World-News

By Dana Priest and William M. Arkin

The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25960.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/19-3



Corporate Media Discover Private Spies

In Other News, No WMD in Iraq

By Jeremy Scahill

Stop the presses and call the government spokespeople back from Martha's Vineyard. The corporate media have discovered that the United States is radically outsourcing national security and sensitive intelligence operations. Cable news channels breathlessly report on the "groundbreaking," "exclusive" Washington Post series.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25985.htm



National Security Inc.: Washington Post Investigation

The Post investigation uncovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America created since 9/11 that is hidden from public view, lacking in thorough oversight and so unwieldy that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25981.htm

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THE SECRETS NEXT DOOR
http://www.ufppc.org/us-a-world-news-mainmenu-35/9831/

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The Secrecy State
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/22-4

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The geek labyrinth

Slate
by Fred Kaplan

07/22/10

The report’s numbers are fairly staggering: 854,000 people have clearances of Top Secret or higher; 1,271 government agencies and 1,931 private companies do superclassified work related to counterterrorism, homeland security, and intelligence in about 10,000 locations nationwide; 33 building complexes for Top Secret intelligence work have been built, or are under construction, since 2001. But the numbers are the least of it, and the critics who focus on them — scoffing that big isn’t always bad and, after all, we might need all those companies and complexes in this dangerous world — miss the point...

http://www.slate.com/id/2261462/



Our big-government war on terror

Cato Institute
by Gene Healy

07/27/10

Guess what happens when you combine a crisis atmosphere with a gusher of federal funds? You get a dangerous, wealth-gobbling bureaucracy that fails to achieve its ostensible goal, whether that’s better health care, ending drug abuse — or uncovering terrorist threats. That’s the lesson of ‘Top Secret America,’ last week’s high-profile Washington Post series on the post-9/11 ‘Intelligence-Industrial Complex.’ You’d think a classic story of government overreach and incompetence would resonate with conservatives, but their reaction was mostly muted and dismissive.

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=12005



The never-ending drug war

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G. Hornberger

08/02/10

The Mexican government has just killed a man named Ignacio Coronel Villarreal, who was purported to be the leader of a powerful Mexican drug cartel. According to the New York Times, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency congratulated the Mexican government on a ‘victory in their sustained efforts to dismantle the drug cartels by targeting the highest levels of cartel leadership.’ It would be difficult to imagine a bigger inanity than that particular statement from the DEA...

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2010-08-02.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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"Top Secret America:" The Rest Of The Story

by Pastor Chuck Baldwin

The Washington Post report (for all its failures) should serve to remind the American people of just how vulnerable we are (and have always been) to totalitarian government, how fragile liberty and freedom are, and how necessary it is that we remain eternally vigilant to resist the machinations of power-mad Machiavellians in Washington, D.C.......

http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin603.htm

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Giving Up On Victory, Not War
http://www.lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt400.html

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The fourth branch of government
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/927.html



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=9/11
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=totalitarian+government
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=global+war+on+terror
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=war+on+drugs
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Drug+Enforcement+Agency
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Machiavelli
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=industrial+complex
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=corporate+media
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=counterterrorism
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=homeland+security
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=intelligence
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Dana+Priest
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=William+M.+Arkin
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jeremy+Scahill
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+C.+Koehler
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Fred+Kaplan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=com/baldwin
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Gene+Healy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=engelhardt
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Andrew+Bacevich
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jacob+G.+Hornberger

AlterNet
by Clancy Sigal
07/15/10

Why is nobody talking about the Afghanistan adventure as a cause of our plunging recession? Or at least citing the 30-year-old endless war as a major contributory factor in wasting our money to ‘nation-build’ in the Hindu Kush while our own country falls to pieces on food stamps, foreclosures and child poverty — one in five kids — that would put the world’s poorest nations to shame? Iraq was George Bush’s war. But, as Republican party chairman Michael Steele correctly says, ‘Afghanistan is Obama’s war of choice,’ and a losing proposition. Historically, Bush and Dick Cheney merely toyed with Afghanistan while visiting shock and awe on Iraq. But President Obama is really, really serious about it...

http://bit.ly/d7f77p



How psychologists profit on unending war

CounterPunch
by Bruce Levine

07/22/10

While U.S. military psychiatrists are prescribing increasing amounts of chill pills, America’s psychologists are teaching soldiers how to think more positively about their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else they are next ordered to kill the bad guys and win the hearts and minds of everyone else. The U.S. Army is planning to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in positive psychology and emotional resiliency...

http://counterpunch.org/levine07222010.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Trading in death

Rapacious bankers are making fortunes by forcing up the price of food and leaving millions to starve.

http://bit.ly/b9YvZl


From Information Clearing House

--------

Race Card Fraud
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/sowell11.1.html

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Grinning Bankers
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/21-3

Corporate Campaign Cash Floods US Elections
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/08/02-0

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Washington Elites Prefer Shills for Banks and Big Business

David Sirota, AlterNet: "The message to both today's generation and the future generation of citizens who may aspire to work in government is pretty clear: If you are personally/financially connected to private for-profit corporations - even those that helped destroy the economy - that underwrite political campaigns, Washington has no problem with your appointment to a position overseeing those same private corporations."

http://www.truth-out.org/unless-youre-a-shill-banks-and-big-business-the-washington-elites-will-call-you-controversial61573



The Great Decoupling of Corporate Profits From Jobs

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "Second-quarter earnings reports are coming in, and they're making Wall Street smile. Corporate profits are up. And big American companies are sitting on a gigantic pile of money. The 500 largest non-financial firms held almost a trillion dollars in the second quarter, and that money pile is growing larger this quarter. Profits that plummeted in the recession have bounced back. Big businesses have recovered almost 90 percent of what they lost."

