Afghanistan opium crop blight sends drug prices soaring

By Tom A. Peter

A crop disease in Afghanistan took a major toll on the country’s opium harvest this year, reducing output by 48 percent from last year, the United Nations Office on Drug and Crimes said in a report released Thursday.

The blight, however, is expected to have little affect on the Taliban, for whom opium is an important source of funding. Those hit hardest will likely be the poppy farmers themselves, who rely on opium revenue for most of their cash spending. Opium is the narcotic latex sap of a variety of poppy flower and can also be processed into heroin and other drugs.  Read more...

Related Stories

• Kyrgyzstan weighs opium as industry
• NATO commanders in Afghanistan wary of antidrug effort
• Fragile success against Afghanistan's opium economy

White Power USA: Is the US heading toward a future of racial tolerance or racially-motivated violence?

With important Congressional elections in a few weeks time, People & Power looks back at this earlier report which set out to investigate whether the racial undercurrent that has long structured US politics was reasserting itself.
Filmmakers Rick Rowley and Jacquie Soohen went inside the white nationalist movement to investigate.
In the process we uncovered links between white nationalists and a conservative movement that has since become a force within more mainstream politics.  Watch video....

Also view pics: Tea Party: More Signs of Racism?

The Jewish hand behind Internet

Google, Facebook, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, MySpace, eBay...

In the following document we will give an insight into the Jewish penetration of the Internet and also show the level of cooperation between leading Jewish Internet entrepreneurs and the racist Jewish Apartheid state of Israel.

The Jews - contrary to the "liberal" views they officially say they profess - in their suppressive acts practically demonstrate that they always seek to dominate the information flow, they don´t tolerate any dissent. It is just as when Israel says "Shalom" while Israel´s military at the very same time pounds its Arab neighbour states with bombs and missiles.

The Arabs have learnt the hard way the faleshood of these Jewish statements, it is now time for the rest of the non-Jewish world to get this right, and to see that the freedom of information on the Net is seriously threatened. 

This document will not cover the entire field. Also, as it is timebound to an an anlysis that is from a 2009 perspective - things will change. Companies will change names, new actors will appear. But still this piece of work is unique and will give a guide into the mechanisms behind the Net, mechanisms that will continue to act even in the future. And as many of these Jewish entrepreneurs are rather young and the Internet seems to be here to stay, we will hear from them for a long time onwards.  Read more...

The Truth will set U.S. free: Breaking Israel's stranglehold over American Foreign Policy

by Maidhc Ó Cathail

If Israel’s stranglehold over U.S. foreign policy is to be broken, Americans will need to be informed about the harm that Washington’s unconditional support for the Jewish state is doing to American interests, say leading analysts of U.S.-Israeli relations.

According to John J. Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, “The only plausible way to weaken the lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy is for prominent policymakers and opinion-makers to speak openly about the damage the special relationship is doing to the American national interest.”

“Plenty of people in the United States, especially inside the Beltway, know that Israel is an albatross around America’s neck,” says Mearsheimer, the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago. “But they are afraid to stand up and say that for fear that the lobby will attack them and damage their careers.”  Read more...

Zionist Dialectics: Past and Future

By: M. Shahid Alam

Consider a list of the political actors who have had more than a passing connection to the Zionist project and, who, at one time or another, have affected or have been affected by this project. First, there are the different Zionist factions, the Jewish diaspora and, later, the state of Israel. These entities are overlapping, with the degrees of overlap between any two of them changing over time. The second set of actors consists of Western powers - especially, the United States, Britain, and France - the Christian Zionists especially in the United States, the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe. Finally, there are actors who are the direct and indirect victims of the Zionist project, those who have paid the costs of Zionist success. They form four concentric circles around Israel, including the Palestinians, the Arabs, the Middle East, and the Islamicate. These three sets of actors make up the dramatis personae in the unfolding tragedy of the Zionist project.

Clearly, the number of actors involved, their variety, and, not least, the multilayered power commanded by the Zionists and their allies would indicate that Zionism is no sideshow. Directly, it has involved much of the Western world, on one side, and the global Islamicate on the other side, who will soon make up one-fourth of the world's population.

