'Don't Believe the Hype, It's a Sequel': Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Iran is not a threat to the US

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Ahmadinejad at the UN on 9/25/12. Complete transcript and video of speech [HERE] From [HERE] Lesson #1: Iran is not building nuclear weapons

National Intelligence Estimate: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.” (2007 National Intelligence Estimate Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities; November 2007)

“Several senior Israeli officials who spoke in recent days to The Associated Press said Israel has come around to the U.S. view that no final decision to build a bomb has been made by Iran.” (Associated Press, “Israel shifts views on Iran”; March 18, 2012)

The 2011 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a synthesized compilation of data evaluated by America’s 17 intelligence agencies, declared that there were no serious revisions to the controversial (for war hawks) 2007 NIE—which stated Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. While the 2011 estimate did include updated progress on Iran’s civilian nuclear program, such as an increased number of operative centrifuges, it still could not muster any evidence to indicate the program was being weaponized.

These findings echo reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has also concluded that Iran is not building nuclear weapons. The IAEA accounts are typically pored over for the slightest hint of ambiguity or malevolence, which are then promulgated as the most important takeaways in Western news summaries.

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Don't Believe the Hype: Complete Transcript & Video of Ahmadinejad at the UN

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Ahmadinejad talks peace & justice as US boycotts address [HERE]  From [HERE] Complete transcript of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN on 9/25/12:

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful

All Praise Belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, and May Peace and Blessings

be upon the Greatest and Trustworthy Prophet and His Pure Progeny, His Chosen

Companions, and upon all Divine Messengers.

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Why Don't We Educate Young Black Men?

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This week's report on graduation rates, the latest in the series on public education and black male students, documents the enormous differences in educational outcomes that result from segregation and inequitable funding. Although graduation rates for young black men has increased by ten percentage points between the classes of 2002 and 2010, the achievement gap between black and white males has only narrowed by three percentage points. At this rate it will take something like 50 more years to close the gap between male Black and White, non-Latino high school graduation rates. And with only three states - Maine, Arizona, and Vermont - with graduation rates that are higher for young black men than for young white men (and four more, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Alaska, with higher graduation rates for black men than the levels for young white men eight years earlier), too many young black men aren't being educated.

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Genocide Watch: Brazen Police Officers and the Forfeiture of Freedom

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In my experience, brazen police officers so frequently abuse their power that no one—no motorist, no juvenile, no adult, no professional of any kind—could make a compelling argument that constitutional rights afford any real protection from the state. How is it that a nation that prides itself on freedom would allow thugs with badges to behave like the KGB? We are no longer the beneficiaries of the proud, brave and intellectually gifted Founding Fathers. We are no longer free men and women. Today, we are as free as penned sheep; free to crowd one another, to eat the garbage emptied into the trough, and to mindlessly bleat until the hour of reckoning.

Many would make the argument that the government has taken our rights from us. Others hold that only after a death struggle would we allow the government to tear our rights away from us as we clenched them to our bosom. For the government, a struggle that might have proved difficult or might have been lost was, indeed, unnecessary. The authorities needed to do no more than whisper, “Boo!” and we surrendered our rights. Like a schoolboy presenting his teacher with a shiny apple, we have scrubbed our faces clean, arranged our smiles, and, reaching way up, bestowed our precious rights on the government. We are no longer fearless patriots, but well-behaved simpletons eager to please the master who has assured us that these rights make it more difficult to protect us. They appeal to us, “How can we possibly keep you safe and free if our efforts are forever being thwarted by antiquated, counterproductive rules? You do want to remain free, don’t you?” “Oh, yes,” we reply, “we love freedom; do whatever is needed to keep us free.” We are bleating sheep.

But your client, fresh from his arrest, bewildered and terrified asks, “Where have my rights gone?” It is only then, when he is in the custody or crosshairs of law enforcement, that he appreciates the magnitude and awesome power of government. 

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Whiter than Arizona? "Papers Please" law is now in Effect: All Non-white Persons Can be Stopped by Police

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From [HERE] Arizona police can begin enforcing a controversial "show-your-papers" provision of a state law aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, after a federal judge lifted an injunction against the law on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, who is white, in a written order, lifted an injunction blocking the measure, which requires police to check the immigration status of people they stop and suspect are in the country illegally.

