World-News

Bankrupt Empire

By Doug Bandow

The FDIC shut down a record 140 banks last year and is running low on cash. Last year the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation figured its fund was running a $34 billion deficit. Federal pensions are underfunded by $1 trillion. State and local retirement funds are short about $3 trillion.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25262.htm



Graceful Decline: The End of Pax Americana

By Christopher Layne

The epoch of American dominance is drawing to a close, and international politics is entering a period of transition: no longer unipolar but not yet fully multipolar. President Barack Obama's November 2009 trip to China provided both substantive and emblematic evidence of the shift.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25263.htm



'Too Fat' for Empire?

Military Generals Target School Lunches

By Mary Clare Jalonick

A new report being released Tuesday says more than 9 million young adults, or 27 percent of all Americans ages 17 to 24, are too overweight to join the military.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25270.htm



Americans Down on Federal Government

By Steven Thomma

Just 22 percent say they trust the government almost always or most of the time, among the lowest in a half century of polling.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25266.htm



The death of the American Century: The dream is dying

It was this: a belief that the world has a special love for Americans, for our earnest innocence and gawky immediacy, for our willingness to share the obvious truth and light of democracy with people still struggling in the darkness of history, for our random energy, syncopated music and lopsided, baseball-playing grins.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR2010041903936.html


From Information Clearing House

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Schooling Generations in American Exceptionalism

Dallas Darling, Truthout: "'One of the most important aspects of citizenship is to acquire the concept of American Exceptionalism, or the idea that the "United States" and its people differ from other nations ...'(1) It was with these words and this concept: American exceptionalism, that objective five (citizenship requirements) of Texas' social studies curriculum was revised. And if the ultraconservative Texas State Board of Education Review Committee, which consists mostly of wealthy politicians and prominent business leaders, has its way, teaching American exceptionalism to millions of students might just accomplish George Orwell's 1946 axiom: 'From the totalitarian point of view, history is something to be created rather than learned.'"

https://www.truthout.org/schooling-generations-american-exceptionalism58722



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Torture Prisons in Iraq

By Robert Dreyfuss

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the government of Iraq held hundreds of Sunni men in a secret torture prison where they were suffocated with plastic bags, shocked with electricity, and sodomized.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25265.htm



Iraq: Nevermind Our Secret Torture Jail, We Killed al Qaida Leaders

By MICHAEL ROSTON

So let's total this up: The US helps Iraq kill two top al Qaida leaders in Iraq, but the US sits on the development for more than 24 hours, and it wasn't clear that Maliki had the DNA evidence before he claimed credit for the mission. But it sure led the day in terms of American interest in foreign news.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25264.htm



Dead? Again?

The death of the two top leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia - one of whom was supposedly fictional - did little to illuminate the secrets of their shadowy lives and the state of the insurgency in Iraq today.

https://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/21/dead-again/



Bush Insider Reveals Guantanamo Deception: Hundreds of Innocents Jailed

By Bill Quigley

Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, provided shocking new testimony from inside the Bush Administration that hundreds of the men jailed at Guantanamo were innocent, the top people in the Bush Administration knew full well they were innocent, and that information was kept from the public.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25268.htm



Iraqis allege 'secret jail' abuse

Video report

Al Jazeera has obtained interviews with two men who were allegedly tortured in the al-Muthanna air base prison in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

https://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/04/2010422111047310933.html


From Information Clearing House



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The American Conservative
by Karen Greenberg

04/19/10

On his first day in office, President Barack Obama promised that he would close the Bush-era prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ‘as soon as practicable’ and ‘no later than one year from the date of this order.’ The announcement was met with relief, even joy, by those, like me, who had opposed the very existence of Guantanamo on the grounds that it represented a legal black hole where the distinction between guilt and innocence had been obliterated, respect for the rule of law was mocked, and the rights of prisoners were dismissed out of hand. We should have known better...

https://www.amconmag.com/blog/obama-doubles-guantanamo/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



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Nolan Chart
by Richard Dasher

04/18/10

I don’t think the majority of Americans would go to a doctor who tells them that the only way to fight off a deadly cancer is with another, less lethal form of cancer, as a way to divert from the original problem. The same metaphor can be used to explain the current politics in the US. If there is one thing I hope the average American voter will learn from the past decade, is that there really is not a difference between the Republicans and the Democrats. Politic[i]ans from both sides have been called out on corruption, driven up the national debt, and have passed laws limiting American’s freedom. The only way to stop the current pattern of constantly switching sides in hope of a better government is for the average American to stop buying into the two-party system...

