AIPAC is dangerous for many reasons. For one, it’s not a lobby group in the conventional sense – meaning a group of well-paid lobbyists harassing US Congressmen with telephone calls with the hope of advancing the agenda of their benefactors (in this case, the state of Israel). The pro-Israel lobby has actually grown and morphed into a political body that is embedded within all branches of the US government, as well as the media, academia and elsewhere. It is no secret that the neo-conservative cliques of politicians who engineered, steered and to an extent continue to influence US war policy are in fact a mere component of the same ‘lobby’.
The Lobby vs. America
Where was Moody's board when top-rated bonds blew up?
As the bottom fell out of the housing market and complex mortgage-backed securities began tanking in 2007, a strange thing happened at Moody's Investors Service, one of the largest firms that rate bonds for the risks they pose to investors.
Moody's blue-ribbon board of directors stopped receiving key information from an internal committee that was supposed to keep the board informed of risks to the company, a McClatchy investigation has found.
Instead, the ad hoc risk-management committee suddenly disappeared, precisely at the time when the board and management should have been shifting to higher alert as the financial world began quaking.
1 dead, 3 missing in blast, fire at Wash. refinery
An explosion and fire at an oil refinery shook homes and shot flames into the night sky early Friday, killing one person, leaving three workers missing and critically injuring four others.The fire struck the Tesoro Corp. refinery in Anacortes, north of Seattle, at about 12:30 a.m., the company said in a statement. The blaze occurred at the naphtha unit while maintenance work was being performed and was extinguished in about 90 minutes, the company said.
There was one confirmed fatality, four employees were hospitalized and three employees were unaccounted for, the company said. Nearby residents, some five miles from the complex, called Washington TV stations after midnight with reports of an explosion, saying flames were being blown by high winds.
More...
U.S. Revamps Screening of Travelers
The Obama administration and foreign governments will roll out in the next few weeks a more intelligence-based system to try to stop potentially dangerous passengers from boarding U.S.-bound flights, a senior administration official said.
The new system is the product of a three-month review ordered by President Barack Obama after the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day. It will replace mandatory secondary screening for all passengers from 14 countries, including nations designated as state sponsors of terrorism and many Muslim-majority countries. That policy—widely criticized as too broad to be effective—was put in place shortly after the bombing attempt.
U.S. Issues Limits on Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cars
The federal government issued final rules establishing the first greenhouse gas emissions standards for automobiles and light trucks on Thursday, ending a 30-year battle between regulators and automakers.
The new rules, jointly written by the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, set emissions and mileage standards that will translate to a fleet average of 35.5 miles a gallon by 2016, nearly a 40 percent improvement over today’s fuel economy.
Officials said the program would save the owner of an average 2016 car $3,000 in fuel costs over the life of the vehicle and eliminate emissions of nearly a billion tons of climate-altering gases over the lives of the regulated vehicles. Reaching the new efficiency level will add about $1,000 to the cost of the average new car by 2016, according to industry and government estimates.
Judge: Lejeune Improperly Banned anti-Islam Decals
A federal judge in North Carolina says Camp Lejeune officials violated the rights of a military veteran who came to a job on base with anti-Islamic decals on his vehicle.
Jesse Nieto's decals included one that said ''ISLAM (equals) TERRORISM'' and another with a threat to defecate on the Quran. He also had a decal commemorating the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, in which 17 crew members died, including Nieto's youngest son.
GORDON DUFF: TERRORISM, ALWAYS SUSPECT A “FALSE FLAG” FIRST
REAL TERRORISTS ARE RARE AND USUALLY EASILY CAUGHT ALWAYS ASK: “WHO GAINS FROM THIS?
Every time there is a terrorist attack, the nations blamed say that it was a “false flag” operation. This is what America did to cover up My Lai. We were lying. Germans claimed Poland invaded Germany in 1939. An educated guess is that 75% of terrorist attacks we hear of were staged, never happened or were done by “radical groups” that were first infiltrated, then controlled and eventually financed and supplied by intelligence agencies. Intelligence agencies are, in actuality, the biggest terrorist organizations in the world. The CIA has blown up more buses, airplanes and markets than any almost anyone else. The Mossad may be number one, followed by, well, everyone, the RAW, ISI, MI-6, IRA and dozens of others.
FEC inaction on enforcing election laws rises more than 600 percent
After GOP lawyer Caroline Hunter helped lead the national Election Assistance Commission, a propitious series of events allowed her swift confirmation to the Federal Election Commission.
The result, along with FEC appointments of her two Republican colleagues, has been a staggering decrease in the commission's ability to enforce campaign finance law.
Belgium moves towards public ban on burka and niqab
Belgium today moved to the forefront of a campaign to restrict the wearing of the Muslim veil by women when a key vote left it on track to become the first European country to ban the burka and niqab in public.
The home affairs committee of the Brussels federal parliament voted unanimously to ban the partial or total covering of faces in public places. "I am proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter," the centre-right MP Denis Ducarme said.
Daniel Bacquelaine, the liberal MP who proposed the bill, said: "We cannot allow someone to claim the right to look at others without being seen. "It is necessary that the law forbids the wearing of clothes that totally mask and enclose an individual. Wearing the burqa in public is not compatible with an open, liberal, tolerant society."
Page 795 of 1138
