GOP dips in religion poll

The number of people who consider the Republican Party friendly to religion has dipped below half in the last year, with declines among white evangelicals and white Catholics.

Amnesty report accuses Israel of war crimes

Israel deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and committed war crimes during the month-long conflict in Lebanon, according to an Amnesty International report.

Report rips U.S. intelligence on Iran

The U.S. intelligence community is ill-prepared to assess Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities and its intentions for developing weapons of mass destruction, a congressional report said Wednesday.

Charges dropped, but six remain in Guantanamo Bay

Six men suspected of plotting to blow up the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, were brought to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2002. They remain imprisoned there even though the charges against them were dropped.

Israeli bombs keep on killing

Unexploded Israeli cluster bombs, some dating back to the Vietnam war era, are exacting an increasing toll on Lebanese civilians returning home, the UN and human rights groups say.

Beating the Drums of War. US Troop Build-up: Army & Marines authorize "Involuntary Conscription"

It is now being specified and openly stated that the U.S. Marines have started recalling or legally summoning thousands of ‘inactive servicemen’ to serve in Iraq and the Middle East, where the number of U.S. troops and contracted security personal are dropping towards hap-hazardous levels that seem to be worrying American commanders in Iraq and the Pentagon’s military planners, especially in light of the recent escalation and intensifying tension(s) and resistance to Anglo-American occupation in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Record bass set free at Hyatt Lake

"It doesn't really matter how big the bass is, I let it go," Pearson says. "That fish probably is as old as I am.

"I don't think it's right to kill a fish just to get a record," he says.

Judge nixes warrantless surveillance

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit is the first judge to rule on the legality of the National Security Agency's program, which the White House says is a key tool for fighting terrorism that has already stopped attacks.

The spiteful resurgence of anti-Semitism

So where is the boundary between necessary criticism of Israel - or indeed the Jewish religion, which like all monotheisms is based on a ridiculous and often ugly pre-modern text - and racism?

Lebanon's Muslims: Relatively Secular and Pro-Christian

Despite widespread sectarian violence during their country's 1975-1990 civil war, today Lebanese Muslims and Christians generally have positive attitudes toward one another. Fully 86% of Muslims have a favorable opinion of Christians, by far the highest rating of Christians by any Muslim public. At the same time, 82% of Christians have a positive view of Muslims.

Lebanon destroyed by genocidal hand of Israel

Venezuelan president announces nationwide fundraising drive to raise money for rebuilding Lebanon and for Palestinians; calls Lebanese ‘heroic people’

I Dare Any American to Name a Single Bush or Republican National Security Success...Just One

Republicans are masters at creating a political perception that is entirely divorced from reality. On no other issue is this highlighted more clearly than regarding national security. What is more incredible still, is that the American people buy into these Republican myths regardless of what their own senses tell them.

Beirut fury at 'ceasefire breach'

Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora has accused Israel of a "naked violation" of the five-day-old ceasefire, after a raid by Israeli commandos deep inside Lebanon.

Israeli Army Cause Serious Head Injury to Israeli Lawyer at Demonstration

Earlier today, August 11, the Israeli Army and Border Police shot an Israeli demonstrator with rubber bullets from close range in the head and neck, causing serious injuries. The man, who is a lawyer, was taken by the army to Tel Hasomer hospital from where he is reported to have suffered brain damage.

In total 9 people were shot with rubber bullets in a non-violent demonstration in Bil'in. Those shot included 2 villagers of Bil'in as well as citizens of Denmark, France, USA, Japan and Israel. Other people from United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark were beaten, struck with rifle butt or injured by sound grenade fragments.

About 200 demonstrators joined the peaceful march from the Bil'in mosque to the Apartheid Wall about 1 km away. The purpose of the march was to demonstrate against the 'New Style of Killing' where even children are targetted by Israeli military forces. The marchers carried 5 mock bodies symbolising an entire family killed by Israeli military action.

Before the marchers were able to leave the village soldiers blocked their route, announced the demonstration illegal and then immediately fired sound grenades and rubber bullets from close range. The solders' commander claimed the demonstration was illegal although an Israeli court has previously confirmed the right of Bil'in villagers to hold demonstrations.

http://www.palsolidarity.org/main

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) is a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement committed to ending Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land. We call for full compliance with all relevant UN resolutions and international law.

BUSH AND CHENEY'S REIGN OF ERROR

THESE PEOPLE have no shame. Their contempt for democracy is so great they will stop at nothing to undermine it. Their adherence to fundamentalist beliefs that blinds them to reality is frightening. They must be stopped

Washington’s interests in Israel’s war.

Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings.

Theft during veep visit linked to Iowa teens

Two teenage boys face theft charges for allegedly possessing radios and other equipment belonging to a White House agency.

Neo-Con Madmen Strike Again - The London Fear Frenzy

Well before Wednesday the administration was aware of Britain's plans to launch a raid against a possible terror plot. In an unusual move, Cheney, while vacationing at his Wyoming Ranch, had arranged a phone conference with reporters. This was something the Vice President was loathe to do during the Katrina massacre, but quick to do in order to gain possible political traction by attacking Democrats' love of country and, too, to seize an opportunity to instill a little fear in the American electorate. Everyone knows nothing works better for Republicans during an election year than baseless attacks upon Democrats' patriotism and scaring the people.