https://www.nolanchart.com/article7624.html



Restoring federalism and state sovereignty: A constitutional path to prosperity

Liberty For All
by Barry Poulson

04/19/10

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution provides: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.’ Over the first century of our nation’s history the 10th Amendment was an important part of the Constitutional rules constraining the growth of the federal government...

https://www.libertyforall.net/?p=4079


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=American+freedom
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Mary Susan Littlepage, Truthout: "The unemployment rate last year for young male veterans, including those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, hit 21.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The stats show that veterans have a hard time making the transition from serving in war to coming home and finding work."

https://www.truthout.org/veterans-impacted-another-crisis-unemployment58683



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=unemploy
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mary+Susan+Littlepage

https://www.lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams29.html



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https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/w-williams

https://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/whitehead10.1.html

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Dems Spark Alarm With Call For National ID Card

By Alexander Bolton

Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25357.htm



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=National+ID+Card
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=biometric
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=fingerprint
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Mark+of+the+Beast
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=/whitehead
https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alexander+Bolton

https://www.lewrockwell.com/spl2/tea-partiers-in-two-camps.html

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The problem with Palin

The American Spectator
by Quin Hillyer

04/19/10

Sarah Palin, 55 percent unfavorable poll ratings notwithstanding, is a political phenomenon the likes of which American public life rarely has seen. There’s something distinctive, something deeply personal, about the way her legions of strong supporters rush not just to defend her but to counter-attack any and all of her critics. Palin has a way of establishing a sense of connectedness with her backers — such a strong, attitudinal sense that she is not just like them but one of them — that she has created what amounts to a one-woman, conservative ‘identity politics’ writ very, very large. Yet if conservatives are to continue a political love affair with this admirable and galvanizing woman, we need to insist on more than mere identity. And more than mere attitude...

https://spectator.org/archives/2010/04/19/the-problem-with-palin


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Terminally Dumb People

By William Blum

If you shake your head and roll your eyes at the nonsense coming out of the Teaparty followers of Sarah "Africa is a country" Palin and other intellectual giants like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh ... If you have thoughts of moving abroad after the latest silly lies and fantasies like "Obama the Marxist" and "Obama the antichrist" ... keep in mind that the right wing has long been at least as stupid and as mean-spirited.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25435.htm



The Palin Principle - Bible trumps Constitution

By Rick Ungar

While the religious right are free to vote for candidates who share their reliance on religious belief, they are not free to re-imagine the fundamentals of this country - at least not without putting their reinvention through the rigorous process of amending, or re-writing, our Constitution.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25434.htm



Neocon Sink Their Fangs Into the Tea Parties

By Ira Chernus

"This is the playbook for the resurgence of the conservative movement," says none other than Dick Cheney, on thebook jacket. It's "a must-read for conservatives who want our movement to dominate," exclaims a blurb from Karl Rove.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25557.htm



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Ron+Paul
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Eight more banks failed last week, bringing the 2010 total to 50. Three of the failures were in Florida, and two were in California. Massachusetts, Michigan and Washington had one bank failure each.

https://www.bloggingstocks.com/2010/04/18/bank-failure-tally-for-2010-hits-50/



Foreclosure Rates Surge, Biggest Jump In 5 Year

A record number of U.S. homes were lost to foreclosure in the first three months of this year, a sign banks are starting to wade through the backlog of troubled home loans at a faster pace, according to a new report.

https://snipurl.com/vmglp



Illinois bank-owned foreclosures double in first quarter

Almost 15,000 Illinois homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure in the year's first three months, twice as many as the number that went back to lenders during 2009's first three months, new figures show.

https://snipurl.com/vmcmi



Foreclosure Scams "Spreading like Wildfire"

Scam artists preying on families about to lose their homes. And the number of vulnerable homeowners keeps rising.

https://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/04/19/earlyshow/living/ConsumerWatch/main6410628.shtml



U.S. Shuts 7 Banks; Year's Failures Rise to 57

Regulators shut down seven banks in Illinois on Friday, putting the number of bank bankruptcies this year at 57.

