Archive for July 4, 2010
As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Subsidies
July 4, 2010 | 
Author 
On Friday, cleanup workers in Grand Isle, La., positioned absorbent material to block oil from washing onto the beach.
When the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform set off the worst oil spill at sea in American history, it was flying the flag of the Marshall Islands. Registering there allowed the rig’s owner to significantly reduce its American taxes.
The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes.
At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon — a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.
With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.
But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.
Posted in Posts | 
Tags: Auto, cleanup, cleanup workers, Draft, Fights, Getty, getty images, Oil, senate finance committee, time bp | 
Comments Closed Debunking the War on Terror!!!
Four of the West’s Boldest Dissidents Gather in London for July 14th “Debunking the War on Terror” Symposium
The forthcoming “Debunking the War on Terror” symposium in London brings together four of the most outspoken and eloquent challengers to the Zio-American imperial order that has emerged post-September 11th. While most of the left and antiwar movements have chosen to remain “loyal opposition,” each of these four individuals has gone one step further, by challenging the very roots of the mainstream Western consensus and accepting the physical, professional or intellectual exile that ensues. If the consensus is starting to shift, it is due in large part to such bold challenges as these.
Kenneth O’Keefe, the symposium’s Master of Ceremonies, renounced his US citizenship and left the USA after the events of September 11th and the ensuing US wars of aggression. He organized the human shield project, an attempt to prevent Bush’s attack on Iraq by placing US and European volunteers beside likely bombing targets. More recently, he has gained broad media exposure for his defense of the humanitarian aid ship the Mavi Marmara–he was “directly involved in disarming two Israeli commandos” on that ship–and subsequent brutalization by Israeli authorities.
Gilad Atzmon, who will be speaking on “From Promised Land to Promised Planet: Zionism and Neoconservatism,” is an outspoken opponent of Zionism and highly critical voice of Jewish identity politics. An Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist, his album “Exile” was the BBC’s “jazz album of the year” in 2003. He is also an acclaimed novelist and political essayist whose views on Zionism, empire and resistance provocatively challenge the boundaries of what passes for polite Western discourse.
Dr. Kevin Barrett, one of America’s best-known critics of the “war on terror,” has been blacklisted by the University of Wisconsin since 2007 due to his political views. A Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist, he is the author of Truth Jihad: My Epic Struggle Against the 9/11 Big Lie (2007) and of Questioning the War on Terror (2009/2010) as well as the lead editor (with theologian John Cobb and Jewish Studies professor Sandra Lubarsky) of 9/11 & American Empire Vol. II: Christians, Jews, and Muslims Speak Out (2007; Arabic version 2009). He will address, “Islam, Neoconservatism, and the Unwarranted ‘War on Terror’”.
Dr. James Fetzer, Distinguished McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth, is the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, in fields as diverse as history, science, military affairs, psychology, and philosophy, dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11. Scholars was the first 9/11 research society to make an impact on public discussion about the events of 9/11. The Scholars’ first book, The 9/11 Conspiracy (2007) and DVD, The Science and Politics of 9/11 (2007), provide evidence of a conspiracy and cover-up, which was designed and executed to manipulate the American people into supporting illegal wars and unconstitutional measures out of the fear those atrocities induced. He will address, “Are wars in Iraq and Afghanistan justified by 9/11?”
* * *
Please come and participate and forward to all:
RE: “Debunking the ‘War on Terror’: Three Perspectives”
14th July 2010, 6:30-9:30 PM, Friends House, Euston Road opposite Euston Station
Participants will analyze three different rationales that have been advanced to justify wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan to ascertain whether they are true or false.
The event will be held in The Large Meeting Hall of Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London. Friends House is on the south side of Euston Road directly opposite Euston Station (BR main line, Victoria and Northern underground lines). The doors will open at 6 PM. Admission is £5 on the door.
For more information, visit http://rediscover911.com/DWT/DebunkingWT.htm. You may also contact Declan and Lola Heavey dheavy@gmail.com, in London.
Posted in Posts | Tags: aggression, consensus, Debunking, israeli commandos, jazz saxophonist, political essayist, War, western discourse | Comments Closed G20 Protesters Take Note: D.C. agrees to $13.7 million settlement in 2000 mass arrest
By Maria Glod
A federal judge gave final approval Wednesday to a $13.7 million settlement between the District and people who were picked up in a mass arrest during a 2000 protest near the World Bank and International Monetary Fund buildings.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said the class-action lawsuit, which has wended its way through the court for about a decade, will benefit “future generations” who want to speak out and air their grievances. He said it sparked a 2004 D.C. law that set out policies for police to follow at demonstrations, including a prohibition against encircling protesters without probable cause to arrest them.
