According to Rasmussen Reports, “Seventy-one percent (71%) of voters nationwide say they’re at least somewhat angry about the current policies of the federal government. That figure includes 46% who are Very Angry.
“The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 27% are not angry about the government’s policies, including 10% who are Not at All Angry.”
The report goes on to say, “The data suggests that the level of anger is growing. The 71% who are angry at federal government policies today is up five percentage points since September.
“Even more stunning, the 46% who are Very Angry is up 10 percentage points from September.”
The report also states, “The latest numbers show that only nine percent (9%) of voters trust the judgment of America’s political leaders more than the judgment of the American people.” It further states, “Seventy-one percent (71%) believe the federal government has become a special interest group that looks out primarily for its own interests. Sixty-eight percent (68%) believe that government and big business work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.”
Rasmussen Reports goes on to say that voter opposition to the proposed health care plan, government bailouts, and higher taxes is especially high.
That Americans are angry with the federal government is nothing new. As a general rule, Americans STAY angry with the federal government. So what? Nothing changes, anger and discontentment notwithstanding.
Actress Marisa Tomei reads the speech given by Cindy Sheehan at the 2004 Vertern’s for Peace Conference after her son Casey died serving in Iraq. Part of a reading from Voices of a People’s History of the United States given October 5, 2005 in Los Angeles California (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.)
While his robot-drones rain death from skies above Afghanistan and Pakistan,
And untried suspects rot in Guantanamo cages and are tortured in Bagram cells, in “unlimited detention.”
Obama speaks of evil…
As he orders 30 thousand more occupiers, at one million dollars per helmet, to the eighth year of revenge/collective punishment of one of the poorest countries on earth,
As suicide bombs shatter Baghdad, where oil corporation execs gather to divvy the spoils,
And the world’s largest fortress/embassy belies U.S. withdrawal pledges,
While deformed babies suffer and die in Fallujah, where our depleted uranium will forever fester.
Obama speaks of evil…
Though he never objected as Palestinians were massacred by U.S. weapons in Gaza and democracy was destroyed in Honduras,
While his massive military, its carbon footprint larger than that of most nations’, glowers from 800 bases in 100 countries and patrols every ocean, “out of enlightened self-interest,” he reminds us, not “to impose our will,”
And his national insecurity budget, larger than that of all other countries’ combined, steals half his citizens’ taxes for empire,
While the Corporate Tools in Congress and fear mongers in mainscream media rant about deficits from health care “reform,”
And another hundred thousand lose their jobs, their health insurance, their homes, their hopes.
$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected Hat tip: Washington Post
By SIOBHAN GORMAN, YOCHI J. DREAZEN and AUGUST COLE
WASHINGTON — Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.
Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes’ systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber — available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet — to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America’s enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.
The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington’s growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on the unmanned drones because they allow the U.S. to safely monitor and stalk insurgent targets in areas where sending American troops would be either politically untenable or too risky.
An old engraving depicts citizens, partly disguised as Indians, throwing chests of tea into Boston Harbor in Boston on Dec. 16, 1773. Photo: AP
On this day in 1773, in Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists — some thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians — boarded three British merchant vessels and, over the course of the next three hours, dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.
The midnight raid, which has gone down in history as the “Boston Tea Party,” was mounted to protest the Tea Act of 1773. The bill had been enacted by the British Parliament with the aim of saving the faltering East India Co. by lowering tea taxes and granting the firm a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. Many colonists viewed the Tea Act as another example of tax tyranny imposed from London. The raid proved to be a key event in the unfolding of the American Revolution.
“Settlers attack West Bank mosque and burn holy Muslim books” was a London Times headline on December 11, 2009.
These attacks, together with the demolition of Palestinian homes, the uprooting of Palestinians’ olive groves, the innumerable checkpoints that prevent Palestinians from accessing schools, work, and medical care, the Israeli Wall that denies Palestinians access to the land stolen from them, and the isolation and blockade of the Gaza Ghetto, are part of the Israeli government’s policy of genocide for the Palestinians.
