Attorney General Eric Holder opens CIA abuse investigation

By Josh Meyer

Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday opened a preliminary investigation into whether some CIA operatives broke the law in their coercive interrogations of suspected terrorists in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- presenting President Barack Obama with the prospect of a long, distracting battle over policies and actions carried out under his predecessor. Read more...

Eric Holder to Go Forward with CIA Investigation; Dick Cheney Requested Documents Released

Threats Against President Obama On The Increase

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=8326359

Why Is iTunes Selling White Supremacy?

By Sonia Scherr

iTunes has removed songs deemed homophobic, yet allows white supremacists to peddle their hate on their website.

“Let’s see out the Fuhrer’s dream/To break the back of the eternal jew/Rid the world of the evil we’ve seen/Make it safe for me and you.”
-- From “Under the Hammer” by Brutal Attack

“When the battle is over and the victory is won/And the White man’s lands are owned by true white people/the traitors will all be gone.”
-- From “White Warriors” by Skrewdriver

If you thought such unabashedly bigoted music was available only from underground sources, you’d be wrong. With a few clicks at Apple’s iTunes website, Internet users can buy albums and songs from white supremacist groups such as Bully Boys, Final War, Stormtroop 16 and H8Machine. Read more…

The Secret History of Hurricane Katrina

By James Ridgeway

Enemies of the State

Confronted with images of corpses floating in the blackened floodwaters or baking in the sun on abandoned highways, there aren't too many people left who see what happened following Hurricane Katrina as a purely "natural" disaster. The dominant narratives that have emerged, in the four years since the storm, are of a gross human tragedy, compounded by social inequities and government ineptitude—a crisis subsequently exploited in every way possible for political and financial gain.

But there's an even harsher truth, one some New Orleans residents learned in the very first days but which is only beginning to become clear to the rest of us: What took place in this devastated American city was no less than a war, in which victims whose only crimes were poverty and blackness were treated as enemies of the state. Read more...

Setting the people up to die: A conspiracy of silence about swine flu natural remedies

by: Mike Adams

That advice reads sort of like a comic book of health care advice for kindergarteners: Wash your hands, cover your mouth if you cough and let "the grownups" take care of the rest by injecting you with a vaccine. Curiously absent from all the health advice being handed out on the swine flu by the White House, the CDC, the WHO and even the FDA is any mention of Vitamin D or other natural remedies that offer enormous protections from influenza infections. Read more...

There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History

By Terrence McNally

The world suffers global recession, enormous inequity, hunger, deforestation, pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, terrorism, etc. To those who say we’re not really making progress, many might point to the fact that at least we’ve eliminated slavery.
But sadly that is not the truth.
One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million. Read more...

Related article

• “The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today”

Mass Mind Control is Upon Us - It's Time to Awaken Your Consciousness

Nathan Janes PUPAGANDA.com

Many people may not realize that when they turn on the television in their home, what they see as a constant flow of images is actually flickering. Although we do not see this consciously, the repetitive pattern of flickering images creates a state that is similar to hypnosis in the television viewer. Studies by researcher Herbert Krugman have shown that within 30 seconds of television viewing, brain waves switch from predominantly beta waves, indicating alert and conscious attention, to predominantly alpha waves, indicating an unfocused, receptive lack of attention. The brain's left hemisphere, which processes information logically and analytically, tunes out while the person is watching TV, while the right hemisphere of the brain, which processes information emotionally and non-critically, is allowed to function without hindrance. Due to this phenomenon, television transmits information, which is not actively thought about at the time of exposure, much like hypnosis. When viewing television, we do not consciously rationalize the information resonating within our unconscious depths at the time of transmission and the viewer becomes more open and suggestible. Read more...

A Potential But Controversial Fix For Genetic Disease

by Richard Harris

Scientists in Oregon have developed a technique that could be used to prevent certain genetic diseases. They've demonstrated it in monkeys and are anxious to try it in people. The technique raises ethical questions, however, because it makes a permanent genetic change not just in an individual, but in all generations that follow. Read more & listen to report...

AFRICOM: Pentagon's First Direct Military Intervention In Africa

By Rick Rozoff

The 2009 World Population Data Sheet published by the Washington, DC-based Population Reference Bureau states that the population of the African continent has surpassed one billion. Africans now account for over a seventh of the human race.

Africa's 53 nations are 28% of the 192 countries in the world.