http://www.truth-out.org/robert-reich-the-great-decoupling-corporate-profits-jobs61755



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+Steele
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Cheney
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Washington+elites
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=nation-build
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=endless+war
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=recovery
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Wall+Street
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Business
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=bankers
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=campaign+cash
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=food+price
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=food+stamps
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=starv
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Clancy+Sigal
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=/sowell
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jim+Hightower
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=David+Sirota
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Bruce+Levine
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Reich+Blog
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Tom+Hamburger

Future of Freedom Foundation
by Sheldon Richman

07/14/10

They used to say the truth shall set you free. These days it might get you fired. Apparently, stumbling onto the truth is a grave offense in the Republican Party. Ask Michael Steele, its chairman. Steele provoked the wrath of Republican neoconservatives William Kristol, Liz Cheney (the former vice president’s daughter), and Sen. John McCain by saying that ‘the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan … because everyone who has tried over a thousand years of history has failed, and there are reasons for that’...

http://www.fff.org/comment/com1007e.asp


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Another official report says "things just getting worse" in Afghanistan

The ANSO report also reveals that June saw a record number of Taliban attacks - up 51 per cent on the previous year to 1,319 operations.

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2010/07/afghanistan-worse-coin-report


From Information Clearing House



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Afghanistan
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Michael+Steele
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Kristol
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Cheney
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=McCain
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=GOP
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Taliban
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Sheldon+Richman

Foundation for Economic Education
by Sheldon Richman

07/16/10

Last week’s TGIF asked if the American people can afford a world-girdling foreign policy more befitting an empire than a republic. Look at it this way: War hawks make poor deficit hawks. Facing a $13 trillion national debt and trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficits, we can’t afford to be complacent about foreign interventions costing $12 billion a month. It’s not just that the budget numbers are daunting: The very institutions of small-government republicanism are suffocated by the quest for global hegemony...

http://tinyurl.com/2vnz9on



Deficits of mass destruction

The Nation
by Christopher Hayes

07/15/10

If you’ve been paying attention this past decade, it won’t surprise you to learn that the country’s policy elites are in the midst of a destructive, well-nigh unhinged discussion about the future of the nation. But even by the degraded standards of the Washington establishment, the growing panic over government debt is shocking. First, the facts. Nearly the entire deficit for this year and those projected into the near and medium terms are the result of three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession. The solution to our fiscal situation is: end the wars, allow the tax cuts to expire and restore robust growth. Our long-term structural deficits will require us to control healthcare inflation the way countries with single-payer systems do...

http://www.thenation.com/article/37534/deficits-mass-destruction


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Deficit Doves
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/21-7

Democrats May Stop Bush-Era Tax Cuts for Wealthy From Expiring
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/22-1

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We're in a One-and-a-Half Dip Recession

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: "We're not in a double-dip recession yet. We're in a one and a half dip recession. Consumer confidence is down. Retail sales are down. Home sales are down. Permits for single-family starts are down. The average work week is down. The only things not down are inventories - unsold stuff is piling up in warehouses and inventories of unsold homes are rising - and defaults on loans."

http://www.truth-out.org/robert-reich-we%E2%80%99re-in-a-one-and-a-half-dip-recession61614



Professors as Welfare Queens?

Jesse Lemisch, Truthout: "From Obama on down, the political atmosphere is deeply polluted by the use of 'centrism' as a self-description of what are essentially retrograde right-wing views. Under Obama, the US wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq continue, as do the lies put out about them. Guantanamo goes on. Obama's 'Deficit Commission' warms us up for cuts in Medicare and Social Security. 'The perfect is the enemy of the good,' and, thus, we have health care 'reform' by and for the insurers, with higher premiums and profits, and more evasions of coverage by merchants of death like UnitedHealthCare."

http://www.truth-out.org/professors-welfare-queens61981



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Obama
http://sharenews.twoday.net/topics/Afghanistan/
http://sharenews.twoday.net/topics/Pakistan/
http://sharenews.twoday.net/topics/Iraq+-+Irak+/
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=hegemony
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=empire
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=foreign+policy
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Guantanamo
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=recession
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=fiscal+situation
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=debt
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=budget
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=deficit
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Bush+legacy
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=policy+elite
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=hawk
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=health+care+reform
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=tax+cuts
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Sheldon+Richman
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Christopher+Hayes
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Amy+Goodman
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Robert+Reich+Blog
http://freepage.twoday.net/search?q=Alexander+Bolton
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Jesse+Lemisch

Ellen Cantarow, TomDispatch: "If you live on the Gulf Coast, welcome to the real world of oil - and just know that you're not alone. In the Niger Delta and the Ecuadorian Amazon, among other places, your emerging hell has been the living hell of local populations for decades."

http://www.truth-out.org/big-oil-makes-war-earth-the-gulf-coast-joins-oil-soiled-planet61457



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Big+Oil
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=oil+spill
http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Ellen+Cantarow

Schleifung der Überkapazitäten

Interview mit Robert Kurz über die globale Wirtschaftskrise, die Krise der Staatsfinanzen und Gefahren von Deflation und Inflation - Teil 1.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/32/32931/1.html



Zweite Welle der globalen Wirtschaftskrise innerhalb der nächsten Jahre

Interview mit Robert Kurz über die Finanzkrise der EU, wirtschaftspolitische Differenzen und den Defizitkreislauf zwischen China und den USA - Teil 2.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/32/32932/1.html



http://sharenews.twoday.net/search?q=Wirtschaftskrise

Die Vereinten Nationen und die EU haben harte Sanktionen gegen Iran verhängt, die vor allem die iranische Bevölkerung treffen.

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/32/32978/1.html



http://sharenews.twoday.net/topics/Iran/

Americans are finally waking up.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/pr/rasmussen-23-percent-govt-has-consent.html