Demjanjuk's Son Calls His Father's Conviction `Shameful' Video - The Associated Press

 

The Persecution of John Demjanjuk  Patrick J. Buchanan  "John Demjanjuk Guilty of Nazi Death Camp Murders," ran the headline on the BBC. The lede began: "A German court has found John Demjanjuk guilty of helping to murder more than 28,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in Poland." Not until paragraph 17 does one find this jolting fact: "No evidence was produced that he committed a specific crime." That is correct. No evidence was produced, no witness came forward to testify he ever saw Demjanjuk injure anyone. And the critical evidence that put Demjanjuk at Sobibor came -- from the KGB.  Demjanjuk's Son Calls His Father's Conviction `Shameful' Video - The Associated Press  The son of retired U.S. autoworker John Demjnajuk speaks about the recent German court conviction of his father. He calls the ruling "shameful," and points out that not one bit of evidence was presented to show that his father had personally killed or injured anyone. The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was sentenced to five years in prison after being found guilty of being an accessory to murder of thousands at a German camp during World War II. Runtime: 1:47 mins.  My Campaign for Justice for John Demjanjuk Jerome A. Brentar -- Institute for Historical Review  ... John Demjanjuk has been a victim of an unprecedented travesty of justice. The US Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, working with the Soviet government, and those who might be called "Holocaustians" have carried on a campaign to portray this innocent man as "Ivan the Terrible" of Treblinka.  How `The Sound of Music' Distorts History Mark Weber  "The Sound of Music" is perhaps the most popular American musical picture ever produced. But whatever its merits as entertainment, the film's presentation of history is deceitful. In particular, its portrayal of the 1938 union or Anschluss of Austria with the German Reich is a gross distortion of historical reality.  Movie vs. Reality: The Real Story of the Von Trapp Family Joan Gearin -- Prologue (US National Archives)  I first saw the movie The Sound of Music as a young child, probably in the late 1960s. I liked the singing, and Maria was so pretty and kind! As I grew older, more aware of world history, and saturated by viewing the movie at least once yearly, I was struck and annoyed by the somewhat sanitized story of the von Trapp family it told ... The family did not secretly escape over the Alps to freedom in Switzerland, carrying their suitcases and musical instruments. As daughter Maria said in a 2003 interview printed in Opera News, "We did tell people that we were going to America to sing. And we did not climb over mountains with all our heavy suitcases and instruments. We left by train, pretending nothing." ...The von Trapps traveled to Italy, not Switzerland.  When And Why Did The Von Trapp Family Leave Austria? Yahoo Answers  ... Austria was annexed (Anschluss) by Nazi Germany in March 1938. As a naval officer, Georg von Trapp would have been commissioned into the Nazi Kriegsmarine. He applied for exemption on the basis of his age of 58, and was excused service. Remember that Austria has no coastline, so German officers regarded Austrian naval officers as a joke.  Austria Joins the German Reich  Video  This portrayal of the 1938 union ("Anschluss") of Austria with the German Reich, includes contemporary film footage with recent English-language voiceover commentary. Runtime: 4:14 mins. For decades American officials and historians, along with the US media, have portrayed the union of Austria with the Reich as an act of "aggression" or "rape." The truth is exactly the opposite. Rarely in history has a historical event taken place with broader and more joyful popular approval.  Upending French Politics Eric S. Margolis  The arrest in New York City on Sunday of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn upends France's political structure. Strauss-Kahn is charged with the attempted rape and confinement of a maid at the Sofitel Hotel, and is currently being held in prison ... Marine and father Jean-Marie [Le Pen] are often accused of being fascists. They are not. I spent much time with LePen senior, exploring his views. They are of France's traditional ultra conservative Catholic right that found voice in the World War II Vichy government. ... If the race boiled down to Sarkozy and DSK, it would pit two Frenchmen with Jewish blood against one another - to the dismay of the far right's anti-Semites.  Zionist JDO Activists Protest `Neo-Nazi' in New York City Epoch Times  Drawing the attention of passersby and inciting sidewalk debates, a group from the Jewish Defense Organization (JDO) staged a protest on East 85th Street [Manhattan, New York City] on Sunday against a man they claim to be a Neo-Nazi. The JDO shouted accusations at Michael Santomauro while he calmly looked on, sitting in a chair behind an informational display with posters that called for Israel to get out of the West Bank ... Several members of the protest group declined to be interviewed. Inside a barricaded protest area, Mordechai Levy stated that Michael Santomauro is "the top Neo-Nazi in Manhattan."  JDO Thugs Beat Up Pro-Palestinian Activist The Washington Times (1993)  ... Jewish militants beat up a Palestinian supporter who protested the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum ... David R. Wilcox, founder of American friends of Palestine, was returning from the dedication yesterday when he was assaulted by three men he said are members of the militant Jewish Defense Organization ... Michael Schneider, who called himself a coordinator for the JDO, said members of he group assaulted Mr. Wilcox and four or five others who protested the museum.  