Section 2(B) gives police too much discretion when stopping or detaining persons while “checking” their citizenship status. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and AACJ argued in their brief that Sec. 2(B) cannot be implemented without racially profiling Latinos in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. (That is, police stops and detentions of persons based on physical characteristics or persons who look Latino (brown skinned persons or darker skinned persons who could appear to be African, Cuban, Dominican, Hatian or West Indian immigrants) to the police are reasonable in Arizona -  any stop and detention of a non-white person). Even lawful detentions and arrests become unconstitutional when the detention becomes prolonged or unreasonable. If officers rely on profiling characteristics such as a person’s ethnicity in determining whether a person should be detained for an immigration check, Sec. 2(B) becomes an unconstitutional “stop-and-identify” law repugnant to all citizens. [HERE] and NACDL amicus curiae brief. 

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Since 9/11 - The New World Odor

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  • The U.S. has engaged in 2 wars. By the end of Obama’s first term, we’ll probably top 6,000 dead U.S. troops in those two wars, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. The cost for both wars is also now well over $1 trillion.
  • The U.S. has detained people without trial and tortured them at “black sites” overseas, rendered them to other countries to be tortured, 
  • claimed a right to detain American citizens without trial, 
  • barred those who turned out to be innocent from legal redress in the American courts for their detention and torture, 
  • refused compensation to hundreds of innocent people detained at Gitmo, prohibited detainees from talking about their detention and torture, 
  • turned the Fourth Amendment’s “search and seizure” provisions into toilet paper with USA PATRIOT and illegal wiretaps, 
  • The current president has also claimed the power to execute U.S. citizens, off the battlefield, without a trial, and to prevent anyone from knowing about it after the fact.
  • The Congress approved, the president signed, and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a broadly written law making it a crime to advocate for any organization the government deems sympathetic to terrorism. This includes challenging the “terrorist” designation in the first place.
  • American Muslims, a heartening story of success and assimilation, are now harassed and denigrated for merely trying to build houses of worship.
  • Without a warrant, the government can search and seize indefinitely the laptops and other personal electronic devices of anyone entering the country.
  • further militarized local police forces, and set up what amounts to a system of internal passport checkpoints in the airports.  [HERE] and [HERE]
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Native American Genocide and Personal Responsibility at Whiteclay

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From [InfoShop] The last few months have seen much attention given to Whiteclay, Nebraska: a lawsuit against the liquor store owners, beer distributors, and brewers was filed by the Oglala Sioux Tribe; the first blockade of the town in June spread across the internet, , the Denver Post and New York Times published articles, and the August 26th blockade by Deep Green Resistance made the nightly news and was published as far away as San Francisco.

While this (appropriately negative) publicity has certainly helped put Whiteclay on the map for many to whom it would otherwise be just a ‘no-name’ highway pit stop in Nebraska, others have reacted differently, many calling on the Lakota take ‘personal responsibility’ for not drinking.

But whose responsibility is it to fix the continuing problem of Whiteclay? And in the context of 500 years of genocide, what does ‘personal responsibility’ mean?

As we’ve said elsewhere before, Whiteclay is a creation of Invader Culture, just like the genocide of the Lakota was and is enacted by Invader Culture, and hence the burden of ‘personal responsibility’ for Whiteclay falls on members of Invader Culture.

The Lakota did not systematically steal land and break treaties (often using alcohol to “lubricate” the deals). That was done by Invader Culture.

The Lakota did not use alcohol, along with smallpox-infested blankets and Cavalrymen, as a tool of genocide. That was done by Invader Culture.

The Lakota did not build Whiteclay, nor fill it with alcohol. That was done by Invader Culture. [MORE]

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Arizona Law Allowing Police to Stop Any Non-White Person to Ask about Status Going into Effect

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NACDL amicus curiae brief From [HERE] A federal judge in Arizona has rejected a last-ditch effort by civil liberties and immigrants' rights groups to block enforcement of a hotly-contested provision of Arizona's anti-illegal immigration law, S.B. 1070.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton (in photo) said in an order Wednesday that she would not stand in the way of a provision in the law requiring police to determination the immigration status of people they encounter and suspect of being in the country illegally. The immigrants' rights groups argued that Bolton could block the law because it coud infringe on individuals' constitutional rights, but Bolton noted that in June the Supreme Court indicated that provision could take effect and that any legal challenges are pre-mature.

From [HERE] Section 2(B) gives police too much discretion when stopping or detaining persons while “checking” their citizenship status. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and AACJ argued in their brief that Sec. 2(B) cannot be implemented without racially profiling Latinos in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. (That is, police stops and detentions of persons based on physical characteristics orpersons who look Latino to the police are reasonable in Arizona -  any stop and detention of a non-white person). Even lawful detentions and arrests become unconstitutional when the detention becomes prolonged or unreasonable. If officers rely on profiling characteristics such as a person’s ethnicity in determining whether a person should be detained for an immigration check, Sec. 2(B) becomes an unconstitutional “stop-and-identify” law repugnant to all citizens.

