.¼ Two more deaths on the final day of April raised the U.S. death toll to at least 136, making it the deadliest month for American forces since Mr. Bush launched the war in March 2003."


May Day, May Day! Team Bush looks to bail, but where are the parachutes?
"George W. Bush may have gotten off easy in his 'cordial' chat with the 9/11 Commission on Thursday. Yet he will find it hard to live down the next celebration on the agenda: the one-year anniversary of the official end of the Iraq War, or the official end of 'major combat,' as he called it then."

US needs 250,000 troops in Iraq, weapons inspector Kay says
"David Kay, who led the hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, said the U.S. may need as many as 250,000 troops to keep the peace in the country, after basing plans for the occupation on false assumptions." 

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

The “March for Women’s Lives” unmasked
"Some Americans have a romantic view of the pro-abortion movement. Influenced by a liberal media, they think of abortion in terms of poor women who sinned, got pregnant and are faced with the choice between abortion and greatly altered lives."

Assad warns Israel against operations in Syria
"Syrian President Bashar Assad warned Israel against carrying out threats to go after Palestinian terrorist leaders in Damascus in an interview broadcast on Aljazeera Saturday."

Touch-screen voting nixed in California
"Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned problematic Diebold touch-screen voting machines used in San Diego and three other counties yesterday and accused the company of engaging in illegal behavior when it sought state approval for the machines."

MAY 1

THE GREAT SATAN

U.S. troops reopen Abu Ghraib dungeon, Saddam Hussein's infamous chamber of horrors and have picked up where the Iraqi dictator left off. Real News 24/7 has chosen not to carry most of the stills from the 60 Minutes II segment that have been making the rounds on the Internet. After having seen some of them, it was decided that they bordered on the obscene and were not fit even for links. The occurrences are described in some of the following articles and that's sufficient for our purposes.  

The current issue of National Review advocates that the US adopt Saddam Hussein’s policies toward Iraqis. Nothing less will subdue them, says the conservative publication. To beat them, National Review says, we must become like them.

No sooner said than done. The US has appointed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard General, Jasim Muhammed Saleh to deal with the Fallajuh insurgency. And, judging from news reports and photographs of tortured Iraqis, the US has put Saddam Hussein himself back in charge of the notorious prison, Abu Ghraib.

Torture photos shock the nation
" Photographs have emerged showing Iraqis being sexually abused and bullied by their U.S. captors. One, shown on Page One, depicts a hooded prisoner standing on a box with wires attached to his hands. He was wrongly given to believe that if he fell off the box he would be electrocuted."

Horror beyond belief
"Iraqi prisoners faced numerous 'sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses' by US soldiers, including sodomy and beatings, according to a US Army report quoted by the New Yorker magazine."

Soldier's diary details wider abuse at prison
"The Iraq journal of Staff Sgt. Ivan L. 'Chip' Frederick II, penned in careful handwriting and mailed home as he feared becoming a scapegoat for egregious military misdeeds, paints a nightmarish picture of overworked, under-trained guards coping with hostile Iraqi prisoners and using tactics that flagrantly violated international rules for treatment of detainees."

Real News 24/7
The news that American troops were treating prisoners in such a manner is revolting, but not altogether surprising. When the ranks of soldiers include men and women who have little or no religious upbringing and whose values have been shaped more by MTV and action movies than by the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, this sort of activity is inevitable. Equally disturbing, however, is the timing of 60 Minutes II, choosing to air the segment at the same time Americans are being held hostage.  Former Marine Lieutenant Colonel Bill Cowan said: "We will be paid back for this. These people at some point will be let out. Their families, their friends are going to know.¼" For these people to know this, including the ones who have the hostages, means that the possibility of an eye-for-an-eye response is very real and to be feared. Should Americans suffer or be killed as a consequence, then surely 60 Minutes II helped bring it about by broadcasting the inflammatory pictures when it did and should in some way be held accountable. 

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OTHER NEWS & ANALYSIS

Patrick Buchanan: Neo-cons--Going back to where they came from
"'If we have to make common cause with the more hawkish liberals and fight the conservatives, that is fine with me,' William Kristol has told the New York Times. The Weekly Standard editor added that the neoconservatives may just abandon the Right altogether and convert to neoliberalism. " (RN 24/7: Which brings a question to mind: Just how is National Review's William Buckley any different than a neo-con? Answer: He's been deceiving conservatives a lot longer. See, for example, a review of the book, Bill Buckley: The Pied Piper of the Establishment and a second review of it. Click to order this book or the video of a speech on the subject by its author.)

Pro-life protesters silenced, roughed up at Kerry pro-abortion rally
"Two photographers who attended a pro-abortion rally on Friday sponsored by the campaign of presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry discussed the event with LifeNews.com. A group of college women were accosted and then dragged away from the event after they led pro-life cheers. The photographers say abortion advocates tried to prevent them from taking many pictures."

Terri Schiavo had five teeth removed
"The parents of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo, Bob and Mary Schindler, have filed Petition for Writ of Quo Warranto against Schiavo's husband and guardian, Michael Schiavo. 'Quo Warranto' is a legal term that questions 'by what authority' someone acts -- in this case, Schiavo's parents question the authority that Michael Schiavo has as guardian over their daughter, and by what authority he denies them access to her."
Terri's website