Note that nearly 10 years of aggressive land grabbing by Israel has taken place since this map was last updated. The question is: Who is really wiping who off the map?
The Israel Lobby has such power over America that even former President Jimmy Carter, a good friend of Israel, is demonized for using the polite term–apartheid–for the genocide that has occurred over the decades during which American “Christian” preachers, together with bought-and-paid-for politicians, justified Israel’s policy of slow genocide for Palestine.
Israelis who still have a moral conscience–a small part of the population–endeavor to use moral protests against the inhumanity of the Israeli government. Israelis Jeff Halper and Angela Godfrey-Goldstein lead the Israeli Committee Against House Demolition (ICAHD), a non-violent, direct-action group established to oppose and resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian homes in the Occupied Territories.
Under international law an occupier by military force is forbidden to steal the occupied land. The US, however, has protected Israel’s violation of international law for decades by vetoing UN resolutions. Israel has been able to steal Palestine from the Palestinians, because the US government used its power to prevent Israel from being held accountable under international law.
December 15 is neglected by most Americans for its historical significance as the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Even worse, American politicians neglect the actual Bill of Rights on a day-to-day basis.
Whether or not the Bill of Rights can ever be an effective means of limiting the government is open to debate. However, the Bill of Rights does offer a fairly good outline of a free society, and it shows how far our country has strayed.
In an America with a full respect for the Bill of Rights, there would be no Federal Communications Commission regulating the airwaves and forbidding certain speech, no Federal Election Commission limiting how much Americans can donate to political candidates or what they can say in independent political ads, no Food and Drug Administration harassment of pharmaceutical and wine producers regarding their commercial speech, no federal laws that have anything to do with religion whatsoever, and no federally established “free-speech zones.”
There would be no federal laws disarming Americans, prohibiting airlines from allowing pilots or passengers to carry guns on planes, or limiting how much ammo or what kind of firearms people can buy and own.
There would be no Patriot Act, no secret searches, no spying on telecommunications without a warrant.
There would be no civil asset forfeiture, no horrendous eminent domain abuses, no kangaroo courts, star chambers and phony hearings for the accused.
There would be no torture in America’s “terrorist” dungeons.
There would be no federal laws against starting a business without a license, buying and selling drugs, competing with the government to provide its “services” at a better cost and higher quality, or seceding from the central state.
There would be no federal programs not authorized by the Constitution: no Departments of Energy or Education, no Medicare or Social Security, no Federal Reserve or Selective Service, no farm subsidies or corporate welfare.
hat tip: times online
by Hannah Devlin, Ben Webster, Philippe Naughton in Copenhagen
There are many kinds of truth. Al Gore was poleaxed by an inconvenient one yesterday.
The former US Vice-President, who became an unlikely figurehead for the green movement after narrating the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, became entangled in a new climate change “spin” row.
Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.
In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”
However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.
“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”
Ephesians 6:12 For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.
by Rocket Kirchner
Hat tip: http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/
Blood speaks, but who is listening? For every child that is blinded and loosing limbs because of the aggression of the American Empire, every lash rips open the back of Jesus Christ. To not equate these 2 events is to miss the nature of imperialism and the suffering of innocence for the sake of so-called keeping a phony peace. After all, Pilate had his reasons. He was on probation from Caesar, and had to keep the peace in Palestine or else. He represented Pax Romama, not Pax Christi.
I find it amazing and sad that so many anti-war activists are backing this administration’s crimes against humanity in the name of peace. Is their conscience on probation, or just lulled to sleep? Pilate had nothing against Christ…he was doing his job. He was a good German under Hitler, a good marine under Obama. And so its 30 thousand sent over and another round of lashes goes into the Christ body of humanity. Soon the crucifixion will be complete overseas, and the Afghanistan pipeline from the Caspian sea to the Karachi bay will be ready for pumping oil from Iraq, to sell to India and China, the same Iraq that still has U.S. soldiers defending the oil cartels.
An old engraving depicts citizens, partly disguised as Indians, throwing chests of tea into Boston Harbor in Boston on Dec. 16, 1773. Photo: AP 
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