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White Supremacist Nation Israel Plans to Round up & Detain All Sudanese Migrants who do not Self-Deport

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From [HERE] Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai warned today that illegal immigrants from Sudan who do not leave the country by October 15 will be detained.

"Infiltrators from Sudan have until October 15 to leave Israel, after which date they will be placed in detention," Yishai said in a statement, adding that he had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's approval to implement such a policy. Yishai indicated that the detention would be followed by expulsion, without going into detail on the procedure that may be followed.

He said he had "chosen to act rather than talk, in order to preserve the Jewish and Zionist character of the state for our children." Following a wave of arrests of illegal immigrants, Israel began expelling South Sudanese in June.

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Israeli Soldiers Engage in Genocidal Conduct Towards Palestinian Children

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From [HERE] In 2007, Israeli soldiers arrested 13-year-old Majid Jaradat for throwing stones during a demonstration in Sair village, near Hebron. Majed spoke about the violence of his arrest and detention in a  video produced by Israeli rights organization B’tselem.

But this was no isolated case. Many more such incidents are reported in a new publication from the Israeli veterans’ organization Breaking The Silence with shocking admissions from Israeli soldiers about the maltreatment of Palestinian children under Israeli occupation. The disturbing violations of children’s rights by soldiers took place in the occupied Palestinian territories between 2005-2011.

My previous post Choose a kid at random, “aim at his body”: Israeli soldiers confess their violence, addressed the abuse of Palestinian children as human shields, the use of handcuffs for torture, and the lethal use of rubber bullets. This second post summarizes more examples of the abuse of children by Israeli forces from the Breaking The Silence report, many of which — including admissions of indiscriminate shooting and wilful shooting to kill children who pose no danger — amount to war crimes.

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White Killer Zimmerman Orders Up his 3rd Judge - more magic tricks later

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From [DaliyKos] A Florida appeals court has decided 2-1 that Seminole (County) Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester went too far in his characterization of George Zimmerman in his ruling after a second bail hearing for the 28-year-old shooter of Trayvon Martin. Although the Florida attorney general's office had argued that Lester should not be replaced because all the judge had done was give Zimmerman a "well-deserved tongue lashing," it will not appeal the decision further.  The next step is for Lester to be replaced. The likely choice is another Seminole County circuit judge, Debra S. Nelson. She has a reputation for handing down tough sentences.

The majority opinion stated:

"Florida Rule of Judicial Administration 2.330 requires a trial judge to grant a  motion to disqualify without determining the accuracy of the allegations in the motion, so long as the motion is "legally sufficient."  [...]  "A motion is legally  sufficient if it alleges facts that would create in a reasonably prudent person a wellfounded fear of not receiving a fair and impartial trial." [...]  Although many of the allegations in Zimmerman's motion, standing alone, do not meet the legal sufficiency test, and while this is admittedly a close call, upon careful review we find that the allegations, taken together, meet the threshold test of legal sufficiency."

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Protecting Black People or Property? U.S. Army troops, brandishing automatic assault rifles, deployed to New Orleans

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From [HERE] and [HERE]  Hurricane Isaac gathered strength as it bore down on New Orleans on Tuesday, bringing high winds and soaking rains that will pose the first major test to the city's multibillion-dollar flood protections, seven years after Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Hundreds of U.S. Army National Guard troops took up strategic positions around New Orleans, preparation meant to avoid the chaos seen in the days and weeks after Katrina in August 2005.

Isaac's storm surge poses a major test of the so-called Crescent City's new flood-control systems and reinforced levees that failed in 2005, leaving parts of the city underwater. Forecasts from the U.S. National Hurricane Center showed the storm coming ashore in the Mississippi Delta late on Tuesday, possibly taking direct aim at New Orleans. "Many parts of the state could see 24 to 38 hours of tropical storm-force winds," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal told a news conference. "We're going to see a lot of downed trees and power lines," he said. "We need people to stay safe."

Brandishing automatic assault rifles to ward off any threat of looting, the troops in military vehicles took up positions on mostly deserted streets. Their arrival came as driving rain and stiff winds battered the city's famous tourist district, The French Quarter, and its boarded-up storefronts. White-capped waves formed in Lake Pontchartrain.