Many white settlers established colonies in Africa during the nineteenth century. In Palestine, the Jews established the only white settler colony to be established in the Middle East - or for that matter, anywhere in Asia. Of all these colonial settler projects, only the Jewish settlers in Palestine have endured. In 1948, only three decades after they gained British backing for their project, the Jewish colons created their own state, Israel, which, almost overnight, became the dominant power in the region, capable of defeating any combination of the military forces of the neighboring states. Within two decades of its founding, the 'tiny' Jewish state had also acquired an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the only country in the region with such weapons of mass extermination. In recent decades, militarily, Israel has ranked behind only three other countries, the United States, Russia, and China. In addition, Israel has forged a special relationship with the United States, which finances its military, arms it, and shields the country from the sanction of international laws, leaving it free to expand its colonial project, and threaten and attack its neighbors at will. After September 11, Israel and its allies were a major-if not decisive-factor in pushing the United States to invade and occupy Iraq. For several years now, they have been itching to instigate the United States into a war against Iran.   Read more... -

Legal Briefing: Corporations Get Away With Murder, Overseas

By ABIGAIL FIELD

That's the result of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum to dismiss the plaintiffs' claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act without trial. That case that involves Nigerian people who had protested against oil drilling and the murderous response of the Nigerian military, allegedly assisted by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, a venture of then-Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and Shell Transport and Trading Company PLC. (Those companies have since changed form and name slightly.) Given the allegations in the case--none of which involved Americans or took place in the U.S.-- the Alien Tort Claims Act was the only statute plaintiffs could look to bring suit in the U.S. against the corporations, and that avenue no longer exists.

See full article: DailyFinance

"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration": Isabel Wilkerson Tracks Exodus of Blacks from US South

DemocracyNow!

ISABEL WILKERSON: They left because they wanted to be able to have better opportunities. They left because they were living under a caste system, which dictated and controlled every aspect of the lives of African Americans. In some ways I describe it as a defection as much as it was a migration. In many ways, they were seeking political asylum from a caste system that determined, for example, that in Birmingham, for example, a black person and a white person couldn’t play checkers together. Someone actually sat down and wrote that out as a law. There were places—there were courtrooms in the South where there was actually a black Bible and a white Bible to swear to tell the truth on.

Read more…

Court Exempts Corporations from Alien Tort Law

Democracy Now!

Court Exempts Corporations from Alien Tort Law

A federal appeals court has ruled US corporations can no longer be sued for human rights violations abroad under the longstanding Alien Tort Statute. Earlier this month, the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Alien tort claims can only be brought against individuals, not corporations. The ruling dismissed a lawsuit accusing the oil giant Royal Dutch Shell of complicity in the murder and torture of Nigerian activists including Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Democracy Now!

Black Farmer Lawerance Lucus

Lawrence C. Lucas

Interview with Lawrence C. Lucas, President USDA Coalition of Minority Employees(USDA) http://www.agcoalition.org/Templates/biography.html

I discuss with co-host Wisdom2See and Nesheba of ESpiritE-Radio7 the plight of the Black Farmer.

Listen to internet radio with Know4LIFE on Blog Talk Radio

Has truth been told about 9-11?

BY SAEED SHABAZZ

“The truth is the truth regardless of the messenger; and the truth of the matter is that what really happened on September 11, 2001 is an issue that people cannot run away from,” said Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general and co-founder of the International Action Center and founder of IndictBush.org.

“I don't think you can reject the issue because of the messenger,” Mr. Clark added. “History does require that the facts have a proper review.” Has truth been told about 9-11?

Income gap between rich and poor in U.S. at record high

By Palash R. Ghosh

The top 20 percent of American earners -- those making more than $100,000 annually - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the country, compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line.
That translates to a ratio of 14.5-to-1, up from 13.6 in 2008 and almost double the low figure of 7.69 recorded in 1968.
The U.S. income gap between rich and poor is the greatest among Western industrialized nations.

Read more… - International Business Times

Also read:

• Bad economic news means bad health news

   

10 signs the us is losing its influence in the western hemisphere

Brazil is first among the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) -- four economies that are supposed to overtake the six largest Western economies by 2032.

Mexico is first among the MAVINS (Mexico, Australia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nigeria, and South Africa) -- six economies we expect to blow away expectations and become leading powers in their regions relatively soon.

Canada and Venezuela are oil powers of the distant future.

Peru and Chile are sitting on a fortune of metals and minerals.

All these countries are cranking up, while America faces plenty of fiscal and demographic problems at home.

Here are Signs the U.S. Is Losing Its Influence In Its Own Backyard:

 

10 signs the us is losing its influence in the western hemisphere

Minister Farrakhan and U.S. Muslims meet with Iran's President Ahmadinejad

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in the United States for the 65th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. On September 20, 2010 at the Warwick Hotel in New York, he met with over 100 Muslim leaders from across the country. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan was among the leaders. U.S. Muslims meet with Iran's President Ahmadinejad

Related article:

• Ahmadinejad Meets With U.S. Peace and Black Activists

   

Smiley & West from Public Radio International (PRI)

 

Thought-Provoking, Intelligent, and Stimulating Conversations.