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/business/24bank.html


From Information Clearing House



https://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=bank+failure
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Reason
by Michael C. Moynihan

04/16/10

During his tenure as prime minister, it was considered a deep and very clever insult to accuse Tony Blair not just of being ‘Bush’s poodle’ but of acting presidential. It wasn’t always clear that this accusation was backed by a working knowledge of how the American president governed, or a decent argument as to why this was so vastly inferior to the British model. The point was rather obvious: American politics were something to avoid, seeing as Americans all carry handguns and are denied hospital treatment when shot (which is inevitable, considering the number of armed lunatics stalking the streets). … this heavy-breathing about America’s baleful influence on British politics came to mind when watching last night’s ‘presidential debate,’ the first of its kind, that pitted Prime Minister Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative), and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) against each other and an audience of pre-selected questioners...

https://reason.com/archives/2010/04/16/the-americanization-of-british



Presidential politics: The horse that’s bolted

Adam Smith Institute
by Tom Clougherty

04/18/10

British politics has become presidential. Thursday’s leaders debate just underlined that. The problem, of course, is that we don’t have a constitution that can contain presidential power. In fact, we have one that takes presidential power and, provided the ruling party’s majority is large enough, turns it into an elected dictatorship. Put simply, our legislature no longer holds the executive to account in any meaningful way. Party whips enforce discipline, and anyone who wants to climb the greasy poll knows they have to toe the party line — if they don’t they’ll lose out on the luxuries that come with being a minister...

https://tinyurl.com/y2vy4pv



The battle of Britain

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

04/30/10

The British election campaign has reached its dramatic climax, with the third debate between the ‘major’ party representatives, but the furor created by Gordon Brown’s confrontation with that ‘bigoted woman’ who dared ask a question about immigration may have pulled the rug out from under the Labor party before the clash of the partisans was aired. In British politics, as in America, immigration is an issue that separates the elites from the hoi polloi: the former don’t want to talk about it, except to give reasons why it ought to be increased, and the latter deeply resent it, as the economy tanks and immigrants line up for welfare benefits. In hard times, when ordinary people are being squeezed, immigrants as scapegoats are a popular target, but Brown’s run-in with Gillian Duffy, the ‘bigoted’ grandmother, underscored the arrogance not only of the British Prime Minister but of the elites he speaks for, who feel nothing but disdain for ordinary people as they struggle to survive in an era of diminished expectations. How dare Grandma Duffy ask such a politically incorrect question! Doesn’t she know the rules?

https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/29/the-battle-of-britain/



Britons see “dangers ahead” in US relationship

USA Today

05/03/10

For Americans, ‘the special relationship’ sounds like the title of a guidebook on marriage. Many Britons instantly recognize the phrase as Winston Churchill’s description of the tight bond between Great Britain and the United States. That alliance is on the rocks, experts say, and the results of Thursday’s election may weaken it further.

https://tinyurl.com/3yybjr2


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Nick Clegg Should Stick To His Guns

Under bombardment from the rightwing media, Clegg must not tack back to the middle ground

By John Kampfner

The evidence so far is that Clegg will not tone down some of his more "controversial" policies. I put the word in inverted commas because many of the points he is making are blindingly obvious to sensible voters. In a speech to London-based foreign correspondents this week, Clegg spoke candidly of the need to end the self-delusion of the "special relationship" with the United States.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25292.htm



U.K. Election Campaign Enlivened by Come-From-Behind Politician Who Wants A 'Rebalanced' Transatlantic Relationship

The customarily third-place "Lib Dems" have jumped 10 points in a week, putting Clegg's party either in the lead or close behind the Conservatives and pushing Labor into third place in terms of votes overall.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/64374



Lib Dem foreign policies - Clegg's achilles heel?

"We first need to acknowledge the fact that we still too readily put ourselves in a position of unthinking subservience to American interests", Clegg has said.

https://snipurl.com/vpcsf



Nick Clegg interview - on ForeignPolicy

Nick Clegg speaks to politics.co.uk about Foreign Policy.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGHbU2uLDs8



Nick Clegg's Speech to the Liberal Democrats 2009 Conference

Nick Clegg MP, Leader of the Liberal Democrats making his speech to the Liberal Democrats 2009 Conference in Bournemouth.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaQHTrUhM_4



Clegg!

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

04/23/10

Nick Clegg’s sudden forward sprint in the British elections has the political establishment in Britain in an uproar — and the Americans are suddenly noticing that they might have a slight problem on their hands. As a symptom of the vast discontent of the English-speaking peoples, his surge in the polls — after a scintillating performance in the first debate — confirms a trend that began in the last US presidential election, and has apparently leaped the Atlantic to implant itself in British soil. In Britain it is the year of the insurgent, as it was in America in 2008 — and yet that is where the similarities end, for the most part. With Barack Obama, there was the appearance of change, but the reality soon proved to be quite different...

https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2010/04/22/clegg/



The Age of Ennui

By David Michael Green

Voters in the UK have given us a paradigmatic sampling of our political times. They don't know where to turn. They vaguely remember that letting the right have the keys to government is a prescription for disaster, but the so-called left has not only lost its nerve and purpose, it's lost its leftiness too.

https://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25407.htm


From Information Clearing House



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