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Western Oil Firms Remain as US Exits Iraq

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Dahr Jamail - Jan. 09 (News Report) - hile the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain. On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal. Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

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Ron Paul: 9/11 Prompted "Glee" in Bush Administration

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

readersupportednews.org - By Brian Montopoli - Dec. 10 (News Report) - epublican presidential candidate Ron Paul said Thursday evening that Bush administration officials were gleeful after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks because it gave them a pretext to invade Iraq. "Just think of what happened after 9/11. Immediately before there was any assessment there was glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq," the Texas Republican told a group of mostly young backers in Iowa. He went on to suggest officials are now setting the stage for an invasion of Iran.

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State Dept. Veteran Peter Van Buren Defies U.S. Censors to Recount Failed Reconstruction in Iraq

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Nov. 30 (News Report) - In "We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People," State Department official Peter Van Buren provides a first-hand account of the faltering and often misguided attempts at reconstruction in Iraq undertaken by the U.S. government. Van Buren published the book after rebuffing heavy State Department pressure to redact a number of passages. Van Buren joins us to discuss the failed efforts he witnessed in Iraq and his struggle to tell his story to the world. "The State department is very much like the Mafia," Van Buren says. [Rush transcript to come. Check back soon.]

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How Paulson Gave Hedge Funds Advance Word -

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Bloomberg - By Richard Teitelbaum - Nov. 29 (News Report) - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on July 21, 2008 gave 'inside information' to a hall full of Fund managers. "The managers attending the meeting were thus given a choice opportunity to trade on that information. " Paulson, Bush, McCain, Obama, Bernanke, Dodd, Frank are all criminals in causing and exploiting the banking crisis. All should be in prison.

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Taboo - or Not Taboo. Make That 15 Commandments.

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Smirking Chimp - By Robert Becker - Oct. 26 (Opinion) - It's good news that bad taboos, which reinforce prejudice, are falling by the wayside. But what about good taboos on which civilization depends, also falling by the wayside?

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Michael Moore Backs Call to Re-Open Investigation of 9/11 Attacks

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Michael Moore - Sep. 29 (Interview) - Moore is backing former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham’s call for President Obama to reopen the investigation into 9/11 after new information emerged about the possible role of prominent Saudis. According to recent news reports, a wealthy young Saudi couple fled their home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida, just a week or so before Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind three cars and nearly all of their possessions. "There are many unanswered questions and they should be answered," Moore says.

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Taking a Bush Secret to the Grave

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Robert Parry - Sep. 29 (Special Report) - A three-decade-old mystery has finally been solved - who was George H.W. Bush's unidentified "alibi witness" on Oct. 19, 1980, when other witnesses allege the then-Republican vice presidential candidate took a secret flight to Paris for meetings with Iranians - but the mystery's answer only raises new questions. After 20 years of rejecting requests from various investigators for the identity of the "alibi witness," the U.S. government finally released enough information from Secret Service files - in response to an appeal that I filed with the National Archives - to ascertain the person's identity.

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Pelosi and Reid at odds with Obama over trade

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Hill - By Vicki Needham - Sep. 26 (News Analysis) - "I think if you asked people in Nevada: Boy, hasn't NAFTA helped us a lot, they would just sneer and walk away," he said in his floor speech. "We keep talking about free-trade agreements, but where is the fair part of those trade agreements?

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Meltdown: The Men Who Crashed the World

Sat, 24 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Sep. 24 (Special Report) - In the first episode of Meltdown, we hear about four men who brought down the global economy: a billionaire mortgage-seller who fooled millions; a high-rolling banker with a fatal weakness; a ferocious Wall Street predator; and the power behind the throne. The crash of September 2008 brought the largest bankruptcies in world history, pushing more than 30 million people into unemployment and bringing many countries to the edge of insolvency. Wall Street turned back the clock to 1929. But how did it all go so wrong?

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Welcome to Your Hungarian Internet

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

savetheinternet.com - By Tim Karr - Sep. 22 (News Report) - The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the U.S. has sunk to 25th in a global ranking of Internet speeds, just behind Romania. Why? Because our nation's regulators abandoned an earlier commitment to foster competition in the marketplace for Internet access providers.

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What The Press Is Getting Wrong About Solyndra

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

nationofchange.org - Sep. 22 (News Analysis) - FACT: Same Panel Of Career Officials Approved The Loan Guarantee Bush Admin. Advanced 16 Projects, Including Solyndra, Out Of 143 Submissions. The Department of Energy's Loan Guarantee Program was created by the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. At a congressional hearing, Jonathan Silver, the Executive Director of Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office, testified that the Bush administration's DOE [Department of Energy] selected Solyndra from 143 submissions to move forward in the process:

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How Washington Creates Global Instability

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Tomdispatch.com - By Nick Turse - Sep. 19 (News Analysis) - It’s a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called “the arc of instability.” It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them -- from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia -- Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly, in outright war or what passes for peace.

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Ex-Bush Official Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: "I am Willing to Testify" If Dick Cheney is Put on Trial

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 30 (Interview) - s former Vice President Dick Cheney publishes his long-awaited memoir, we speak to Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will 'Pinochet' Dick Cheney," says Wilkerson, alluding to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, who was arrested for war crimes. Wilkerson also calls for George W. Bush and Cheney to be held accountable for their crimes in office. "I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due," Wilkerson said.

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Army Ranger Widow Confronts Rumsfeld Over His Lies That Convinced Her Husband to Join the Military

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Aug. 30 (Interview) - We speak with the widow of a U.S. Army Ranger who confronted former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about her husband’s suicide on Saturday. Ashley Joppa-Hagemann introduced herself to Rumsfeld during a book signing by handing him a copy of her husband’s funeral program at a base south of Tacoma, Washington. She says Rumsfeld inspired her husband to join the Army after 9/11, but he later became disillusioned with the reasons for the war. Her husband, 25-year-old Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann, killed himself ahead of what his wife says was his eighth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. His body was found on June 28, 2011, at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State.