Under the settlement, each person arrested and found eligible for compensation will be awarded $18,000, and the record of that arrest will be expunged. It also requires additional training for police officers.
“It is an important settlement. It’s an historic settlement,” Friedman said. “This is a fair settlement to the plaintiffs and in the interest of the First Amendment.”
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard of the nonprofit Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, which represents the plaintiffs, said the case has helped change the way police respond to large-scale protests and demonstrations.
“This has been an ongoing effort to make the nation’s capital hospitable to cherished First Amendment activities,” Verheyden-Hilliard said.
Brian Becker, who was arrested April 15, 2000, along with his then-16-year-old son, recalled police in riot gear surrounding a group of marchers peacefully protesting problems in the U.S. prison system. Becker, a group organizer, said he was arrested, spent hours on a bus, and later had his right hand and left foot cuffed together.
Posted in Posts | Tags: Amendment, arrest, Auto, brian becker, Draft, international monetary fund, maria glod, mass, partnership for civil justice, police | Comments Closed 
Loving mother Maureen Spalek continues to be persecuted by the sick and soulless bullies of the Merseyside police, social services and ‘legal’ system
From DavidIcke.com
Please help Maureen Spalek
Come on, you Scousers – please get involved in this horrific injustice in your midst.
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Maureen Spalek had her three children stolen by the state in Liverpool and was then taken to court for the ‘crime’ of sending one of them a birthday card via the foster home imposed by those who steal children for a living.
Mrs Spalek was also flagged down by an unmarked police car on the outskirts of the town where two of her children are with an adoptive mother. Her car was seized and she was arrested, handcuffed and held in a Runcorn police cell until lunchtime the next day. The police alleged that she was in breach of a court order forbidding her to enter the town – click here for the story …
[more at DavidIcke.com...]
Posted in Posts | Tags: Auto, car, Draft, fosterhome, javascript capable browser, midst, police cell, Scousers, system, unmarked police car | Comments Closed This May be Britain’s Abu Ghraib
The allegations of torture by British soldiers in Iraq bear chilling comparison with America’s worst excesses
By Phil Shiner and Tessa Gregory
The Guardian” – - The inquiry into the death of Baha Mousa is due to report by the end of the year. It will detail how Mousa died in Iraq in September 2003, allegedly brutalised by British soldiers in a “free for all”; and how it was that he and nine other men in the same incident were allegedly hooded, forced into painful stress positions, and deprived of sleep, food and water.
The Guardian article this week, which reported that many more civilians died in army custody than previously thought, should shock the conscience of the nation. The evidence of Lieutenant Colonel Mercer to the inquiry reveals that as early as May 2003 – four months before Mousa’s death – there were “a number of deaths in custody” with “various units”. It appears there were, by then, at least nine deaths. The Ministry of Defence refuses to answer questions from us or the Guardian as to where, how or why these Iraqis died, and refuses to confirm or deny whether any of these deaths were ever investigated and if so with what outcome.
Although we are acting for one family referred to in the article, we have no idea about the other cases. And the story could be a lot worse: an ex-Royal Military Police (RMP) major told BBC radio last October that there were “hundreds” of similar cases.
Posted in Posts | Tags: article, bear, british soldiers in iraq, death, inquiry, lieutenant colonel, phil shiner, royal military police | Comments Closed US: Felony charges, big fines for reporting within Gulf oil spill zone
US: Felony charges, big fines for reporting within Gulf oil spill zone 03 Jul 2010 Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees – The Spill and Transparency – Aired July 1, 2010 (Transcript) COOPER: We’re talking about the government, a new a rule announced today backed by the force of law and the threat of fines and felony charges, a rule that will prevent reporters and photographers and anyone else from getting anywhere close to booms and oil-soaked wildlife and just about any place we need to be. By now, you’re probably familiar with cleanup crews stiff-arming the media, private security blocking cameras, ordinary workers clamming up, some not even saying who they’re working for because they’re afraid of losing their jobs… Well, the Coast Guard today announced new rules keeping photographers and reporters and anyone else from coming within 65 feet of any response vessel or booms out on the water or on beaches — 65 feet… Violators could face a fine of $40,000 and Class D felony charges. [Boy, George W. Bush has got to be the most frustrated individual on God's green Earth! Can you *imagine* the outrage -- and protests -- if Bush threatened reporters and photographers with felony charges and fines, as Barack Obama is doing in the Gulf of Mexico? It makes my head *spin* to think of how fast the left would be up in arms. But when Obama lays down and dies for his corporaterrorist paymasters day after day and suspends the First Amendment, the so-called 'left' remains silent. Oh. Not to mention, his thriving assassination squads, busy little CIA bees hunting down US citizens who allegedly support 'terrorism.' --LRP]
Posted in Posts | Tags: anderson cooper 360, anyone, barack obama, class d felony charges, cleanup crews, Degrees, rule, Transparency | Comments Closed TSA to Block Websites that Contain Controversial Opinions
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is blocking certain websites from the federal agency’s computers, including halting access by staffers to any Internet pages that contain a “controversial opinion,” according to an internal email obtained by CBS News.