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No Criminal Charges for U.S. Soldiers in Koran Burning & Urinating on Corpses

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Message to Potential Nazi US Military Recruits: Do What You Like. They call it "rahowa" - short for racial holy war - and they are preparing for it by joining the ranks of the world's fiercest fighting machine, the U.S. military. White supremacists, neo-Nazis and skinhead groups encourage followers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to overthrow what some call the Government and murder non-whites.[MORE] In photo, former U.S. Army soldier Wade Page who opened fire with a 9mm handgun at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin on August 5, murdering six people and critically wounding three before killing himself during a shootout with police. From [HERE] Six Army soldiers have received administrative non-judicial punishments for their role in the inadvertent burning of Korans in Afghanistan, meaning they will not face criminal charges for an incident that set off deadly protests in Afghanistan in January.

Similar punishments were handed down earlier Monday to three Marines involved in an inflammatory video posted on the internet in January that showed them urinating on the corpses of several Taliban fighters. Additional punishments are expected to be announced in the future against other Marines involved in that incident.

At the time, top Pentagon officials expressed concern that the incidents, separated by just weeks, could set off a backlash against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Violent street protests followed the Koran burning in February and two U.S. Army soldiers were shot at their desks in the Afghan Interior Ministry in an attack by an Afghan soldier which officials said was motivated by the burning.

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Genocide Watch: GOP Endorses Arizona-Style Immigration Policies Stop & Detain Any Non-White Person for their Papers

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From [HERE] The GOP announced late on Tuesday that it wants to push for Arizona-style immigration policies as an official party plank. The new plank as reported by Arizona Central reads, “state efforts to reduce illegal immigration must be encouraged, not attacked.” The new plank will be presented at the Republican National Convention.

That simple, short sentence holds a whole lot of dynamite. The man behind the newest addition to the GOP platform is Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who urged the addition of the immigration policy to be reinstated. It had been part of the 2008 Republican platform but had not been officially added until last week at Kobach’s incessant urging. This newest version of the plank includes a mandate that says government funds should be withheld from universities that allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition. Furthermore, “sanctuary cities” that do not enforce new immigration laws will be denied federal funds.

The new plank even demands that current lawsuits against immigration laws throughout the United States be withdrawn. This policy means that SB 1070, the Arizona bill that allows law enforcement to ask for papers from anyone they stop in Arizona, often based on racial stereotypes and discrimination, would be given free reign. Arizona Central points out that this past June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the portion of SB 1070 that allows law enforcement to ask for papers from people they suspect are undocumented.

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Genocide Watch: Detaining citizens Without Charge or Trial under NDAA

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From [HERE] The US government seems determined to have the power to do away with due process and Americans' right to a trial.

I am one of the lead plaintiffs in the civil lawsuit against the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the president the power to hold any US citizen anywhere for as long as he wants, without charge or trial. In May, following a March hearing, Judge Katherine Forrest issued an injunction against it; this week, in a final hearing in New York City, US government lawyers essentially asserted even more extreme powers - the power to entirely disregard the judge and the law. Indeed, on Monday, August 6, Obama's lawyers filed an appeal to the injunction - a profoundly important development that as of this writing has been scarcely reported.

In the March hearing, the US lawyers had confirmed that yes, the NDAA does give the president the power to lock up people like journalist Chris Hedges and peaceful activists like myself and other plaintiffs. Government attorneys have stated on record that even war correspondents could be locked up indefinitely under the NDAA. Judge Katherine Forrest had ruled for a temporary injunction against an unconstitutional provision in this law - after government attorneys refused to provide assurances to the court that plaintiffs and others would not be indefinitely detained for engaging in first amendment activities. Twice the government has refused to define what it means to be an "associated force", and it claimed the right to refrain from offering any clear definition of this term, or clear boundaries of power under this law. This past week's hearing was even more terrifying: incredibly, in this hearing, Obama's attorneys refused to assure the court, when questioned, that the NDAA's provision - one that permits reporters and others who have not committed crimes to be detained without trial - has not been applied by the US government anywhere in the world - after Judge Forrest's injunction. In other words, they were saying to a US judge that they could not or would not state whether Obama's government had complied with the legal injunction that she had lain down before them.

To this, Judge Forrest responded that if the provision has indeed been applied, the United States government itself will be in contempt of court. Government attorneys also, in this hearing, again presented no evidence to support their position - and brought forth no witnesses.
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White Judge Gives White Teen Light Sentence in Racially Motivated Aggravated Assault on Black Man in Pittsburgh

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In December 2010, 21-year-old Alonzo Fulton had just moved into his first apartment on his own in Millvale. He had held the same job for a year and a half and was doing well for himself. Sometimes, the young black man would call his mother and tell her that the people in the neighborhood kept yelling racial slurs at him, but Marjorie Gallagher told her son nothing would come of it.

