Rev. Al Sharpton Slams Democrats’ Stimulus Bill

"I am a civil rights activist and advocate," he told a packed house of 675 people. "I do not seek, as many who seek political office, to be appreciated or liked. I do not seek approval as opposed to clarity, unlike some politicians. I was concerned to see that some of the Democratic members of the Senate took out the portions that gave real vision and strength to president Obama's stimulus plan and diluted educational funding. It seems they were more concerned about midterm elections than vision."  Read more…

U.S. judges admit to jailing children for money

By Jon Hurdle

Two judges pleaded guilty on Thursday to accepting more than $2.6 million from a private youth detention centre in Pennsylvania in return for giving hundreds of youths and teenagers long sentences. Read more...

Related story form DemocracyNow!

• Penn. Judges Get Kickbacks for Placing Youths in Privately Owned Jails

An unprecedented case of judicial corruption is unfolding in Pennsylvania. Several hundred families have filed a class-action lawsuit against two former judges who have pleaded guilty to taking bribes in return for placing youths in privately owned jails. Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan are said to have received $2.6 million for ensuring juvenile suspects were jailed in prisons operated by the companies PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care. Some of the youths were jailed over the objections of their probation officers. An estimated 5,000 juveniles have been sentenced by Ciavarella since the scheme started in 2002. We speak to two youths sentenced by Ciavarella and to Bob Schwartz of the Juvenile Law Center. [includes rush transcript]

The Afghan scam

By Ann Jones


The Bush administration perpetrated a scam. It used the system it set up to dispense reconstruction aid to both the countries it "liberated," Afghanistan and Iraq, to transfer A merican taxpayer dollars from the national treasury directly into the pockets of private war profiteers. Think of Halliburton, Bechtel, and Blackwater in Iraq; Louis Berger Group, Bearing Point, and DynCorp International in Afghanistan. They're all in it together. So far, the Bush administration has bamboozled Americans about its shady aid program. Nobody talks about it. Yet the aid scam, which would be a scandal if it weren't so profitable for so many, explains far more than does troop strength about why, today, we are on the verge of watching the whole Afghan enterprise go belly up.   Read more....

Justice Department Sat on Youth Suicide Study

by A.C. Thompson

Earlier this month, with little fanfare, the U.S. Department of Justice released a new study on suicides in juvenile lock-ups -- institutions ranging from county detention centers to state correctional facilities to privately run boot camps and ranches.

Or, more accurately: DOJ released a 5-year-old study based on data dating back to the 1990s.

The author of the study, which was commissioned by the DOJ's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, says federal officials allowed his work to gather dust for approximately a half decade before finally publishing it this month.  Read more...

Kidnapping Capital of the U.S.A.

By BRIAN ROSS, RICHARD ESPOSITO and ASA ESLOCKER

Washington Too Concerned With al Qaeda Terrorists to Care, Officials Say

In what officials caution is now a dangerous and even deadly crime wave, Phoenix, Arizona has become the kidnapping capital of America, with more incidents than any other city in the world outside of Mexico City and over 370 cases last year alone. But local authorities say Washington, DC is too obsessed with al Qaeda terrorists to care about what is happening in their own backyard right now.  Read more...

Army Suicides in January Outnumbered Combat Deaths

By Bruce E. Levine

The U.S. Army recently reported that for the month of January in 2009, the number of soldiers who committed suicide surpassed the number of soldiers who were killed in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. While there were 16 U.S. combat deaths, the Army believes that there were 24 suicides (the Army has confirmed seven suicides, and it believes that investigators will confirm an additional 17 other deaths as suicides). The number of suicides in January 2009 is more than five times as many as the total in January 2008.  Read more...

Infertility is linked to chemicals found in cookware, clothing

Pregnant women in the U.S. are at greater risk than previously thought for infertility and reproductive problems from exposure to chemicals found in many consumer products including food wrappers,
cookware and clothing.

According to scientists at the UCLA School of Public Health, women with high levels of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in their blood had a harder time conceiving and were twice as likely to be diagnosed with infertility as women with lower levels of the chemicals in their systems.  Read more....

Nearly 1 billion starving worldwide

Most of the hungry people in the world live in developing countries.

The increasing price of food has spiked the number of hunger-stricken people in the world by 40 million to reach 923 million in 2008.

According to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), more people will fall under the undernourished category if the current economic trend continues in the world. Read more...

Related story:

• 

  Martin Khor on the Global Economic Meltdown: “We Could Have One Billion More People in the Developing World Plunging into New Poverty Because of this Crisis” - DemocracyNow!

Poll: Two thirds of Americans support probes of Bush era

John Byrne

Almost 40 percent of Americans support criminal investigations into the Bush Administration's use of harsh interrogations and warrantless wiretapping program, even after President George W. Bush left office, a USA Today/Gallup poll found Thursday.  Read more....