The size and location of the continent along with its human and natural resources - oil, natural gas, gold, diamonds, uranium, cobalt, chromium, platinum, timber, cotton, food products - make it an increasingly important part of a world that is daily becoming more integrated and interdependent. Read more...

Numbers of Poor, Uninsured Projected to Increase

By Hope Yen

The ranks of poor and uninsured Americans are likely increasing — with more than 38.8 million believed to be in poverty. \

Rebecca Blank, the Commerce Department's undersecretary of economic affairs, spoke to The Associated Press in advance of next month's closely watched release of 2008 census data. Noting the figures are not yet final, Blank said the numbers likely will show a "statistically significant" increase in the poverty rate, to at least 12.7 percent. That would represent a jump of more than 1.5 million poor people compared with the previous year. Read more....

Right-Wing Media Promote Race Turmoil

By Colin Benjamin [Speaking Truth To Power]

Amid the orchestrated phony protests over President Barack Obama’s health care reform

In its report entitled “Return of the Militias,” the Southern Poverty Law Center points out that the militia movement, that faded in the 1990s, is back and that “One big difference from the militia movement of the 1990s is that the face of the federal government — the enemy that almost all parts of the extreme right see as the primary threat to freedom — is now Black. And the fact that the president is an African American has injected a strong racial element into even those parts of the radical right, like the militias, that in the past were not primarily motivated by race hate. Contributing to the racial animus have been fears on the far right about the consequences of Latino immigration.” Read more...

Attack on Obama riles Beck's advertisers

By DAVID BAUDER

Glenn Beck returns to Fox News Channel on Monday after a vacation with fewer companies willing to advertise on his show than when he left, part of the fallout from calling President Barack Obama a racist.

A total of 33 Fox advertisers, including Wal-Mart Stores Inc., CVS Caremark, Clorox and Sprint, directed that their commercials not air on Beck's show, according to the companies and ColorofChange.org, a group that promotes political action among blacks and launched a campaign to get advertisers to abandon him. That's more than a dozen more than were identified a week ago. Read more…

Imprisoned Native American Activist Leonard Peltier Again Denied Parole

The imprisoned Native American activist Leonard Peltier has been denied parole again. The U.S. Parole Commission told the 64-year-old Peltier on Friday that his release would “depreciate the seriousness of [his] offenses” and “promote disrespect for the law.” It was Peltier’s first full parole hearing in 15 years and he will not be eligible for parole again until July 2024, at the age of 79. DemocracyNow! speaks with Eric Seitz, Leonard Peltier’s attorney.  View Report Here

Autonomous Scout Vehicles Prowl The Mean Streets

The U.S. Army's decades long effort to develop a practical autonomous UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) has succeeded. Earlier this month, two T2 vehicles equipped with sensors and control equipment, successfully passed realistic tests. One of the test subjects, controlled from a Stryker wheeled armored vehicle, successfully approached a village (equipped with mannequins set up as pedestrians along the streets), did a perimeter sweep at speeds of up to fifty kilometers an hour, then patrolled the streets, avoiding the pedestrians, and finally departed the area. The sensor systems uses a combination of ladar (laser radar), digital cameras and heat sensors, to provide the software with sufficient data to enable the onboard computers to identify and avoid obstacles. The key element here was the software, which, in turn, benefited from five years of competitive events that delivered software advances faster than expected.   Read more...

TRAILER: Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story'

'CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY' - In Theaters October 2nd

"It's a crime story. But it's also a war story about class warfare. And a vampire movie, with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us. And, of course, it's also a love story. Only it's about an abusive relationship.

"It's not about an individual, like Roger Smith, or a corporation, or even an issue, like health care. This is the big enchilada. This is about the thing that dominates all our lives — the economy. I made this movie as if it was going to be the last movie I was allowed to make.

"It's a comedy." — Michael Moore

Top Sweden Newspaper: Israeli Army Killing Palestinians for Their Organs

A leading Swedish newspaper reported this week that Israeli occupation soldiers are abducting Palestinians in order to steal their organs, a report that prompted furious condemnation and accusations of anti-Semitic blood libel from a rival publication.

"They plunder the organs of our sons," read the headline in Sweden's largest daily newspaper, the left-leaning Aftonbladet, which devoted a double spread in its cultural section to the article.

The report quotes Palestinian says that young men from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip had been seized by the Israeli occupation army, and their bodies returned to the families with missing organs.  Read more...

