Alexander Cockburn - “Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?”

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn05032008.html

Has Rev. Wright Cost Obama the Presidency?

Alexander Cockburn | May 3/4, 2008

Every few years New York City cops hear the growl of clear and present danger and subdue the threat with powerful volleys of lead. With Sean Bell, an African-American, in November 2006 the fusillade rose to 50 shots, deemed necessary by the men in blue to lay low Bell outside a nightclub in November 2006.

In Queens last week a judge ruled that the cops who turned young Bell into a sieve on his wedding day had been filled with most understandable apprehension though Bell turned out to be unarmed. As usual the cops walk and sometime later the victim’s family may get a settlement from the city. The important thing is that justice is seen not to have been done. Power needs the periodic buttress of irrational, uniformed violence.

Cynthia McKinney - “Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity”

http://www.counterpunch.org/mckinney05012008.html

Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity

Cynthia McKinney | May 2, 2008

“[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”

And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.

Joe Guillen - “County prepares to sue Diebold”

http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1209717214150610.xml&coll=2

County prepares to sue Diebold

Joe Guillen | May 2, 2008

Cuyahoga County hired a nationally renowned lab on Thursday to prepare for a possible lawsuit against the maker of the $21 million touch-screen voting system scrapped in December.

The county - currently shopping for voting equipment for the November presidential election - wants to recoup its $7 million investment in the old system, which is only two years old. The rest of the purchase price was supplied by the federal government.

F. William Engdahl - “Perhaps 60% Of Today’s Oil Price Is Pure Speculation”

http://www.rense.com/general81/pure.htm

Perhaps 60% Of Today’s Oil Price Is Pure Speculation

F. William Engdahl | May 3, 2008

The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?

Dana Ullman - “How the American Medical Association Got Rich”

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/81659?page=entire

How the American Medical Association Got Rich

Dana Ullman | April 10, 2008

History reveals that the AMA was dictatorially led for the first half of the twentieth century by George H. Simmons, MD (1852-1937) and his protégé, Morris Fishbein, MD (1889-1976). Simmons and Fishbein both served as general manager of the organization and as editor of its journal, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). While these two leaders provided substantial benefit to the organization and to medical doctors, their methods of doing so have been severely criticized, with some historians referring to them as “medical Mussolinis.”

Kurt Nimmo - “Hillary: God Bless the Elite”

http://www.infowars.com/?p=1913

Hillary: God Bless the Elite

Kurt Nimmo | May 3, 2008

After watching the short clip here, my wife said in response to Hillary Clinton asking God to bless Bill O and herself, “…and let them eat cake,” that is the rest of us, the commoners.

It’s not the rich people per se, because there are plenty out there worthy of blessing and likely an equal amount worth damning.

It’s the global elite and their minions like Hillary.

George Washington Blog - “Government Itself Won’t Swear To Official Theory of 9/11″

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/05/government-itself-cant-swear-by.html

Government Itself Won’t Swear To Official Theory of 9/11

George Washington Blog | May 3, 2008

While many people question the government’s conclusions about 9/11, rest assured that the government agencies tasked with investigating 9/11 are confident that the government’s answer to the following questions is correct:

Infiltrated.net - “Microsoft Discloses Government Backdoor on Windows Operating Systems”

http://www.infiltrated.net/?p=91

Microsoft Discloses Government Backdoor on Windows Operating Systems

Infiltrated.net | April 30th, 2008

Microsoft may have inadvertently disclosed a potential Microsoft backdoor for law enforcement earlier this week. To explain this all, here is the layman term of a backdoor from Wikipedia:

A backdoor in a computer system (or cryptosystem or algorithm) is a method of bypassing normal authentication, securing remote access to a computer, obtaining access to plaintext, and so on, while attempting to remain undetected. The backdoor may take the form of an installed program (e.g., Back Orifice), or could be a modification to an existing program or hardware device.

Tad Walch - “9/11 theorist not curtailing his research”

http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695275973,00.html

9/11 theorist not curtailing his research

Tad Walch | May 3, 2008

Sixteen months ago, Brigham Young University and Steven Jones parted ways, but he said this week he isn’t bitter about the academic divorce.