Related articles:

• Americans Favor Probe of 'War on Terror' Excesses Common Dreams
  

• Almost two-thirds of Americans back torture inquiry
  Atlanta Journal Constitution
• 71% of Americans want to see Bush administration investigated
  Examiner.com
• Poll: Americans want Bush prosecuted
  PRESS TV

Court says vaccine is not to blame for autism

KEVIN FREKING and LAURAN NEERGAARD

In a big blow to parents who believe vaccines caused their children’s autism, a special court ruled Thursday that the shots are not to blame.

The court said the evidence was overwhelmingly contrary to the parents’ claims — and backed years of science that found no risk. Read more...

Salma Hayek Breastfeeds African Baby (VIDEO)

Salma Hayek let "Nightline" and Cynthia McFadden follow her on a goodwill trip to Sierra Leone a few months ago, and while there she breastfeed a newborn baby boy whose mother had no milk.  Read more & watch video...


Related article:

Hayek Breastfeeding: Why Do We Care?

Some Say the USA Is Unique in Its Breastfeeding Issues

New York state plane crash victim was 9/11 widow

Peter Walker

Beverley Eckert, one of the passengers killed, was flying to Buffalo to mark her late husband's birthday

Eckert continued to live in their home in Stamford, Connecticut, and became joint chair of the Voices of September 11 group, which assists victims' families and collects testimony of the events of the day. Read more...

Voice of September 11th website: http://www.voicesofsept11.org

VOICES of September 11th (VOICES) advocates and provides services for those affected by the events of September 11, 2001. We promote public policy reform on prevention, preparedness and response to terrorism. Through our work, we strive to build bridges between international communities changed forever by terrorism. VOICES provides information, outreach and programs to more than 7,000 members. In 2006,
VOICES launched the 9/11 Living Memorial digital archive, to commemorate the lives and stories of September 11, 2001 and the February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Read more...

Juan 'Neo Tom' Williams disrespects Michelle Obama

WILLIAMS: And let me just tell you this: If you think about liabilities for President Obama that are close to him, Joe Biden’s up there, but Michelle Obama’s right there. Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going. If she starts talking, as Mary Katharine suggested, her instinct is to start with this “blame America,” you know, “I’m the victim.” If that stuff starts to come out —

O’REILLY: Yeah, it’ll be death. Read more & Watch video...

Natural Born Murderers

Who is Canada at war with? When was the last time Argentina attacked another country? Did anyone see Australia attack Japan, China drop a bomb on Cuba, or Sweden hit the beaches of the Philippines on CNN? If either of these scenarios have escaped your memory, that is because they never happened and probably never will. However, for the past 100 years, the United States has been profiled in all of the above. That is because America is the most war faring country in the world.......[Read more]

The Ultimate Setup: The Suspicious Rise of Black Leadership

It must be a burden to think these days: to actually analyze the world around us. However, take the following theory with a grain of salt if you wish, but at least consider the logic behind it. A Black President and now a Black GOP leader means something dirty is brewing in the minds of white America. Think about it; why would two Black men be placed in charge of the two most powerful political parties in America after hundreds of years of the other way around? What has changed, or is about to change?....[Read more]

Hampshire College First University To Divest From Israel

Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, has become the first of any college or university in the U.S. to divest from companies on the grounds of their involvement in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

This landmark move is a direct result of a two-year intensive campaign by the campus group, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP). The group pressured Hampshire College’s Board of Trustees to divest from six specific companies due to human rights concerns in occupied Palestine. Over 800 students, professors, and alumni have signed SJP’s “institutional statement” calling for the divestment.  Read more...

Stimulus Compromise Reached

Negotiators announced that the House and Senate have reached a compromise on an economic stimulus package. As Chip Reid reports, both sides had to make concessions.  Read more...

Stimulus Compromise Reached

Senate On Stimulus Compromise

How Racism Sparked the Financial Crisis

by Joe Sims

As it turned out, a disproportionate number of the people they "fucked" were African American and Latino families. Perhaps this explains at least in part why no Wall Street insiders had qualms about their activities or why in recent weeks the issue seems to have almost disappeared from discourse on the economic recession. Attention to this highly important issue was given in 2008 when the Urban League, the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus made it the centerpiece of their annual conferences. As the fall election campaign swung into high gear, however, save for oblique references by the Republican candidate, John McCain, concerning the “mismanagement” of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and more caustic comments by demagogues like Ann Coulter blaming Black and Latino families for the meltdown, the electoral discourse at the height of crisis largely stayed away from what may have been conceived as a racially charged issue. Read more...

Madoff whistle-blower attacks SEC

An investment manager has attacked US regulators for failing to act on his tip-off about Bernard Madoff's alleged $50bn (£33bn) fraud.

Harry Markopolos told a Congressional hearing that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had not been willing or able to uncover the fraud. Read more...

Whistle-Blower Tried To Expose Madoff, He Testifies

by Jim Zarroli - Listen Now

Executive: SEC Ignored Warnings About Madoff

Her Bus Defiance Set Stage For Rosa Parks

More than 50 years after her refusal to surrender her bus seat to a
white woman set the stage for a similar act of defiance by Rosa Parks,
Claudette Colvin is finally getting her due as a civil rights pioneer.  Read more...