But on the evening of Dec. 2, as Mr. Fulton walked down Grant Avenue, he was attacked. Two white males were yelling obscenities and using racial epithets. They threatened to kill him, and then one of them, Ian McPherson, who was 17, charged at him and stabbed him twice in the abdomen.

Mr. Fulton suffered a punctured lung and other injuries, but mentally he suffered more than that. He became angry. He lost his job. He lost his apartment, and because of his volatile personality, his family members couldn't allow him to live with them.   On Friday, in an emotionally charged courtroom where he lifted his shirt and showed the judge his scars, he watched the man who stabbed him -- who pleaded guilty to both aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation -- be sentenced to 111/2 to 23 months at the Allegheny County Jail. 

When the two were arrested, according to the criminal complaint, both defendants repeatedly used racial epithets when referring to Mr. Fulton and to black people, generally. Mr. Stiefel told police they started yelling at Mr. Fulton the night of the incident to show their "white power. This started over us showing our white pride."

"He tried to kill my son, and he got less time than it took for him to go trial," Ms. Gallagher shouted at Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge David R. Cashman as she and her son were led out of the courtroom.

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Nazi's Hold Protest Near Cincinnati for White People after Black Teens Attack White Man

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From [HERE] The brutal beating of a man by a group of young teenagers who said they did it because they were bored has shaken the Cincinnati suburb of North College Hill and drawn unwanted attention in the form of a group of self-described white separatists.

Five members of the National Alliance, considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be a neo-Nazi group, had a "solidarity" rally on a main thoroughfare of the small, quiet, blue-collar community two weeks after the beating on Friday, causing traffic jams and drawing dozens of counter-protesters who derided the small group and yelled at them to get out of their city. "Go away! Take your hate and leave!" screamed Audrey Able, a 37-year-old mother of four who has lived in the city for about 19 years. "That would make people in this little community of North College Hill very happy."

On Aug. 11, six black teenagers attacked and beat Pat Mahaney, who is white, as the 45-year-old was returning home with a six-pack of beer, North College Hill Police Chief Gary Foust said. Mahaney was attacked from behind and had done nothing to provoke it, Foust said, adding that police consider the attack a random act by the group of 13- and 14-year-olds, who said in separate interviews they were bored and looking for something to do.

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Thousands Protest Against Racism in Greece - Under Guise of Immigration all Non-whites are Targeted

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From [HERE] and [HERE] Several thousands of immigrants marched in Athens on Friday to protest police sweeps and a rash of racist attacks in Greece as the country struggles to pull itself out of a huge debt crisis.

Greece is a major gateway for mostly Asian and African migrants trying to enter the European Union. They face increased hostility as the country struggles through its deepest post- World War Two recession and record unemployment, propelling the ultra-nationalist Golden Dawn party to parliament for the first time since the fall of a military junta in 1974.

They called for an end to police raids on immigrants. Earlier this month 6,000 people were detained in an operation across Athens. “This is a first action against the racist pogroms of the police which encourage the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn to come out in neighbourhoods and murder and attack people,” said Tasos Anastasiou of the “Expel Racism” movement. The ultra-nationalist party won 18 parliamentary seats in June’s elections. Its supporters have been accused of violent attacks on immigrants.

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Germany plagued by significant level of racism, right-wing extremism

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Twenty years ago, a neo-Nazi mob attacked a hostel for foreigners in Rostock, one of several similar crimes in the early 1990s. Today, however, Germany is still plagued by a significant level of racism and right-wing extremism in both the east and the west. For far too long, officials seemed content to ignore the problem.

Christian Berntsen is nothing if not enthusiastic. An activist with Bunt statt Braun, a group dedicated to combating right-wing extremism in the northern German city of Rostock, Berntsen has been instrumental in helping plan and stage events dedicated to commemorating the xenophobic, 1992 assault on an asylum-seekers home in the city quarter of Lichtenhagen. The list of activities is long: films, podium discussions, international cooking courses in local schools and presentations by local and regional politicians of all stripes.

"The city is working hand-in-hand with us when it comes to the remembrance programme," Berntsen says ardently. "And the events have been extremely well received and well attended." 

The effort in Rostock is indeed impressive. The city has gone out of its way to ensure that the kind of hateful violence that flared up two decades ago does not make a reappearance. But elsewhere in Germany, particularly in the east, the situation offers decidedly less cause for optimism. There are, to be sure, myriad groups pursuing goals similar to Bunt statt Braun, but entire regions remain where foreigners are afraid to venture, towns dominated by neo-Nazi thugs and repeated attacks against those who look different. Twenty years after the despicable Rostock violence, Germany's xenophobia problem remains daunting.

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