Maidhc Ó Cathail

"But what is it that bothers Lieberman so much about the internet? Could it be that it allows ordinary Americans access to facts which reveal exactly what kind of “friend” Israel has been to its overgenerous benefactor? Facts which they have been denied by the pro-Israel mainstream media."

It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman.

Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the “global war on terror” which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.

On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.

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Glenn Greenwald

"The real issue here is the same one raised by the malleable, manipulative use of the term "Terrorism." It's to be expected that governments will try to propagandize their citizenry by applying completely different standards -- even completely different language -- to their own conduct as opposed to when other countries engage in exactly the same conduct. But when the media copies that behavior (as ours does), they're amplifying and bolstering government propaganda rather than critically scrutinizing and debunking it. Isn't that a fairly serious problem?"

A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way:

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Stephen Lendman

Ongoing since its May 14, 1948 "Declaration of Independence," Israel systematically reigned terror against Palestinians and neighboring states, always claiming self-defense - bogus then, bogus now, historian Ilan Pappe describing Israel as a "settler Prussian state: a combination of colonialist policies....manifested in the dominance of the army over political, cultural and economic life," then adding:

You probably have to be born in Israel, as I was, and go through the whole process of socialisation (sic) and education - including serving in the army - to grasp the power of this militarist mentality and its dire consequences. And you need such a background to understand why the whole premise on which the international community's approach to the Middle East is based, is utterly and disastrously wrong," so much so that Israel is slowly self-destructing, preventable only by an entirely new mindset.

Public discourse won't admit it or that Palestinians "lost 80% of their homeland" in a few short months, about 800,000 of them either dispossessed or massacred. Then in 1967, "they lost the remaining 20%," not recovered after 43 years, nor have they received any measure of justice, Cast Lead and Gaza's siege the most extreme recent examples.

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Khalid Amayreh

Even while the world reels over Israel's aggression against humanitarian aid convoys to Gaza, in Jerusalem the march to Judaise the city continues.

Forced expulsion, revocation of residency rights, excessive taxation, mass house demolition, recurrent land seizure and bulldozing Arab property. These are some of the main components of Israel's latest aggressive campaign to rid East Jerusalem of its Arab demographics and identity.

Judaising, by any and all means, the occupied Arab city that Israel seized from Jordan in 1967 is Israel's way of undermining any semblance of efforts towards peace, vanishing the two-state solution.

A few weeks ago, the Israeli Interior Ministry decided to banish four Jerusalem residents who happened to be members of the Palestinian Legislative Council: Mohamed Abu Tir, Ahmed Athwan, Mohamed Toutah and former minister for Jerusalem affairs Khaled Abu Arafeh.

The four received letters stating that their residency rights were being revoked. Several other local leaders also received warnings that "they were being closely watched," and that they ought to be concerned about "the consequences of their activities".

Since 2007, as many as 3,000 Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have lost their residency rights by decision of the Israeli government. Israeli officials claim the decision to expel the four Palestinian lawmakers stems from their affiliation with Hamas and their refusal to recognise Israel.

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anonymous

[On this day, four years ago]

Somewhere in Palestine, July 1 — Morning came and we found that 90 of the nation's best men were captured by Israel from their homes in the night. Our mayor, who was released from four years in prison just a month ago. Someone for whom I have the utmost respect and admiration, as do his people here, political allies and opponents alike. And our vice mayor, too. The last time I talked with him, earlier this week, he was struggling a lot with chronic back pain. I wonder where they are now. If they have been fed today, or tortured. If they will sleep on beds tonight, or not at all. If they will be home tomorrow. If we will never see some of them again alive. It's the first time Palestinians have captured an Israeli soldier in a long time; families of prisoners have begged the resistance not to release him until there is a prisoner exchange no matter what the consequences to the community—being well acquainted with the suffering that implies.

