Fall of the Republic: The Presidency of Barack H Obama (145-min. video)

Introduction by InflationUS

Fall of the Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

San Diego County deploys sonic weapon, unaware it can deafen citizens permanently

Sonic Weapons Used in Iraq Positioned at Congressional Townhall Meetings

By Miriam Raftery

September 11, 2009 (San Diego) – “Long-range acoustic devices [LRADs] for crowd control can be extremely dangerous. These are used in Iraq to control insurgents. They can cause serious and lasting harm to humans…We want to know WHY our Sheriff Dept has this weapon,” Sal Magallanez of San Diego-based Liberty One Radio said in an e-mail sent to East County Magazine, prompting a joint investigation.

Militarizing Latin America

bobrow.wordpress.com

By NOAM CHOMSKY
September 9, 2009

In the past ten years, South America has moved toward integration, a prerequisite for independence; has broadened international ties; and has addressed internal disorders—foremost, the traditional rule of a rich Europeanized minority over a sea of misery and suffering. It rejects the US “War on Drugs” and “War on Terror.” 

The US doesn’t like this, and plans to make its new seven military bases in Colombia the center of its Latin American operations.  The Obama administration is also building mega-embassies in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

How to Be a Lab Rat: The WHO’s Risk-Benefit Balance

By Aussie Oz

In the World Health Organization’s “Regulatory Preparedness for Human Pandemic Influenza Vaccines,” we see a detailed method of surveillance to monitor those who caught the flu.  It’s curious, prescient almost, that this starts on mythical 2012 (the line number in the WHO document).

Pfizer slapped with $2.3 billion fine for illegally dealing drugs

Dept of Justice Scores Largest “Health Care Fraud” Settlement in Its History

Tarred and feathered (Telegraph UK http://bit.ly/2QSFSR)

By Rady Ananda

Global drugmaker, Pfizer Inc., and its subsidiary, Pharmacia & Upjohn Company Inc., have agreed to pay $2.3 billion, the largest health care fraud settlement in the history of the Department of Justice, to resolve criminal and civil liability arising from the illegal promotion of certain pharmaceutical products, the Justice Department announced yesterday. The settlement covers criminal activity since at least 2005.

CIA doctors face human experimentation claims

Medical ethics group says physicians monitored ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ and studied their effectiveness

By Ed Pilkington

Doctors and psychologists the CIA employed to monitor its “enhanced interrogation” of terror suspects came close to, and may even have committed, unlawful human experimentation, a medical ethics watchdog has alleged.

Obama says WHO flu vaccine is NOT mandatory

By Rady Ananda

From the Rose Garden today, President Barack Obama promised that the swine flu vaccine “will be completely voluntary.” He spoke for four minutes and took no questions. Top policymakers from the various alphabet agencies whose bailiwick includes the WHO flu (H1N1) flanked him.

A Little Girl in Kabul

by Normon Solomon

Guljumma, seven years old, with her father Wakil Tawos Khan, at the Helmand Refugee Camp District 5 in Kabul on August 31, 2009. Last year, an air attack by the US military struck their home in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. She lost an arm in the bombing. (Photo: Reese Erlich)

Yesterday, I met a little girl named Guljumma. She’s seven years old, and she lives in Kabul at a place called Helmand Refugee Camp District 5.

Guljumma talked about what happened one morning last year when she was sleeping at home in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Valley. At about 5 AM, bombs exploded. Some people in her family died. She lost an arm.

Latin Americans Ditch US ‘War on Drugs’

Mexico and Argentina move towards decriminalising drugs

by Rory Carroll in Caracas, Jo Tuckman in Mexico and Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro

Argentina and Mexico have taken significant steps towards decriminalising drugs amid a growing Latin American backlash against the US-sponsored “war on drugs.” Argentina’s supreme court has ruled it unconstitutional to punish people for using marijuana for personal consumption, an eagerly awaited judgment that gave the government the green light to push for further liberalisation.

Katrina: Deadly Choices at Memorial

Katrina airboat (Bill Harber AP)

By Sheri Fink
A ProPublica Investigative Report 

A 13,0000-word special report on Memorial Medical Center’s decisions to euthanize patients who could not survive transportation out of the flood-deluged city.

