Tag: Six In The Morning

He’s Back And No It’s Not Arnold  



Iraqi cleric urges resistance to U.S., Israel after return from exile

NAJAF, Iraq – A powerful cleric whose fearsome militia once battled Americans urged followers Saturday to resist the United States “with all means” in his first public address in Iraq after four years in exile.

Addressing an adoring crowd of thousands, Muqtada al-Sadr also called on the newly formed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to make sure all U.S. forces leave Iraq by the end of the year as planned.

And he warned that “we have the political means” to reject that governmentif it does not provide security and services to its citizens.

Spies Like Us: Please Speak Into The Pen Wait Not Working Try The Flower  



US woman arrested in Iran as spy: Why the story may not have teeth

Istanbul, Turkey

James Bond couldn’t have done it better. Which is why an unconfirmed 007-style story about Iran arresting an American woman with a microphone hidden in her teeth is grabbing headlines.

The report first emerged this week in the state-owned newspaper, Iran, which does not have a history of publishing truth-telling facts when it comes to alleged enemy spies.

Then on Thursday Iran’s semiofficial Fars News Agency, which is tied to the Revolutionary Guard, weighed in with its own unsubstantiated report: “Iranian authorities announced” the detention one week ago of 55-year-old Hal Talayan, it claimed. The story was titled: “Iran arrests US spy.”

Big Brother Meets McCarthyism  



Israeli parliament backs ‘McCarthyite’ investigation into human rights groups

A right-wing proposal to investigate some of Israel’s best-known human rights organisations for “delegitimising” its military was approved by the country’s parliament yesterday amid left-wing charges of McCarthyism.

After a highly charged and noisy debate, the Knesset approved by 41 votes to 16 the plan for a parliamentary panel of inquiry into the funding of a series of organisations which have criticised and documented human rights abuses by Israeli authorities, mainly in the occupied Palestinian territories. The vote is a political victory for the hard-line nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu Party led by the country’s controversial Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, one of whose Knesset members, Faina Kirshenbaum, introduced the proposal and is likely to chair the panel.

Texas Where Even The Innocent Are Guilty  



Texas man who spent 30 years in prison likely to have conviction quashed

An exoneration hearing for Cornelius Dupree Jr. is scheduled for Tuesday in Dallas. If his conviction is overturned, he would have spent more time wrongly imprisoned than any other DNA exoneree in Texas.

The district attorney’s office said on Monday it supports Dupree’s innocence claim.

Dupree was charged in 1979 with raping and robbing a 26-year-old woman and sentenced in 1980 to 75 years in prison for aggravated robbery.

He was released on parole in July. DNA test results came back 10 days after his release, excluding him as the rapist.

Throwing Good Money After Bad



Demise of Iraqi water park illustrates limitations, abuse of U.S. funding program

BAGHDAD – In thespring of 2008, Gen. David H. Petraeus decided he had spent enough time gazing from his helicopter at an empty and desolate lake on the banks of the Tigris River. He ordered the lake refilled and turned into a water park for all of Baghdad to enjoy.

The military doctrine behind the project holds that cash can be as effective as bullets. Under Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq at the time, that principle gained unprecedented emphasis, and it has become a cornerstone of the war effort in Afghanistan, now under Petraeus’s command.

Don’t Bother Hiding  



With Air Force’s new drone, ‘we can see everything’

In ancient times, Gorgon was a mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them. In modern times, Gorgon may be one of the military’s most valuable new tools.

This winter, the Air Force is set to deploy to Afghanistan what it says is a revolutionary airborne surveillance system called Gorgon Stare, which will be able to transmit live video images of physical movement across an entire town.

The system, made up of nine video cameras mounted on a remotely piloted aircraft, can transmit live images to soldiers on the ground or to analysts tracking enemy movements.

Republicans want to make being brown illegal



Political battle on illegal immigration shifts to states

Legislative leaders in at least half a dozen states say they will propose bills similar to a controversial law to fight illegal immigration that was adopted by Arizona last spring, even though a federal court has suspended central provisions of that statute.

The efforts, led by Republicans, are part of a wave of state measures coming this year aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration.

More U.S. news

NYC ball drops to ring in 2011

Nearly a million U.S. revelers have cheered the traditional ball drop in New York’s Times Square to mark the start of 2011. Full story

NYT: States face political battle on illegal immigration

Hostages freed, 2 arrested in bank robbery

NYT: Investors flourish amid economy’s year of tumult

Cuomo sworn in as NY governor, faces huge crises

Legislators have also announced measures to limit access to public colleges and other benefits for illegal immigrants and to punish employers who hire them.

Don’t Worry The U.S. Government Will Never Take responsibility  



Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault

A study examining the causes of a dramatic spike in birth defects in the Iraqi city of Falluja has for the first time concluded that genetic damage could have been caused by weaponry used in US assaults that took place six years ago.

The research, which will be published next week, confirms earlier estimates revealed by the Guardian of a major, unexplained rise in cancers and chronic neural-tube, cardiac and skeletal defects in newborns. The authors found that malformations are close to 11 times higher than normal rates, and rose to unprecedented levels in the first half of this year – a period that had not been surveyed in earlier reports.<

I’m Not A Witch I’m You



And, I’m Under Investigation

Reporting from Baltimore –Federal authorities have opened a criminal investigation of Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell to determine if the former Senate candidate broke the law by using campaign money to pay personal expenses, according to a person with knowledge of the investigation.

The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the identity of a client who has been questioned as part of the investigation. The case, which has been assigned to two federal prosecutors and two FBI agents in Delaware, has not been brought before a grand jury.

Yes, Republicans Are And Always Have Been Hypocritical      



Earmarks Are Pork Barrel Spending So Let Us Pursue Them With Gutso

No one was more critical than Representative Mark Steven Kirk when President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Congress sought passage last year of a $787 billion spending bill intended to stimulate the economy. And during his campaign for the Illinois Senate seat once held by Mr. Obama, Mr. Kirk, a Republican, boasted of his vote against “Speaker Pelosi’s trillion-dollar stimulus plan.”

Though Mr. Kirk and other Republicans thundered against pork-barrel spending and lawmakers’ practice of designating money for special projects through earmarks, they have not shied from using a less-well-known process called lettermarking to try to direct money to projects in their home districts.

Mr. Kirk, for example, sent a letter to the Department of Education dated Sept. 10, 2009, asking it to release money “needed to support students and educational programs” in a local school district. The letter was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the group Citizens Against Government Waste, which shared it with The New York Times.

It’s A Good Thing Republicans Are Paranoid  



That Way They Can Hate All Those Not Like Them

When Republican lawmakers take over the House and gain strength in the Senate after the new year, a decadelong drive to overhaul the immigration system and legalize some of the estimated 11 million undocumented migrants seems all but certain to come to a halt.

When New York Republican Peter T. King takes over the House Homeland Security Committee in January, he plans to propose legislation to reverse what he calls an “obvious lack of urgency” by the Obama administration to secure the border.

Among other initiatives, King wants to see the Homeland Security Department expand a program that enlists the help of local police departments in arresting suspected illegal immigrants.

The Congressional Garage Sale  



Those Sneaky Lobbyists Buying Your Government

Numerous times this year, members of Congress have held fundraisers and collected big checks while they are taking critical steps to write new laws, despite warnings that such actions could create ethics problems. The campaign donations often came from contributors with major stakes riding on the lawmakers’ actions.

For three weeks in June, for instance, the members of a joint House and Senate committee worked to draft final rules for regulating the financial industry in the wake of its 2008 meltdown.