The email was sent to all TSA employees from the Office of Information Technology on Friday afternoon.
It states that as of July 1, TSA employees will no longer be allowed to access five categories of websites that have been deemed “inappropriate for government access.”
The categories include:
Chat/Messaging
Controversial opinion
Criminal activity
Extreme violence (including cartoon violence) and gruesome content
Gaming
The email does not specify how the TSA will determine if a website expresses a “controversial opinion.”
There is also no explanation as to why controversial opinions are being blocked, although the email stated that some of the restricted websites violate the Employee Responsibilities and Conduct policy.
The TSA did not return calls seeking comment by publication time.
[Source...]
Israel can’t be trusted to probe Gaza flotilla raid, say Rachel Corrie’s parents
Corrie, a U.S. citizen, was struck and killed in 2003 by a bulldozer as she and other activists tried to prevent the razing of Gaza homes.
Israel cannot be trusted to conduct a reliable investigation of its raid of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, the family of Rachel Corrie, an American human rights activist who was killed in Gaza, wrote to U.S. United Nations envoy Susan Rice earlier this month.
The MV Rachel Corrie.
Corrie, a U.S. citizen, was 24 when she was struck and killed in 2003 by a bulldozer as she and other activists tried to stop Israel razing homes in Rafah by using their bodies as human shields.
The driver said he didn’t see her, and the Israel Defense Forces has ruled her death an accident – a version her parents reject.
In the letter obtained by Haaretz, Cindy and Craig Corrie referred to the May 31 raid of the Gaza flotilla which resulted in the deaths of 9 activists, saying they wished to express their “continuing sorrow and outrage over the recent killings and injuries aboard the Mavi Marmara and other vessels that sailed with the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza.”
“We write also to inform you,” the Corrie family added, “of the longstanding, U. S. government position that Israel has failed to conduct a thorough, credible and transparent investigation into our daughter’s killing and that after repeated attempts at the highest levels, U.S. officials have been unable to secure such an investigation.”
Posted in Posts | Tags: citizen, freedom flotilla, Gaza, Gaza-bound, human rights activist, israel defense forces, rachel corrie, raid | Comments Closed Dangerous Crossroads in World History: Obama’s New Iran Sanctions: An Act of War
When the UN refused to agree to the severe sanctions that the U.S. wanted, Obama responded with typical Bush flair and went solo. The new U.S. sanctions against Iran — signed into law by Obama on July 1st — are an unmistakable act of war.
If fully enforced, Iran’s economy will be potentially destroyed. The New York Times outlines the central parts of the sanctions:
“The law signed by Mr. Obama imposes penalties on foreign entities that sell refined petroleum to Iran or assist Iran with its domestic refining capacity. It also requires that American and foreign businesses that seek contracts with the United States government certify that they do not engage in prohibited business with Iran.” (July 1, 2010).
Iran must import the majority of its oil from foreign corporations and nations, since it does not have the technology needed to refine the fuel that it pumps from its soil. By cutting this refined oil off, the U.S. will be causing massive, irreparable damage to the Iranian economy — equaling an act of war.
In fact, war against Japan in WWII was sparked by very similar circumstances. Franklin Delano Roosevelt spearheaded a series of sanctions against Japan, which included the Export Control Act, giving the President the power to prohibit the export of a variety of materials to Japan, including oil. This gave Roosevelt the legal stance he needed to implement an oil embargo, an obvious act of war. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor simply brought the war out of the economic realm into the military sphere.