Obama to open 7 new military bases in Colombia

A sign in Caracas, Venezuela, denounces the Colombian government's decision to allow the U.S. military to use some of its bases. Colombia has accused Venezuela of supporting anti-government rebels, known as the FARC. Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

By Moira Birss

After Honduras, is Venezuela next? Even supporters of the bases have inadvertently provided reasons to worry. During the Colombia debate, a senator supporting the bases spent over 40 minutes comparing, via a PowerPoint presentation complete with photos and detailed descriptions, the military arsenals of Colombia and Venezuela. He concluded that since Colombia’s arsenal is substantially smaller and less powerful than Venezuela’s and since Colombia would therefore lose in a war against its neighbor, Colombia should accept the U.S. military bases with open arms. 

Katrina, Four Years Later: Expert Fired Who Warned Levees Would Burst

By Greg Palast

There’s another floater. Four years on, there’s another victim face down in the waters of Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Ivor van Heerden.

I don’t get to use the word “heroic” very often. Van Heerden is heroic. The Deputy Director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, it was van Heerden who told me, on camera, something so horrible, so frightening, that, if it weren’t for his international stature, it would have been hard to believe:

Teddy Kennedy 1932-2009

By Tom Degan

“To speak for those who have no voice; to remember those who are forgotten; to respond to the frustration and fulfill the aspiration of all Americans seeking a better life in a better land….for all those whose cares have been our concern, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

Edward Moore Kennedy, 8/12/80

The lion sleeps….  

Seven Falsehoods about the Health Care Plan

Big myths about the current debate

By Brooks Jackson, Viveca Novak, Lori Robertson and Jess Henig

We offer a run-down of seven falsehoods we’ve taken on recently, with some additional updating and research thrown in.

Clinton meets with V-Day activists in DRCongo

By Christine Schuler Deschryver

V-Day Congo Director and acclaimed women’s rights activist Christine Schuler Deschryver met with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday, August 11 in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo. Clinton’s trip to Congo was reported as extraordinary for a Secretary of State as she brought a sharp focus to the ongoing sexual atrocities against women in the DRC, as well as worldwide attention.

Eva Golinger: U.S. Privatizes Colombian War by using Transnational Mercenaries

by cursedthing at flickr

By Zachary Lown

For the year 2009 the State Department of the United States will invest approximately $520 million in Plan Colombia. More than half of this money went to private North American contractors charged with developing, promoting and furthering irregular warfare in Colombian territory and in Latin America; this was revealed to the Bolivarian News Agency by the lawyer and researcher Eva Golinger.

Schakowsky son-in-law dies snorkeling

BREAKING: Lawmaker linked to Sibel Edmonds’ testimony about Turkey’s blackmailing efforts loses son-in-law in suspicious drowning.

WASHINGTON — The son-in-law of Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Michael McLaughlin, died Sunday while snorkeling near Tulum, Mexico.

Schakowsky and her husband, Robert Creamer, had gathered their nine children and grandchildren for what was to have been a weeklong vacation to mark Schakowsky turning 65 last May.

Film suppression spawns media storm over land grab from Uyghurs

Uyghur activist Rebiya Kadeer and her daughter (New Matilda)

When the Chinese gov learned that The Ten Conditions of Love would be screened in Australia, it pressured the Melbourne International Film Festival to withdraw it. This, on top of the July 5th genocide of Uyghurs (up to 10,000 have ‘disappeared’), has brought global attention to this Uyghur documentary starring Rebiya Kadeer, labeled a “Muslim terrorist” by the Chinese government.

This is eerily reminiscent of the neoliberal land grab in New Orleans, and in Gaza.  ~RA

Senator Sanders Bashes Wall Street Greed – join his weekly video feed on Brave New Films

BERNIE SANDERS UNFILTERED

Dear Friends, Colleagues and Supporters:

Hi, I’m Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the longest-serving independent in American history. 

I’m an independent progressive for a reason. Actually, for many reasons. Here are a few: The American middle class is under threat of extinction. Wars are waged for the profits of security contractors and weapons manufacturers. The bank lobby, the insurance companies and the drug companies practically run the House and Senate. I could go on. 

Half to two-thirds Rapid Tests wrong about swine flu

REUTERS, August 6, 2009
CDC’s first study finds cases missed at least half the time

The team at CDC’s influenza division tested three popular diagnostics — BinaxNow, made by Inverness Medical Innovations, Becton Dickinson’s Directigen EZ Flu A+B test and Quidel’s QuickVue.

The QuickVue test detected 69 percent of the H1N1 cases, the Directigen test found 49 percent and BinaxNow caught just 40 percent.

None can distinguish among the different types of flu — they just tell a patient and a doctor if one of the flu viruses is there.