The Face of the New American Bigot

As the economy continues its uncontrolled convulsions, the nation also continues to convulse with an increasing number of ugly cases of racial bigotry and acts of violence against immigrants.

Indeed, this era is now marked by the rise of the New American Bigot. The old one has undergone an extreme makeover; save for lawman Arpaio, the New American bigot is no longer the Aryan extremist or unrepentant segregationist. George Wallace is out and CNN's jolly Lou Dobbs is in.  Read more...

German Authorities Worry Neo-Nazi Movement Is Gaining In Popularity

by Sylvia Poggioli

German authorities are concerned that the neo-Nazi movement may be gaining traction by adopting mainstream techniques. Read more...

Listen Now [5 min 15 sec]

Related Article

Anti-semitism In Europe Continues

Abe Foxman of the talks about how anti-semitism in Europe continues, especially during the global economic downturn. Read more...

Anti-semitism In Europe Continues

Listen Now [3 min 40 sec]

Secret files show U.S. aware of army killings in 1990s

By Constanza Vieira

Declassified U.S. documents show that the CIA and former U.S. ambassadors were fully aware, as far back as 1990, that the military in Colombia was committing extra-judicial killings as part
of “death squad tactics.”

They also knew that senior Colombian officers encouraged a “body count” mentality to demonstrate progress in the fight against left-wing guerrillas. In an undetermined number of cases, the bodies presented as casualties in the counterinsurgency war were actually civilians who had nothing to do with the country’s decades-old armed conflict.  Read more...

Seeking Refuge in a Higher Power; Stemming the Rise of Suicide in the Black Community

Original title of article: On Allah should the Believers rely

By Jabril Muhammad

In 1929 when the stock market crashed, rich people who made the stock market their place of refuge went out and committed suicide. What will rich people do who have made millions of dollars and feel in the fact that they have so much money that they have a refuge? What happens when the dollar collapses and has no more value, then where will you find your refuge?

There are those who have placed their stock, their hope, their trust in their ability to make money; their ability to do what they do that gives them material strength. But once that is disturbed then they fall apart. So if you put your trust in a weapon and the weapon fails; if you put your trust in your friends, your professor or you take your doctors of law or your monks for lords beside Allah and then you see them troubled and can’t solve their problems, you take your leaders and your teachers as lords beside Allah and then you see them in a state of confusion, then what about you who depend on these sources for your refuge. Read more...

Operation Paperclip - Nazi, NASA, CIA & Mind Control of the Masses

After WWII ended in 1945, victorious Russian and American intelligence teams began a treasure hunt throughout
occupied Germany for military and scientific booty. They were looking for things like new rocket and aircraft designs, medicines, and electronics. But they were also hunting down the most precious "spoils" of all: the scientists whose work had nearly won the war for Germany. The engineers and intelligence officers of the Nazi War Machine.

The U.S. Military rounded up Nazi scientists and brought them to America. It had originally intended merely to debrief them and send them back to Germany. But when it realized the extent of the scientists knowledge and expertise, the War Department decided it would be a waste to send the scientists home. Following the discovery of flying discs (foo fighters), particle/laser beam weaponry in German military bases, the War Department decided that NASA and the CIA must control this technology, and the Nazi engineers that had worked on this technology.

There was only one problem: it was illegal. U.S. law explicitly prohibited Nazi officials from immigrating to America--and as many as three-quarters of the scientists in question had been committed Nazis. Read more...

Related Information on Paperclip

Operation Paperclip - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Project Paperclip and the Nuremberg Trials Whitewash

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Project Paperclip: Dark side of the Moon

CIA MIND CONTROL EXPERIMENTS

Playing a Muslim woman in Arab, Alabama

Hailey Woldt put on the traditional black abaya, expecting the worst at a barbecue joint in Arab, Alabama. The experience opened her eyes. She is one in a team of five mostly 20-something Americans, led by a Muslim scholar, who are crisscrossing the nation on an anthropological mission to discuss American identity, Muslim identity, and find out how well this country upholds its ideals in a post-9/11 world. Read more...

Obama Talks Up Stimulus in Weekly Address

With the Senate moving toward a tenuous compromise on the White House's economic stimulus plan, President Barack Obama hammered at the urgent need to pass a bill that will jump-start the struggling economy and put people back to work. (Feb. 7)

2/7/09 President Obama Weekly Radio Address

Australia wildfire deaths pass 100

At least 108 people are now known to have been killed in the deadliest wildfires ever to sweep Australia, officials have said.

Police and a Department of Sustainability and Environment spokesman in the state of Victoria gave the latest death toll early on Monday, but there were fears it could rise as emergency crews search more than 700 houses destroyed in the flames.  Read more...

Related Articles

• Australia’s ‘Hell on Earth’ Fires May Burn for Days Bloomberg

• Australia wildfires kill at least 49 Los Angeles Times

• BBC News - Xinhua

84 Killed in Deadliest-ever Australian Wildfires

84+ killed in deadliest-ever Australian wildfires