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SEC No Evil

Fri, 19 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Countdown - By Keith Olbermann, Matt Taibbi - Aug. 19 (Interview) - 'In this 'Countdown' exclusive interview, Keith sits down with Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi to discuss breaking the story about the Securities and Exchange Commission destroying the records of promising cases in the years leading up to the financial meltdown.'

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Is the SEC Covering Up Wall Street Crimes?

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Rolling Stone - By Matt Taibbi - Aug. 17 (Investigative Report) - Imagine a world in which a man who is repeatedly investigated for a string of serious crimes, but never prosecuted, has his slate wiped clean every time the cops fail to make a case. No more Lifetime channel specials where the murderer is unveiled after

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U.S. Navy Vet Sues Donald Rumsfeld for Torture in Iraq, Court Allows Case to Move Forward

Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman, Donald Vance, Andrea Prasow - Aug. 11 (News Report) - On Monday, a federal appeals court refused to dismiss a lawsuit filed by two U.S. citizens against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and unnamed others for developing, authorizing and using harsh interrogation techniques against detainees in Iraq. Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel were working for a private U.S. government contractor, Shield Group Security, in 2006 when they witnessed the sale of U.S. government weapons to Iraqi rebel groups for money and alcohol. After they became FBI informants and collaborated with an investigation into their employer, the company revoked their credentials for entering Iraq’s so-called Green Zone, effectively barring them from the safest part of the country. Shortly afterward, they were arrested and detained by U.S. troops, moved to the U.S.-run prison at Camp Cropper, and subjected to extreme sleep deprivation, interrogated for hours at a time, kept in a very cold cell, and denied food and water for long periods.

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The NY Times’ Ostrich Act on JFK Assassination Getting Old

Tue, 02 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Russ Baker - Aug. 02 (News Analysis) - How to explain this see-no-evil act? There are many reasons that news organizations will not tell the whole story, or fudge what could be revealed. Whatever is behind this shameful failure, reporters and editors know that the JFK assassination is just “too hot to handle,” that it is a kind of electrified third rail that can destroy a journalism career. But even well-founded fear—of being ridiculed, marginalized, demoted, or otherwise penalized—is no justification for this unrelenting pattern of behavior at an institution that promotes itself as a “paper of record.” Anyone who calls him- or herself a journalist must be willing to take risks for the truth. After all, if the public can’t count on journalists to get it right on the big stories, why should they trust us on the rest? And if journalism can’t be trusted, democracy is on a slippery slope.

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I Counseled All My Clients To Plead Insanity

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Common Dreams - By Christopher Cooper - Jul. 29 (Opinion) - if Breivik is crazy, a great many Americans and most of the big boys in D.C. Are crazy. But if the Norwegian shooter-bomber is sane, and culpable and should be tried and sentenced (and most would suggest executed, I imagine), then we had better get started drafting juries and hiring judges because our list of mass-murderers is a long and bipartisan one.

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The Bush Deficit

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New Republic - By Jonathan Cohn - Jul. 26 (Special Report) - 'Critics of President Obama never tire of blaming him for today's high deficits. But if blame belongs with one president, it belongs with Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush. The chart in this article, which the New York Times created based upon figures from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, illustrates this point very clearly. But it's worth reviewing the history here, because while it's familiar to most of us who follow politics it doesn't seem to get a lot of attention in the political debate.' Jonathan Cohn, The New Republic

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Did Saudi Arabia Attack Us on 9/11?

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan - Jul. 19 (Investigative Report) - 'Was there a foreign government behind the 9/11 attacks? A decade later, Americans still haven't been given the whole story, while a key 28-page section of Congress's Joint Inquiry report remains censored. Gathering years of leaks and leads, in an adaptation from their new book, Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan examine the connections between Saudi Arabia and the hijackers (15 of whom were Saudi), the Bush White House's decision to ignore or bury evidence, and the frustration of lead investigators - including 9/11-commission staffers, counterterrorism officials, and senators on both sides of the aisle.' Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan, Vanity Fair

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Voters Blame Bush More Than Obama for the Economy

Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

readersupportednews.org - By Holly Bailey, - Jul. 16 (Poll) - 'Voters are increasingly displeased with President Obama's handling of the economy, but a new poll finds most Americans still think George W. Bush is responsible for the nation's dismal financial state.'

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Getting to Crazy

Fri, 15 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Paul Krugman - Jul. 15 (Opinion) - Commentators seem shocked at Republican unreasonableness as a debt default looms, but it is the end result of a process that has lasted decades.

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A Debate on Human Rights Watch's Call For Bush Administration Officials Be Tried For Torture

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Democracy Now - By Amy Goodman - Jul. 12 (News Report) - Human Rights Watch has released a new report calling on the U.S. government to launch a broad criminal investigation into alleged crimes of torture committed by former President George W. Bush and other top officials under his administration. It comes on the heels of a Department of Justice investigation into alleged torture, abuse and murder during the interrogation of detainees in CIA custody. Earlier this month, the DOJ announced it would launch a full criminal investigation into the deaths of just two prisoners out of 101 cases under review, including one who died at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. We speak to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, and to John Baker, professor emeritus at Louisiana State University Law School.

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Fact checking a claim on tax breaks

Fri, 01 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The Politico - By Abby Phillip - Jul. 01 (Research) - President Obama used oil barons and corporate jet owners to anchor his opposition to Republicans' demands on taxes in his press conference on Wednesday. His indictment against corporate jet owners in particular was repeated so often, six times, that it certainly rankled Republicans who saw it as a clear case of class warfare.

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