Smiley & West from Public Radio International (PRI) is an energetic radio program that is a fusion of thought provoking, intelligent and stimulating dialogue on every subject from news & politics to entertainment & culture. The one-hour weekly show attracts a broad spectrum of compelling guests and asks questions that solicits newsworthy discussions. Listen as Smiley & West engage in deep dialogue in the “Hot Stuff” segment where the duo dissects the hottest news topics.  The most engaging portion of the show encourages audience interaction with “Take ‘Em to Task” when a caller debates Smiley & West on a political or social issue. Finally, what would a Smiley & West show be without provocative discussions with A-list newsmakers, celebrities, great thinkers and doers of our time! Get Ready…it’s time for Smiley & West!"  Find out more...

High Court Takes Case On Corporate Privacy

Supreme Court To Weigh Whether Corporations Can Claim Personal Privacy Interests

The Supreme Court is getting involved in an unusual freedom of information dispute over whether corporations may assert personal privacy interests to prevent the government from releasing documents about them.

The court on Tuesday agreed to a request from the Obama administration to take up a case involving claims made by telecommunications giant AT&T to keep secret the information gathered by the Federal Communications Commission during an investigation.

The administration wants the high court to rule that corporations may not claim a personal privacy exception contained in the federal Freedom of Information Act.

The exception may be used only by individuals, the administration said in a brief signed by Elena Kagan, the newest justice who served in the Justice Department until last month.  Read more...

Also read:

• High Court to Hear Corporate Privacy Case

State Secrets Privilege: The Usurping Of Your Legal Rights

The state secrets privilege allows the government to shut down litigation simply by invoking national security. The privilege was a particular favorite of the Bush administration, which asserted it in dozens of cases, including ones challenging the legality of extraordinary renditions and warrantless surveillance.

As a candidate, Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration’s frequent use of the state-secrets privilege. But in February 2009 his weeks-old administration told the appeals court that it agreed with the Bush view in a case involving five former prisoners who say they were tortured in captivity. 

In September 2009, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued a new state-secrets privilege policy that upheld the Bush administration's expansive view, but required high-level approval, instructed officials to try to avoid shutting down lawsuits if possible and barred its use with a motive of covering up lawbreaking or preventing embarrassment.  read more...

Majority of American Christians Ignorant About Basic Religious Facts

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion.

Test Your Knowledge

How much do you know about religion? Try answering a sampling of questions asked in a phone survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions about the Bible, Christianity and other world religions, famous religious figures and the constitutional principles governing religion in public life.

On average, people who took the survey answered half the questions incorrectly, and many flubbed even questions about their own faith.

Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics, as well as two religious minorities: Jews and Mormons. The results were the same even after the researchers controlled for factors like age and racial differences. Read more...

The Venus Project

The Venus Project presents a bold, new direction for humanity that entails nothing less than the total redesign of our culture. There are many people today who are concerned with the serious problems that face our modern society: unemployment, violent crime, replacement of humans by technology, over-population and a decline in the Earth's ecosystems.

As you will see, The Venus Project is dedicated to confronting all of these problems by actively engaging in the research, development, and application of workable solutions. Through the use of innovative approaches to social awareness, educational incentives, and the consistent application of the best that science and technology can offer directly to the social system, The Venus Project offers a comprehensive plan for social reclamation in which human beings, technology, and nature will be able to coexist in a long-term, sustainable state of dynamic equilibrium. Visit site

Agenda 21: Sustainable Development

Agenda 21 is a program run by the United Nations (UN) related to sustainable development and was the planet's first summit to discuss global warming related issues. It is a comprehensive blueprint of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the UN, governments, and major groups in every area in which humans directly affect the environment.

The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations

By Barry Ritholtz

This may not be a brilliant insight, but it is surely an overlooked one. It is now an Individual vs. Corporate debate – and the Humans are losing.

Consider:

• Many of the regulations that govern energy and banking sector were written by Corporations;

• The biggest influence on legislative votes is often Corporate Lobbying;

• Corporate ability to extend copyright far beyond what original protections amounts to a taking of public works for private corporate usage;

• PAC and campaign finance by Corporations has supplanted individual donations to elections;

• The individuals’ right to seek redress in court has been under attack for decades, limiting their options.

• DRM and content protection undercuts the individual’s ability to use purchased content as they see fit;

• Patent protections are continually weakened. Deep pocketed corporations can usurp inventions almost at will;

• The Supreme Court has ruled that Corporations have Free Speech rights equivalent to people; (So much for original intent!)