[more...]
Posted in Posts | Tags: Act, attack on pearl harbor, Crossroads, dangerous crossroads, export, export control act, franklin delano roosevelt, law | Comments Closed 
They’re not just pigs, G20-Toronto participatory inquiry in full swing
by Denis G. Rancourt
The 2010 G20 police state mass aggression in Toronto has led to unprecedented alternative and popular media coverage. Photos, raw video footage, video reports, Indy media articles, independent radio reports, documented testimonies, and social media commentaries are pouring in.
Taken together, this spontaneous and autonomously produced information is the evolving factual, interpretative, and recommendation parts of a self-organized participatory inquiry into the police state crimes of G20-Toronto. It will be more complete and more true than any official report from a government-appointed inquiry or than any ruling from a group action lawsuit.
We don’t need daddy to tell us what happened or that “mistakes” were made. We need daddy to be subjected to the consequences of having designed and allowed this mass aggression. A few of those consequences are and should be the lawsuits, the official inquiries, the human and civil rights organization condemnations, the negative media coverage, demotions and firings, the loss of credibility and legitimacy, and much more.
One of the most disturbing results of the participatory inquiry, at a systemic level, is that these cops aren’t just pigs.
The targeting, intimidation, and terrorizing of protestors – treated like “the enemy” in a war – was, like with all recent anti-globalization protests, systematic. The patterns described by the thousands of victims (from psychological intimidation to broken skin and rape, e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-amzGk7qN8 | http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/story-my-arrest-detainment/3997 are identical. These are no ordinary pigs. These thugs had to be trained to execute these manoeuvres against civil society.
Posted in Posts | Tags: aggression, civil rights organization, inquiry, intimidation, mass, negative media coverage, participatory inquiry, raw video footage | Comments Closed Gormley’s Fluoride Hypocrisy: “Fluoridated Water Causes Cancer in Children!” But You’re Going to Pay for it Anyway!
By Neil Foster
In the video below, John Gormley, 3 years prior to becoming the Minister of the Environment clearly stated on RTE’s ‘Primetime’ program that fluoridated water was dangerous for babies and indeed elaborated on this by informing the public, quite rightly, that it caused bone cancer in children. He now expects us to pay, through the use of water meters, for the very same fluoridated toxic water which he openly admits is detrimental to human health
Despite the clear evidence that this is indeed the case and the statement by Gormley back in 2003 that there was no need for fluoride in the public water supply, it is still there poisoning our children and adults alike. Fluoride is better known as a rat and insect poison and is still used as such to this day.
[more...]
Posted in Posts | Tags: bone cancer, Causes, Environment, Fluoride, Hypocrisy, john gormley, Primetime, public water supply, water causes cancer | 2 Comments » Guess Who Wants to Kill the Internet?
By Maidhc Ó Cathail
Joe Lieberman
It would be hard to think of anyone who has done more to undermine American freedoms than Joseph Lieberman.
Since 9/11, the Independent senator from Connecticut has introduced a raft of legislation in the name of the “global war on terror” which has steadily eroded constitutional rights. If the United States looks increasingly like a police state, Senator Lieberman has to take much of the credit for it.
On October 11, 2001, exactly one month after 9/11, Lieberman introduced S. 1534, a bill to establish a Department of Homeland Security. Since then, he has been the main mover behind such draconian legislation as the Protect America Act of 2007, the Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010, and the proposed Terrorist Expatriation Act, which would revoke the citizenship of Americans suspected of terrorism. And now the senator from Connecticut wants to kill the Internet.
According to the bill he recently proposed in the Senate, the entire global internet is to be claimed as a “national asset” of the United States. If Congress passes the bill, the US President would be given the power to “kill” the internet in the event of a “national cyber-emergency.” Supporters of the legislation say this is necessary to prevent a “cyber 9/11” – yet another myth from the fear mongers who brought us tales of “Iraqi WMD” and “Iranian nukes.”
[more...]
Posted in Posts | Tags: Act, american freedoms, bill, fear mongers, global war on terror, Independent, iranian nukes, joe lieberman, joseph lieberman, legislation, October, senator lieberman, state, terror | Comments Closed DHS Works Hand in Hand with BP Security and Local Police
[See the full article at The Intel Hub...]
On June 30, 2010 the madam president blocked an almost unanimous vote of 420 to 1, a vote to investigate the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. This is very reminiscent ,of what happened after 9/11, when Bush appointed his own commission. There is an obvious cover-up. What will it take for the American people to act? What has happened in our country that would stop the American people from standing up to this tyranny?