Related articles

• Sweden newspaper: Israel kills Palestinians, harvests their organs
• Our Sons Plundered for Their Organs
• Israel delays press credentials for Sweden team

20 Foods That Make You Smarter

By Sara Ost, EcoSalon

Simply put, your brain likes to eat. And it likes powerful fuel: quality fats, antioxidants, and small, steady amounts of the best carbs.

On a deadline? Need to rally? Avoid the soda, vending machine snacks and tempting Starbucks and go for these powerful brain boosters instead. The path to a bigger, better brain is loaded with Omega-3 fats, antioxidants, and fiber. Give your brain a kick start: eat the following foods on a daily or weekly basis for results you will notice.

1. Avocado

2. Blueberries

3. Wild Salmon

4. Nuts (The followers of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad do not eat nuts becuase they are hard on the digestive system.  Read more Here)

5. Seeds

6. Coffee

7. Oatmeal

8. Beans

9. Pomegranate 

10. Brown Rice

11. Tea

12. Chocolate

13. Oysters

14. Olive Oil 

15. Tuna

16. Garlic

17. Eggs

18. Green Leafy Vegetables

19. Tomatoes

20. Cacao nibs

Read why these foods are good for your brain here

Artificial life will be created 'within months' as genome experts claim vital breakthrough

Scientists are only months away from creating artificial life, it was claimed yesterday.

Dr Craig Venter – one of the world’s most famous and controversial biologists – said his U.S. researchers have overcome one of the last big hurdles to making a synthetic organism.

The first artificial lifeform is likely to be a simple man-made bacterium that proves that the technology can work. Read more…

Distrustful of government, upset about race, militias rise again in America

BY JESSE MUHAMMAD

Analysts, new report warn of real danger of violence inside America

Is having a Black man rise to the highest position in the United States, a Latina appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and census predictions showing minorities gaining numerical superiority in the next 50 years among factors that have caused resurgence in an anti-government movement filled with angry Whites?

A report from the Southern Poverty Law Center reveals a growth in angry White militia operations saturated throughout the Deep South, Northwest and Midwest parts of the country. Read more…

Why critics of a public option for healthcare are wrong

By Robert Reich

Those opposing a public option -- Big Pharma, the AMA, the insurers -- are doing so out of economic self-interest

Without a public option, the other parties that comprise America's non-system of healthcare -- private insurers, doctors, hospitals, drug companies and medical suppliers -- have little or no incentive to supply high-quality care at a lower cost than they do now.

Which is precisely why the public option has become such a lightning rod. The American Medical Association is dead set against it, Big Pharma rejects it out of hand, and the biggest insurance companies won't consider it. No other issue in the current healthcare debate is as fiercely opposed by the medical establishment and their lobbies now swarming over Capitol Hill. Of course they don't want it. A public option would squeeze their profits and force them to undertake major reforms. That's the whole point. Read more...

The Truth About Healthcare Public Option -- Howard Dean

Allow Africa to Seize Control of Its Destiny; Prohibit Vulture Fund Profiteering in US Courts

Civil Society Urges Congress to Pass H.R. 2932, the Stop VULTURE Funds Act

In the wake of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last week, nearly 50 leading advocacy organizations have asked Congress to limit Vulture Fund profiteering from poor country debts at the expense of impoverished citizens of the world's poorest nations.

The diverse coalition, which included the NAACP, the Jubilee USA Network, TransAfrica Forum, the American Jewish World Service, the United Methodist Church and Africa Action called on members of the U.S. House of Representatives to sponsor legislation to limit the use of U.S. courts by so-called Vulture Funds to generate massive profits from developing countries.

In a joint letter to Congressional leaders the groups cited "unprecedented cooperation," and praised the international effort on debt cancellation, resulting in more than $90 billion in bilateral and multilateral debt cancellation to 30 countries. However, that progress is being jeopardized by Vulture Funds, investors that acquire the sovereign debt of poor countries for pennies on the dollar, only to turn around and sue fo r huge sums. According to the letter, Vulture Funds refuse to work through the international process on debt cancellation, instead "aggressively pursuing their claims through the seizure of assets, litigation and political pressure, seeking repayments that are far in excess of the amount that they paid for the debt.” Read more…

CIA Hired Private Military Firm Blackwater for Secret Assassination Program

The New York Times is reporting the CIA hired contractors from Blackwater in 2004 as part of a secret program to locate and assassinate top operatives of al-Qaeda. The CIA spent several million dollars on the program, which the Times claims did not successfully capture or kill any terrorist suspects. We speak to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. Read more...