None of these are Democrat/Republican conflicts, but rather, are corporate vs. individual issues.  | The Big Picture

The true history of the Koran in America

By Ted Widmer

As usual, the Founders were way ahead of us. They thought hard about how to build a country of many different faiths. And to advance that vision to the fullest, they read the Koran, and studied Islam with a calm intelligence that today’s over-hyped Americans can only begin to imagine. They knew something that we do not. To a remarkable degree, the Koran is not alien to American history — but inside it.

No book states the case more plainly than a single volume, tucked away deep within the citadel of Copley Square — the Boston Public Library. The book known as Adams 281.1 is a copy of the Koran, from the personal collection of John Adams. There is nothing particularly ornate about this humble book, one of a collection of 2,400 that belonged to the second president. But it tells an important story, and reminds us how worldly the Founders were, and how impervious to the fanaticisms that spring up like dandelions whenever religion and politics are mixed. They, like we, lived in a complicated and often hostile global environment, dominated by religious strife, terror, and the bloodsport of competing empires. Yet better than we, they saw the world as it is, and refused the temptation to enlarge our enemies into Satanic monsters, or simply pretend they didn’t exist.

Reports of Korans in American libraries go back at least to 1683, when an early settler of Germantown, Pa., brought a German version to these shores. Despite its foreign air, Adams’s Koran had a strong New England pedigree. The first Koran published in the United States, it was printed in Springfield in 1806. 

_______

Thomas Jefferson, especially, had a familiarity with Islam that borders on the astonishing. Like Adams, he owned a Koran, a 1764 English edition that he bought while studying law as a young man in Williamsburg, Va. Only two years ago, that Koran became the center of a controversy, when the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked if he could place his hand on it while taking his oath of office — a request that elicited tremendous screeches from the talk radio extremists. Jefferson even tried to learn Arabic, and wrote his Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom to protect “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination.”

Jefferson and Adams led many of our early negotiations with the Islamic powers as the United States lurched into existence. A favorable treaty was signed with Morocco, simply because the Moroccans considered the Americans ahl-al-kitab, or “people of the book,” similar to Muslims, who likewise eschewed the idolatry of Europe’s ornate state religions. When Adams was president, a treaty with Tripoli (Libya) insisted that the United States was “not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion” and therefore has “no character of enmity against the laws, religion and tranquility of Mussulmen.”

Read more...

Confession Video: US Soldier Describes Thrill Kill of Innocent Afghans

By MATTHEW COLE, BRIAN ROSS and ANGELA M. HILL
Dressed in a t-shirt and Army shorts, a 22-year-old corporal from Wasilla, Alaska casually describes on a video tape made by military investigators how his unit's "crazy" sergeant randomly chose three unarmed, innocent victims to be murdered in Afghanistan.

Corporal Jeremy N. Morlock is one of five GI's charged with pre-meditated murder in a case that includes allegations of widespread drug use, the collection of body parts and photos of the U.S. soldiers holding the Afghan bodies like hunter's trophies.

Absolute Power Comes From Absolute Control Over Food

Devinder Sharma

Internationally, the food trio -- Monsanto/Syngenta as symbol of the technology providers; Cargill/ADM among the major food trading companies; and Wal-Mart and Tesco representing food retail -- have formed an unholy alliance They operate in unison, making the governments fall in line. Food laws are being changed everywhere across the globe to make it easy for the trio to operate. WTO is helping to push farmers out of agriculture thereby making it easier for these multinationals to march on. IPR laws are bringing the necessary changes in national laws in conformity with internationally designed parameters bringing private control over technology. The process of takeover of food is now complete.

Read more...

Also read

• How Goldman Gambled on Starvation

• Henry Kissinger’s 1974 Plan For Food Control Genocide

Imperialism and Imperial Barbarism: US vs China

James Petras

Today the overall picture is grim for the future of militarist imperialism. In Latin America, Africa and especially Asia, China has displaced the US as the principal trading partner in Brazil, South Africa and Southeast Asia. In contrast the US wallows in unwinable ideological wars in marginal countries like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The US organizes a coup in tiny Honduras, while China signs on to billion dollar joint ventures in oil and iron projects in Brazil and Venezuela and an Argentine grain production. The US specializes in propping up broken states like Mexico and Columbia, while China invests heavily in extractive industries in Angola, Nigeria, South Africa and Iran. The symbiotic relationship with Israel leads the US down the blind ally of totalitarian barbarism and endless colonial wars. In contrast China deepens its links with the dynamic economies of South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Brazil and the oil riches of Russia and the raw materials of Africa. 