Everyone went about their business today, wedding processions in the streets, families eating icecream and watermelon in the sticky heat. Some with the heavy numb shock of loved ones vanished suddenly, shock without surprise; they expected that the price that has been paid, and paid, and paid, for keeping one's spirit from being broken, must be paid again. Myself, I couldn't keep from crying from time to time, although for me it is just a very small taste of the shock, seeing two good men that I know a little, powerful in their community with the power the community has entrusted them with, suddenly made helpless, pieces of meat for Israeli intelligence officers somewhere to enjoy, and knowing that if I knew them more, if I knew others, the sense of anger and sorrow and disbelief would be multiplied. I know that for the people around me these tears formed years and years ago. The anger and sorrow and loss and disbelief have happened too many times to count, but it does not diminish, to the world it is one more added to a large number, for each mother and sister and wife it is an unconsolable agony, an irreplaceable loss, an unimaginable theft, a violation of a family, a marriage, that might never be able to recover from the traumas and abuses that are being suffered, will be suffered in the days ahead.

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Kourosh Ziabari

The world countries are competing with each other in imposing new financial sanctions against Iran. While the Iranian people still hasn't forgotten the bitter memory of 8-year war with the Baathist Iraq which was masterminded and fostered by the United States and its European allies, new rounds of crippling sanctions directed against the most strategic industries of Iran come after one another in what is claimed to be the international movement of preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Although the International Atomic Energy Agency and the G5+1 have so far failed to put forward hard evidence that demonstrates the deviation of Iran in its nuclear activities towards military purposes, the fourth round of United Nations Security Council sanctions was agreed on June 9, 2010, targeting a number of Iranian companies and individuals who have allegedly participated in Iran's nuclear and missile program.

The Iranian people still remember the painful days of war with Iraq under the late dictator Saddam Hussein who was armed and equipped by the United States and 14 European countries. The First Persian Gulf War cost the lives of more than 500,000 Iranians and imposed some US $500 billion damage on Iran.

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Christopher Bollyn

Where the election is a fiction, the representation is a fiction also. Like will always produce like. ~ Thomas Paine to the Citizens of the United States, January 29, 1803

A revolution is brewing in the United States of America. The public discontent surrounding the costly and disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the firing of General Stanley A. McChrystal, and the BP oil spill in the Gulf are all indications that a revolution is nearing. There are, of course, many other grievances, such as the trillion dollar bail-out and taxes, but there is one issue that makes a revolution inevitable: the government lies and cover-up about what really happened on 9-11.

The publication in March 2009 of the discovery of a large amount of super-thermite in the dust of the pulverized World Trade Center was not just the end of the government's version as an acceptable explanation of what happened on 9-11 – it marked the beginning of the American revolution against the tyranny that has hijacked our republic.

President Obama says that U.S. troops are fighting in Afghanistan because of the terrorism of 9-11 but we have solid scientific evidence that the Twin Towers were demolished with an extremely powerful form of super-thermite made with nanotechnology. The government lies about 9-11 and the proof cannot co-exist in peace. The discovery of super-thermite effectively marked the end of the criminal regime that runs the United States. Its days are numbered.

Revolutions are usually associated with violence, but they don't have to be. Since 1990, half the nations of Europe and Asia have gone through peaceful revolutions that replaced the former dictatorships of the once mighty Soviet Union. The apartheid regime of South Africa also came to an end without violence. The revolution to restore the sovereignty of the American people certainly need not be violent, and really should not be.

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Noor Elashi

The case perhaps most notably authorized by the Material Support Law, which was upheld by the Supreme Court on Monday, was that of the Holy Land Foundation, once the largest Muslim charity in the United States. My father, Ghassan Elashi, co-founded this charity, and after two lengthy, expensive trials, he’s now serving a 65-year prison sentence.

The panel was split 6-3, the valiant minority being Chief Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth B. Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts concluded that the Material Support Law is not too vague and does not violate the First Amendment, opposing the extensive arguments of constitutional law expert David Cole who, along with the Center for Constitutional Rights, challenged the law in the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Breyer wrote the dissenting opinion, stating that the law could criminalize speech and association “only when the defendant knows or intends that those activities will assist the organization's unlawful terrorist actions.”

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