Big lag in test scores for blacks, Hispanics

Jill Tucker

Despite a seventh straight year of improved test scores statewide, results released today show California schools failed to make a significant dent in a historically immovable achievement gap - one that leaves black and Hispanic students lagging well behind their white and Asian peers.

Based on the rate of improvement from 200 3 to 2009, it would take up to 105 years to close the white/Hispanic achievement gap and at least 189 years to close the white/black gap, which has failed to narrow by even a point in English since 2003, according to scores released today. Read more:

Bush White House politics linked to terror alerts

By DEB RIECHMANN and EILEEN SULLIVAN

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says pressure from fellow Cabinet members to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election helped convince him it was time to quit working for President George W. Bush.

In a new book, Ridge says that despite the urgings of former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft he objected to raising the security level, according to a publicity release from the book's publisher. Read more...

UFO sightings: The British X-files in full

Alien abduction attempts, flying saucers, and strange lights in the sky: this is Britain according to the latest batch of 14 files released by the National Archives, which include more than 800 sightings reported between 1993 and 1996, and contain more than 4,000 pages of material dating back to 1981.

But what kinds of sightings are they? The files are all PDF documents and the reports are in varying detail. So, we've extracted 50 of the key ones for you take a look at, plus a link to where they can be found in the original documents. Take a read and let us know what you think. Read more…

HPV Vaccine Side Effects

More than 26 million doses of the HPV vaccine have been distributed since it was approved for females ages 9 to 26. Dr. Jon LaPook reports on the first major review of its potential side effects.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Putting an End to Glenn Beck's Racist Antics and Apocalyptic Rhetoric

By Tana Ganeva

"The President has exposed himself as a guy … over and over and over again … who has a deep-seated hatred for white people … or the white culture…. I don't know what it is" Beck said on Fox and Friends.

Beck's wildly offensive charge, spurred by the recent controversy over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was the latest low in a longstanding conservative narrative that ludicrously paints white men as the victims of "reverse racism" and oppression by minorities. Beck's egregious attack has prompted Color of Change to launch a campaign urging Beck's advertisers -- which include GEICO and Proctor Gamble -- to stop sponsoring the shock jock's divisive hate-mongering. Read more...

Glenn Beck on Barack Obama: "This guy is, I believe, a racist" [FOX News]

The Ugly Racism of the Right Will Be Their Undoing

by Leslie Savan

With every passing day it gets harder to think of this sudden dialing-up of whiny hate speech as sheer coincidence. Instead, it's beginning to look inevitable -- so much so that maybe the real question is, What is it about health care that brings out the latent racism in the GOP?

The answer is simple: For two or three generations, Republicans have defeated progressive reform of the health care system by hinting that it would mean redistributing wealth from whites to blacks. As Beck himself said, practically redefining "welfare queen" as "healthcare queen": "Everything that is getting pushed through Congress, including this health care bill, are transforming America, and they're all driven by President Obama's thinking on one idea: reparations." Read more...

“Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction”

ARUN GUPTA: This is another way to get us hooked on foods. You know, the fat, sugar and salt are very important, but also there are certain flavors, like with bacon. Bacon plays a very key role because of the smoked flavor.

In fact, there’s a lot of writing being done about this now, that there’s kind of a link to our evolutionary past. It evokes these sensations to cooked foods that humans evolved—cooking predates humanity, actually, by up to a million years. And so, we evolved in conjunction with cooked foods.

And bacon is loaded with all sorts of smoke flavorings, artificial. It’s rare that you get natural smoked bacon these days. And then the umami, of course. And it has—what is bacon? It’s pretty much just salt and fat. And then, in a case like this, it’s loaded with the sugar. So, you just get all these various addictive qualities that really try and key in on particular senses. Read more...

Could the great recession lead to a great revolution?

By Immanuel Ness

For the first time in generations, people are challenging the view that a free-market order – the system that dominates the globe today – is the destiny of all nations. The free market's uncanny ability to enrich the elite, coupled with its inability to soften the sharp experiences of staggering poverty, has pushed inequality to the breaking point.

As a result, we live at an important historical juncture – one where alternatives to the world's neoliberal capitalism could emerge. Thus, it is a particularly apt time to examine revolutionary movements that have periodically challenged dominant state and imperial power structures over the past 500 years. Read more...