Imperialism and Imperial Barbarism

Social Engineering Bill In Senate Will Force You Into City

Bob Livingston

A social engineering bill to restrict residence in the suburbs and rural areas and force Americans into city centers has passed the United States Senate Banking Committee and is on the fast track to passage in the Senate.

The bill is called the Livable Communities Act (SB 1619) and it was introduced by corruptocrat outgoing Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.). It seeks to fulfill the United Nation’s plan Agenda 21, adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and signed onto by “New World Order” President George H.W. Bush. Read more...

5 Surprising Facts About Spying In America

Here are 5 surprising facts about spying in America.

We understand if some of this sounds far-fetched. But take a look for yourself, and see if you can disprove these claims.

1: Cheney and Rumsfeld Pushed for Warrantless Wiretaps in the '70s

2: Massive Spying on Americans Began Before 9/11

Whistleblowers from major telecommunications companies have testified that the program began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here).

3: U.S. and Allied Intelligence Heard the 9/11 Hijackers Plans from Their Own Mouths

The 9/11 hijackers were largely unknown prior to that horrible event, right?

Actually, U.S. and allied intelligence services heard a lot from the hijackers' own mouths prior to 9/11

4: The Spying Program Has Not Been Narrowly Tailored to Keeping Americans Safe

* The government has been spying on journalists from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other publications for years

* Some 8 million average Americans are now listed in government threat assessment databases as potentially suspect

5: The Spying Program Isn't Just Used for Listening ... It Also Is Used to Track Americans and Predict Behavior

Read more detailed...

Money For Prisons, Not For Social Services : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

According to a new study released by independent think tank, the Justice Policy Institute, many people who have lost their jobs and homes in the United States due to the ongoing economic recession are ending up in jail. The report's findings on the relationship between poverty and the justice system suggests that more and more people from poor and low-income communities are being arrested and jailed, even though nationwide, crime rates have fallen.

Dem Senator Hagan Calling for Multi-Billion Dollar (Black Farmers) Pigford Funding

Hagan announced a bill with Sen. Lincoln, the Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee. They joined John Boyd, President of the National Black Farmers Association, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) who also spoke at the press conference. The bill would ensure that African American farmers who were unfairly discriminated against by the U.S. Department of Agriculture when applying for loans, credit and other forms of financial help, will receive the settlement to which they are entitled. Congress has thus far failed to appropriate the funding.

Obama calls Ahmadinejad's 9/11 comments 'offensive,' 'hateful'

[Editors note: Shame on President Obama. He knows and has let the real perpetrators of 9/11 off the hook and at the same time has allowed tens of thousands of innocent Muslims die by drone attacks.]  

President Barack Obama Friday criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s assertion that the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 terror attacks as “offensive” and “hateful,” even as Ahmadinejad continued to defend his remarks.
“Well, it was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of Ground Zero, where families lost their loved ones, people of all faiths, all ethnicities who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation, for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable,” Obama said in an interview with BBC Persian.
But the hardline Iranian leader, holding a press conference in a Manhattan hotel Friday morning, claimed – without indicating where he got his statistics -- “Over eighty percent of the American people consider the 9/11 tragedy a suspicious one.”
He also said that, “We are saddened by the fact people were killed on 9/11 but want to bring your attention that hundreds of thousands in our region were killed as a result.”

Obama calls Ahmadinejad's 9/11 comments 'offensive,' 'hateful' 

Also read:

• US, Mossad played roles in 9/11 event

 Mike Malloy speaking truth about 9/11

Stuxnet worm is the 'work of a national government agency'

 Josh Halliday

A computer worm which targets industrial and factory systems is almost certainly the work of a national government agency, security experts told the Guardian – but warn that it will be near-impossible to identify the culprit.

The "Stuxnet" computer worm, which has been described as one of the "most refined pieces of malware ever discovered", has been most active in Iran, says the security company Symantec – leading some experts to conjecture that the likely target of the virus is the controversial Bushehr nuclear power plant, and that it was created by Israeli hackers.

Stuxnet worm is the 'work of a national government agency' | Technology | guardian.co.uk

Wiretapped phones, now Internet? | StarTribune.com

 By CHARLIE SAVAGE

Federal law enforcement and national security officials are preparing to seek sweeping new regulations of the Internet, arguing that their ability to wiretap criminal and terrorism suspects is "going dark" as people increasingly communicate online instead of by telephone.

Essentially, officials want Congress to require all services that enable communications -- including encrypted e-mail transmitters such as BlackBerry, social networking websites such as Facebook and software that allows direct "peer-to-peer" messaging such as Skype -- to be technically capable of complying if served with a wiretap order. The mandate would include being able to intercept and unscramble encrypted messages.