Posted in Posts | Tags: bp, Bush, cover-up, deepwater, horizon oil, June, Local, madam, madam president, oil spill, president, tyranny, unanimous vote, vote | Comments Closed 
Special Report: Should BP nuke its leaking well?
by NotForSale2NWO
Nuke the Gulf?
His face wracked by age and his voice rasping after decades of chain-smoking coarse tobacco, the former long-time Russian Minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist Viktor Mikhailov knows just how to fix BP’s oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.
“A nuclear explosion over the leak,” he says nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. “I don’t know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and the problem is solved.”
A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion — nuclear or otherwise. But as a series of efforts to plug the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing from the sea floor have failed, talk of an extreme solution refuses to die.
For some, blasting the problem seems the most logical answer in the world. Mikhailov has had a distinguished career in the nuclear field, helping to close a Soviet Union program that used nuclear explosions to seal gas leaks. Ordinarily he’s an opponent of nuclear blasts, but he says an underwater explosion in the Gulf of Mexico would not be harmful and could cost no more than $10 million. That compares with the $2.35 billion BP has paid out in cleanup and compensation costs so far. “This option is worth the money,” he says.
And it’s not just Soviet boffins. Milo Nordyke, one of the masterminds behind U.S. research into peaceful nuclear energy in the 1960s and ’70s says a nuclear explosion is a logical last-resort solution for BP and the government. Matthew Simmons, a former energy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush and the founder of energy investment-banking firm Simmons & Company International, is another calling for the nuclear option.
Posted in Posts | Tags: chain-smoking, coarse tobacco, energy adviser, face, matthew simmons, Mikhailov, nuclear blasts, problem, Report, soviet physicist, underwater explosion, viktor mikhailov, voice | Comments Closed U.S. spill panel to hold public meeting July 12-13
President Barack Obama delivers a statement on the BP oil spill crisis in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, June 1, 2010. Alongside Obama are the co-chairman of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Inquiry Commission Bob Graham (L) and William Reilly.
Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed
WASHINGTON | Sat Jul 3, 2010 6:42pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. presidential panel to probe the cause of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and recommend new rules to prevent future disasters will hold its first public meeting in New Orleans on July 12 and 13, its co-chairs said on Saturday.
The two-day meeting will “hear directly from the people of the Gulf Coast whose lives and livelihoods have been so profoundly affected by the BP Deepwater Horizon spill,” said Bob Graham, a former U.S. Senator, and William Reilly, former head of the Environmental Protection Agency, in a statement.
The seven-member commission, which has six months to do its work, will also seek expert advice on “regulatory, technical, legal, scientific and risk-management issues to ensure that any offshore drilling is done safety,” they said.
The Obama administration had issued a moratorium on offshore drilling to give the commission time for its investigation, but a federal court lifted the ban. The government is appealing.
The U.S. Interior Department is expected to issue a revised moratorium in the coming week.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton, editing by Alan Elsner)
Posted in Posts | Tags: alan elsner, Barack, barack obama, bp oil spill, disaster, Horizon, jason reed, June, massive oil spill, panel, risk management issues, roberta rampton, spill | Comments Closed Johann Hari: How Goldman gambled on starvation
Speculators set up a casino where the chips were the stomachs of millions. What does it say about our system that we can so casually inflict so much pain?
By now, you probably think your opinion of Goldman Sachs and its swarm of Wall Street allies has rock-bottomed at raw loathing. You’re wrong. There’s more. It turns out that the most destructive of all their recent acts has barely been discussed at all. Here’s the rest. This is the story of how some of the richest people in the world – Goldman, Deutsche Bank, the traders at Merrill Lynch, and more – have caused the starvation of some of the poorest people in the world.
It starts with an apparent mystery. At the end of 2006, food prices across the world started to rise, suddenly and stratospherically. Within a year, the price of wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent. In a global jolt of hunger, 200 million people – mostly children – couldn’t afford to get food any more, and sank into malnutrition or starvation. There were riots in more than 30 countries, and at least one government was violently overthrown. Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.”
[more...]
Posted in Posts | Tags: Bank, cent, Food, goldman sachs, jean ziegler, johann hari, Merrill, merrill lynch, mystery, richest people in the world, Sachs, silent mass, spring 2008, starvation | Comments Closed