Iraq: Kurdish-Shiite Struggle for Kirkuk Provokes Violence in Shiite South

Iraq: Kurdish-Shiite Struggle for Kirkuk Provokes Violence in Shiite South

Wash. Post's Weisman: Cheney "utterances are losing their news value"

Summary: When asked in an online discussion why Vice President Dick Cheney "saying basically that people who exercised their constitutional right to vote for change (ie: Conn. primary) are helping terrorists" was "not the headline of a story," Washington Post staff writer Jonathan Weisman responded: "The vice president also said the insurgency in Iraq is in its death throes, and that U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators. I'm afraid to say his utterances are losing their news value."

Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guantánamo

White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Terror suspects not guilty, wife says

The wife of one of three Texas men arraigned on terrorism-related charges in Michigan says her husband and his relatives are not terrorists, but are simply trying to make money by reselling cell phones.

Increasingly, Bush escapes the media pack

On one of the scariest days yet in the five-year battle with terrorists, President Bush prepared to make a speech to reassure the American people. But the White House press corps was 1,000 miles away in Texas.

Bush Staff Wanted Bomb-Detect Cash Moved

While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology.

U.S., U.K. at odds over timing of arrests

The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader Rashid Rauf in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

British security was concerned that Rauf be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, Rauf was arrested over the objections of the British.

David Grossman's Son Killed

The son of David Grossman, a renowned novelist and peace activist in Israel, was killed in Lebanon, the army said Sunday, just three days after the author publicly urged the government to end the war with Hizbullah guerrillas.

Cracks appearing in Israeli support for war

Three of Israel’s most successful authors and intellectuals — Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua — on Thursday urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to focus on diplomatic rather than military initiatives.

U.S. cuts side deal with Israel, independent of UN resolution

An agreement has been struck between Israel and the United States paving the way for the Jewish state to remain in occupation of land claimed by Lebanon.

Bush's Invisible Ink

This ignoring of Bush's oath of office, says Greco, "is made clear in Article I of the Constitution, in the so-called 'presentment clause,' which decrees that a president must accept or reject a law as a whole. He cannot pick and choose the parts he likes. . . . The president must sign or veto a law as a whole."

In Hebron, a South African Compares Israeli Occupation to Apartheid

Every now and then in life, and maybe just when you want it, god throws down a thunderbolt. It happened to me on Friday in Hebron, in the Occupied Territories. A group of seven Israelis and I were sitting in an Arab man's house, discussing the harassment and denial of movement to Palestinians in the center of that city—the second largest city in the West Bank—when I wondered for the 100th or thousandth time how the conditions I was seeing for myself in the occupation compared to apartheid in South Africa, which Americans rose up against 20 years ago.

Pictures From Qana

Israeli Terrorism in Pictures

Peaches & poems lie mangled among the dead

UNDER the rubble of a stone shack in a peach orchard, metres from the Syrian border, lay the deeply personal effects of 33 new casualties of war.

Classified intelligence bills often are unread

- Nearly all members of the House of Representatives opted out of a chance to read this year's classified intelligence bill, and then voted on secret provisions they knew almost nothing about.

Ike Quote

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly.
Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture
a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

Dwight D. Eisenhower Republican President of the United States


Thank you to the reader who sent me this,
Bon

US troops 'assault Kirkuk journalists

Several journalists in Kirkuk have accused American and Iraqi security forces of assaulting them and their crews as they tried to report on the worsening security situation in the northern city.

Crackpot Christianity and America's Current Moral Degeneration

History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. ----- Thomas Jefferson

ABC, Wash. Post advanced misleading arguments against minimum-wage boost, obscured Democratic support for wage increase

ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper and Washington Post staff writer Jeffrey Birnbaum both uncritically reported conservatives' argument that a minimum-wage increase will eliminate existing jobs and discourage the creation of new ones. However, several studies show that minimum-wage increases do not hurt employment.

BP: Pipeline Closing May Last for Months

BP said Monday it will replace 73 percent of the pipelines from the nation's largest oil field and that production could be closed for weeks or months, crimping the nation's oil supplies at a time of peak demand.

U.S. threatens suit if Maine probes Verizon ties to NSA

The Bush administration is threatening to sue if Maine regulators decide to investigate whether Verizon Communications illegally turned over customer information to the National Security Agency.

Israel withdraws Venezuela envoy

At the weekend President Hugo Chavez recalled his envoy to Israel and described the Jewish state's campaign in Lebanon as a "new genocide".

Empire: war and propaganda

The US role in supporting Israel’s military assault on Lebanon falls into a pattern of imperial tyranny, where history is rewritten to suit America’s needs while Europe stands cravenly by. John Pilger provides a personal assessment from Washington

Frist failed to follow disclosure rules

Majority Leader Bill Frist hasn't been following all the Senate's rules when it comes to disclosing details about his finances.