Wiretapped phones, now Internet? | StarTribune.com

Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

Beware of Senate bill 3767, the so-called Food Safety Accountability Act. This dangerous legislation, if passed, would criminalize nutritional supplement manufacturers who tell the truth about their products or link to published scientific studies describing the biological benefits of their products. Based on language in the bill, health proponents who sell supplements could be criminalized and convicted to ten years in prison.
The Life Extension Foundation recently published an important warning piece about this, complete with some call to action items for which we need your help.
Here's what was written by William Faloon and published at LEF (http://www.lef.org/featured-article...). I agree with every word written here and urge you to read this and take this message seriously, then do your part to oppose this new legislative tyranny that seeks to criminalize dietary supplement manufacturers.

Senate bill 3767 seeks to put dietary supplement makers in prison for ten years (for telling the truth)

FDA refuses to require labeling of genetically modified salmon

 

As the FDA stands poised to approve genetically modified (GM) salmon safe for public consumption, the next logical question concerns how GM salmon would be labeled. Would the fish come with a large red warning that says, "Genetically modified salmon"?
As it turns out, no. In fact, the FDA has already gone on the record stating it will not require any special labeling of genetically modified salmon. You, the consumer, just have to take a wild guess because you're not allowed to know what you're really eating.

FDA refuses to require labeling of genetically modified salmon

RTDNA/Hofstra Survey: Number of Minority Journalists Down in 2009; Story Mixed for Female Journalists

The latest RTDNA/Hofstra University Annual Survey found that the percentage of minority news directors rose in both television and radio in 2009 but, overall, the percentage of minorities in both radio and television fell for the third straight year, although the drop in television was small.

“Again, the percentage of minorities in television decreased from the year before.� In fact, we end the decade with no gains whatsoever for minorities in TV news, and the percentage of minorities in radio news is down substantially,” said Bob Papper, professor of journalism at Hofstra University and the survey director.  Read more...

Young Black Males Dying in Detroit at Alarming Rates - BV Black Spin

African-American males in Detroit between the ages of 15 and 24 are dying at a rate that is roughly seven times higher than the rest of the Detroit population. If they were dying at the same rate as everyone else, there would be one death every three weeks. Instead, there are two black men dying every single week.

This has set off alarm bells within the Detroit Police Department, which has taken heavy criticism for its policing of the black community. Their most recent embarrassment was the shooting of 7-year old Aiyana Jones during a police raid. But the Chief of Police, Ralph Godbee Jr., is concerned about black men killing one another. Young Black Males Dying in Detroit at Alarming Rates - BV Black Spin: "

14 EXAMPLES OF RACISM IN THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM"

Bill Quigley

Since the U.S. criminal justice system records race data for each phase of the system across most jurisdictions, we know the racial breakdown for the use of drugs, police stops, arrests, legal representation trial sentencing, and parole. After looking at the available data, Bill Quigley, Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights

, points out 14 examples of what he describes as a "race-based institution."

His examples are listed below:

1. Although blacks comprise 13% of the population, and 14% of monthly drug users, they account for 37% of drug arrests.
2. Black and Latino motorists are more likely to be stopped and frisked by the police compared to whites.
3. Blacks are arrested for drug offenses at rates 2 to 11 times higher than the rates for whites.
4. Blacks are more likely to be detained while awaiting felony trials.
5. Blacks are more likely to be represented by a public defender, with high caseloads and limited resources.
6. African Americans are routinely excluded from criminal jury service.
7. As is true of most defendants, most African Americans never get a trial, and have to make a choice about accepting a plea or risking a possible lengthy sentence.
8. The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that black offenders receive longer sentences than white offenders.
9. Two-thirds of people in the U.S. with life sentences are non-white.
10. African Americans account for 56% of people in state prison for drug offenses.
11. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that a black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail; Latino males have a 17% chance and white males have a 6% chance.
12. Despite black youth accounting for 16% of the juvenile youth population, they are 28% of juvenile arrests, 37% of youth in jails, and 58% of youth sent to adult prisons.
13. The U.S. leads the world in incarceration and black males comprise the largest share of American prisoners.
14. Research shows that 17% of white job applicants with a criminal record received call backs from employers, compared to 5% of black job applicants.

Quigley argues that from start to finish the criminal justice system is inherently racist. Further, the stigma of criminality is analogous to Jim Crow; those convicted of crimes are legally discriminated against, thus creating a permanent underclass of warehoused individuals. Click here

to read more.

Ahmadinejad Addresses U.N. General Assembly

DREAM ACT Will Extend Poverty Draft to Immigrant Youth. Such A Deal.

