Monday, Dec 15th
Last update10:21:52 AM GMT
There are dangerous currents running through America's politics and the way we confront them is crucial.
With each new outrage, the small handful of us who'd made ourselves experts on right-wing culture and politics would hear once again from worried readers: Is this it? Have we finally become a fascist state? Are we there yet?
The BRAD BLOG has obtained both the FBI's response to FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds' notice of her intention to give a deposition this Saturday in response to a subpoena she received in a case before the Ohio Elections Commission (OEC). We've also been given exclusive access to her attorneys' response in turn, which is to be officially released later this afternoon.
The U.S. Agriculture Department has ordered an audit of its National Organic Program, saying that external scrutiny is needed to improve the integrity, transparency and reliability of the seven-year-old food program.
The audit will look at whether the program is using strict, internationally recognized standards for accrediting and overseeing its network of nearly 100 private certifiers, which have been granted authority to determine whether foods meet federal organic standards.
Just days before two former Blackwater employees alleged in sworn statements filed in federal court that the company's owner, Erik Prince, "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," the Obama administration extended a contract with Blackwater for more than $20 million for "security services" in Iraq, according to federal contract data obtained by The Nation.
However, the updated law has dire implications for the activity of Women on Waves. Because the law requires that only licensed clinics can prescribe the abortion pill for early pregnancies, Women on Waves is no longer legally able to offer abortion medication on their campaigns.
But towards the end of the Wisconsin Democrat's health care forum something a bit peculiar happened. A woman who initially identified herself as "just a mom from a few blocks away" who was "not affiliated with a political party" was outed by a reporter as a GOP operative who worked for Kagen's election opponent John Gard as well as the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Republican National Committee.
The routine use of antibiotics on factory farms is creating super-sized bacteria that can resist drugs. And the risk may not go away until the industrial farms do. The recent rash of drug-resistant salmonella contamination in ground beef is not a new issue, but that doesn't make it any less concerning: Just ask all those sick people in Colorado.
This is the story of one of the great unspoken scandals of our times. Today, the people across the world who most need life-saving medicine are being prevented from producing it. Here's the latest example: factories across the poor world are desperate to start producing their own cheaper Tamiflu to protect their populations – but they are being sternly told not to. Why? So rich drug companies can protect their patents – and profits. There is an alternative to this sick system, but we are choosing to ignore it.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told French President Jacques Chirac that " Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog *, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse."(1)
Yes, thats right, Gog and Magog. Mr. Chirac recounted ( in two 2007 interviews and a recently published book ) a strange conversation he had with Bush as his administration was soliciting allies to assemble the “coalition of the willing”( to support the Iraq invasion). Bush appealed to their “common faith” with this disturbing and cryptic revelation:
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