He certainly hasn’t curtailed his volatile research on the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Francis X. Donnelly and Charles E. Ramirez - “The Sergeant: It’s one mean fighting machine, but some police departments would just like to have more officers”

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080424/METRO/804240387/&imw=Y

The Sergeant: It’s one mean fighting machine, but some police departments would just like to have more officers

Francis X. Donnelly and Charles E. Ramirez | April 24, 2008

With two law enforcement officials shot and the gunman believed to be barricaded inside his split-level home, police unveiled the latest crime-fighting machinery in Metro Detroit.

The GPV Sergeant 4×4, a $542,000 armored truck replete with blast-resistant body, rotating roof hatch and gun ports, used a battering ram to knock down the front door during the standoff in the St. Clair County community of Capac last week.

With more and more law enforcement agencies in Metro Detroit and across the country buying such vehicles, they’re destined to become a regular part of crime scenes, police said.

Gary Duncan - “US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank pump an extra $82bn into banking system”

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3864287.ece

US Federal Reserve and European Central Bank pump an extra $82bn into banking system

Gary Duncan | May 3, 2008

The US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank united yesterday to open a new front in their battle to quell the persistent money market strains that are fuelling the global credit crunch.

The Fed and the ECB lined up with the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to mount a third phase of joint operations to curb the transatlantic credit squeeze endangering the world economy. The central banks said that they would again raise sharply, by as much as $82 billion (£42 billion), the amount of funds they were pumping into the US and European banking systems in their effort to rein in elevated market interest rates.

Andrew Malcolm - “Republican Ron Paul predicts a President Obama come January”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/05/ronpaulpredicts.html

Republican Ron Paul predicts a President Obama come January

Andrew Malcolm | May 3, 2008

Rep. Ron Paul, the House member from Texas who technically remains in the race for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination against Sen. John McCain, predicts that Democratic Sen. Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States.

Robert Fantina - “The Rhetoric of John McCain”

http://www.counterpunch.org/fantina05032008.html

The Rhetoric of John McCain

Robert Fantina | May 3/4, 2008

The Republican Party’s choice for president, the elderly senator from Arizona, John McCain, has been busy backtracking, ‘clarifying’ and generally attempting to make sense in his speeches but, unfortunately for him, having little success. This was evident this week when he spoke about the Iraq war, one of his very favorite topics, and oil. While speaking at a town-hall style gather in Denver he said the following: “My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.”

This statement seems clear; Mr. McCain was echoing the pronouncement of former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan who, in his published memoirs, said that the Iraq War was “largely about oil.” It would appear to any reasonable listener of Mr. McCain’s speech that the U.S. felt it had to send ‘our young men and women’ to war in the Middle East because of U.S. dependence on oil.

Andrew Cockburn - “Secret Bush ‘Finding’ Widens War on Iran”

http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html

Secret Bush “Finding” Widens War on Iran

Andrew Cockburn | May 2, 2008

Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret finding authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, “unprecedented in its scope.”

Bush’s secret directive covers actions across a huge geographic area – from Lebanon to Afghanistan – but is also far more sweeping in the type of actions permitted under its guidelines – up to and including the assassination of targeted officials. This widened scope clears the way, for example, for full support for the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, the cultish Iranian opposition group, despite its enduring position on the State Department’s list of terrorist groups.

Paul Joseph Watson - “Overwhelming Evidence Points To Murder Of DC Madam”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/may2008/050308_overwhelming_evidence.htm

Overwhelming Evidence Points To Murder Of DC Madam
“She insinuated that there is a contract out for her and I fully believe they succeeded,” says Condo manager

Paul Joseph Watson | May 3, 2008

Evidence is stacking up to suggest that the alleged “suicide” of DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey was in fact a calculated murder, as the manager of Palfrey’s Florida Condo reveals that Palfrey was not suicidal when he spoke to her Monday and told him of her fears about a contact being out on her life.