Proponents of the DREAM Act claim it will enable countless deserving immigrant youth to pursue higher education. In reality, the movement for immigrant rights is being pimped by the Pentagon, which desperately needs access to young immigrants to replenish its ranks. Read more...

BET Goes to NYC's Fashion Week

During the flurry that was Fashion Week in New York City, BET was everywhere: at Lincoln Center for the formal shows, at Grand Central Station, a new adjunct space and everywhere else we could be to take the temperature of the fashion world—particularly as it relates to diversity. Here’s our harvest. –Harriette Cole. Read more...

BET Videos

Anger rises over U.S. tax dollars for Israeli settlements

Anger has arisen in Palestinian areas over reports that millions of tax-exempt dollars from the U.S. are being funneled towards Israel's illegal settlement building in the Palestinian West Bank -- in flagrant violation of international law.

This is happening under the nose of the U.S. administration despite its claims of support for a two-state solution and criticism of Israel's continued settlement building. Read more...

Is the Jewish Talmud Anti-Black and Anti-Christian? Part 1

BY DEMETRIC MUHAMMAD

The Torah cites the patriarch of the Hebrews as Abraham and in three places in the book of Genesis (chapters 12, 18 and 22) it says that his seed will be the source of blessing to all of the families of man. They would do this by bringing in justice, law and truth to replace injustice, lawlessness and falsehood where ever they would find it. What Mr. Brackman delights in is not the actions of the true Jew/Hebrew. He wrote that the southern Jewish merchant extended credit to slaves which had no visible means to repay the credit except the prospect of future harvested crops. Brackman considers this generosity when in reality it created for the Black man only a new form of slavery by means of indebtedness. Considering the previous status of chattel slaves that the newly freed slaves once occupied the slavery of indebtedness is no blessing at all when that which was needed was independence.

To be a blessing would mean that Jews would be to others as God had been to them. The Torah reveals that God forgave the Children of Israel of their sins against Him; God shared with them special knowledge called ‘revelation' through prophets; he delivered them from their captivity; he punished and destroyed their enemies and promised to use them to bring fallen man back into favor with God. What is revealed in TSRV2 is a record of the opposite behavior.

The book reveals that at the root of Jewish anti-Black behavior is actually religious teaching coming via what has come to be revered as a sacred text by many Jews called the Talmud. There is a tiny Jewish sect who makes considerable effort to eschew the Talmud and adhere to the Torah alone. These are the Karaites, a group which, historically, has been most hated and severely persecuted by the orthodox Jewish rabbinate. The Ethiopian Jews have no knowledge of the Talmud, as it is the product of European Jewry.

The Talmud is not the Torah. The Torah is also known as the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The Talmud purports to be a Rabbinical Commentary on the Torah for the purpose of guiding every aspect of Jewish life. The most revered is known as the Babylonian Talmud. It is a book that contains 4500 pages of the opinions of leading Jewish Rabbis. It is viewed as a holy writing and it is closely guarded.  Read more...

The Outside Force Manipulating Black Organizations From Within

BY THE HONORABLE MINISTER LOUIS FARRAKHAN
“To betray” is to deliver or expose to an enemy by treachery or disloyalty; to be unfaithful in guarding or maintaining; to be disloyal to; to disappoint the hopes or expectations; to betray one's confidence; to betray a secret; to reveal unconsciously something one would preferably conceal; to deceive, to mislead, to reveal or disclose.

Betrayal is when one loves and puts complete trust in an individual, religion, ideology, or program and then that one feels that his or her confidence, trust and loyalty was misplaced. This produces a breech, a chasm, a great divide it does not appear that anyone is able to bridge. It is comparable to one's attempting to build a bridge from the West Coast of the United States to the mainland of China: No engineer would be foolish enough to even attempt such, and certainly no one would wish to spend the money to do it even if it could be done, and therefore such a bridge would be considered improbable, unwise and an impossible task. Read more...

As Competing Films Offer Differing Views on Faulkner Killing, Mumia Supporters Claim New Evidence Undermines Key Witness Testimony

In the early morning hours of December 9, 1981, Daniel Faulkner, a white police officer, was fatally shot in the streets of Philadelphia. Journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was arrested and charged with his murder. The following summer a predominantly white jury sentenced him to death. Twenty-eight years later, the debate is still raging over whether justice was served. The debate spilled onto the silver screen in Philadelphia Tuesday night, with two new films premiering at the same time, each with competing explanations of what happened the night Faulkner was killed and during Mumia Abu-Jamal’s trial for his murder. Read transcript

Related articles:

New Test Shows Key Witnesses Lied at Mumia Abu-Jamal Trial

Bishop Eddie Long | Sexual allegations are talk of Atlanta, elsewhere

By Larry Hartstein and Mike Morris

Two men, ages 20 and 21, filed lawsuits in DeKalb County alleging Long coerced them into having sex in exchange for trips, cars and cash. The plaintiffs say Long began having inappropriate relations with them when they were 16. They are seeking a trial by jury and unspecified damages. Long adamantly denies the allegations. Read more...

Government infiltration threatens rights and freedom, warn analysts

BY ERIC TURE MUHAMMAD

Informants have been at the center of “terrorist plots” allegedly involving Muslims from Florida to New York. And Muslim leaders from New York to Los Angeles have complained about agents sent to monitor and infiltrate their places of worship.

“A movement or institution with enough strength and political discipline can usually withstand the damage from informants. Unfortunately, the Black movements in this country have never gained the level of critical mass or cohesion necessary to escape the damage done and that's the case in this era,” observed Professor Hank Williams, and instructor and Ph.D. candidate at the City University of New York. Read more...

Are Toiletries Sabotaging Our Health

BY Debbie Nicholson

Lately there have been stories related concerning our personal care items like toothpaste, deodorant and even lip gloss. It has been stated that within these items are contents of harmful ingredients. These stories have been talk in media circuits. Even in Congress they are the topic of a bill, The Safe Cosmetics Act 2010. Insufficient regulations and questionable safety of cosmetics had brought about the talent of Annie Leonard who's fame was for the video 'The Story Stuff' now to create 'The Story of Cosmetics'.

Multitudes of chemicals which have the legal authority to be used in the development of personal care products however, they are either not test or tested improperly or have been demonstrated to be harmful. Few of them are actually vastly used or even needed such as endocrine disrupting chemical triclosan which is contained in about 75% of all liquid hand soaps and triclocarban which is mostly in deodorant soaps. Scientists currently have discovered many new reasons why the use of these chemicals should not be allowed in consumer products. The Department of Natural Resources, this past later part of July had filed a lawsuit against the Food and Drug Administration demanding that they ban both triclosan and triclocarban from being used in soaps and body washes. Read more...

Jewish Groups Get Most Homeland Security Grants; Few Muslim Groups Apply

By Barbara Pash

Jewish groups in Maryland received over $1 million in federal grants to protect them from terrorism this year, while Baltimore-area Muslim organizations, which had gotten grants before, did not apply.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security awards grants annually to nonprofit organizations at high risk for terrorist attacks through its Urban Area Security Initiative program. First awarded in 2008, the grants are for security equipment like alarms, cameras, lighting and fences.

'Primarily, an eligible applicant has to be at high risk for terrorist attack or to have a role in responding to and recovering from a terrorist attack,' said Major Jeff Caslin of the Baltimore County Police and chairman of the Baltimore Urban Area Security Initiative subcommittee that oversees the grant program. Most of this year's applications came from Jewish organizations. Read more...

September protest to back Black farmers

The Militant 

Black farmers plan to gather here September 21-23 to protest the U.S. Senate’s continued refusal to approve $1.25 billion in funding to settle long-standing claims of discrimination by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

“The Black farmers’ lawsuit was cut short after 1999 and many farmers were left hanging,” said Robert Binion, 56, a farmer and long-time civil rights activist from Clanton, Alabama, in a telephone interview with the Militant. “We should have finished the job back then.”

“Our gathering in Washington is urgent,” continued Binion. “When the Civil War ended, they told us we would get ‘40 acres and a mule.’ But all we’ve had is empty promises and more promises. We’re not asking for a handout, but for simple, equal justice. Both the Democrats and Republicans are responsible for this situation. It’s discrimination, pure and simple. Not even the Congressional Black Caucus has helped us. This action will be a wake-up call for everyone.”  - Read more...

For more information on the September 21-23 protest, contact Robert Binion at (205) 280-2634 (home) or (205) 299-1873 (cell). 

Many black farmers who suffered racism still await payment

Some were denied federal assistance loans without legitimate grounds. Others were approved but received the funds after planting season, a handicap that left them struggling to pay off accumulating interest. Many lost their property.

While the USDA agreed to a $1 billion settlement with about 20,000 black farmers in 1999, as many as 70,000 are still awaiting payments on claims the government says were filed late.

The U.S. House of Representatives this year authorized an additional $1.25 billion for new payments, but the Senate has twice rejected bills that would have allocated the money.
For Alexander, who now rents a Midtown apartment with his wife, the payments are long overdue and may come too late for him or other farmers, if they come at all, he said. Read more...