A Russian Professor's View of the `Jewish Question': Burovsky's Empire of the Intellect Dan Michaels -- Occidental Observer  ... American readers might be somewhat uneasy about the bluntness of Burovsky's critical comments concerning Jewish activities that in much of the West remain taboo under penalty of law. American writers, for the most part establishment writers, tend to approach the Jewish question with great caution, fear of offending, fear of retaliation, and therefore in many cases they defer to the Jewish point of view. But not Burovsky. Whether Burovsky is a loose cannon or a sharpshooter is argued, but all agree that Jews are -- for whatever reason -- one of his favorite topics.  A Final Interview With the Last Survivor of Hitler's Staff The Express (Britain)  Former SS officer Rochus Misch, the last surviving member of Hitler's inner circle is terminally ill. Misch, the Fuhrer's bodyguard gives his final interview ... The man who worked as Hitler's bodyguard between 1940 and 1945. He is the last living witness of the dictator's suicide and the only surviving member of the bunker's staff ... Misch was Adolf Hitler's telephonist, courier and bodyguard for five years. ... In the SS he was in Adolf Hitler's personal Bodyguard Regiment. When Misch married his wife Gerda in 1942, Hitler sent the couple a case of wine.  Jewish Candidate's Campaign Ad Promotes `Minority' Interests The Ticket - Yahoo News  In a television advertisement titled "Stick Together: Send a Mensch to Congress," candidate Dan Adler pointedly appeals for "minority" (non-white) voter support. In the ad, which Adler "definitely" approves, a Korean woman explains that "we minorities should stick together," by which he means Jews like himself, Koreans and other non-Europeans. Dan Adler is a Los Angeles business executive who is running for US Congress in southern California.  US Reaches $14 Trillion Debt Limit and Cuts Investments BBC News  The US has reached its debt limit of $14.3 trillion and is taking measures to cut spending to avoid breaching it. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said that he will suspend investing into two large government pension funds. This delays any breaching of the limit to August 2. Congress is currently negotiating an increase to the limit, without which the US risks defaulting on its debt.  Defying Threats, Irving and Weber Address California Meeting Institute for Historical Review  In spite of efforts by local bigots to disrupt the event, best-selling British author David Irving and American historian Mark Weber addressed a meeting in Orange County, California, on April 23. They gave talks on two of wartime Germany's most prominent leaders: Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels.  Bin Laden is Dead: Let's Bring The Troops Home Ron Paul  ... It is good that bin Laden is dead and justice is served. The way in which he was finally captured and killed shows that targeted retribution is far superior to wars of aggression and nation-building ... The elimination of Osama bin Laden should now prompt us to declare victory and bring our troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq. Al Qaeda was never in Iraq and we were supposedly in Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden. With bin Laden gone, there is no reason for our presence in the region - unless it was all about oil, nation-building, and remaking the Middle East and Central Asia. Hopefully bin Laden does not get the last laugh.  Bin Laden's Death: `Rejoice Not...' Uri Avnery  ... The American Empire always needs an antagonist to keep it together and to focus its energies. This has to be a worldwide enemy, a sinister advocate of an evil philosophy. Such were the Nazis and Imperial Japan, but they did not last long. Fortunately, there was then the Communist Empire, which filled the role admirably ... The Arab Spring embodies a new set of ideals, a new enthusiasm, one that does not glorify and hanker after a distant past but looks boldly to the future. The young men and women of Tahrir Square, with their longing for freedom, have consigned bin Laden to history, months before his physical death. His philosophy has a future only if the Arab Awakening fails completely and leaves behind a profound sense of disappointment and despair.  Cow Most Sacred: Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable  Andrew J. Bacevich  ... Until Americans accept these facts, until they come to a more nuanced view of World War II that takes fully into account the political and moral implications of the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union and the U.S. campaign of obliteration bombing directed against Germany and Japan, the mythic version of "the Good War" will continue to provide glib justifications for continuing to dodge that perennial question: How much is enough? Like concentric security barriers arrayed around the Pentagon, these four factors -- institutional self-interest, strategic inertia, cultural dissonance, and misremembered history -- insulate the military budget from serious scrutiny.  Goebbels and World War II Propaganda  Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review  Apart from Hitler himself, perhaps the most fascinating figure of Third Reich Germany is the regime's chief publicist and spokesman, Joseph Goebbels. He is widely portrayed as a master of lies and deceitful propaganda. But this familiar image, which is particularly entrenched in the United States, is itself a propaganda falsehood.  Goebbels' `Total War' Speech  Video  Dr. Goebbels' addresses a mass rally in Berlin on Feb. 18, 1943, just a few weeks after the catastrophic defeat of German and allied forces in the Battle of Stalingrad. The Reich Minister frankly explains the mortal danger that threatens all of Europe. Germany could lose the war, he solemnly warns. To counter the formidable Soviet threat from the East, he goes on, the nation must adopt stern and radical "total war" measures With English narration and subtitles. Runtime: 2:42 minutes.  Did Obama's Election Mean the End of the Anti-War Movement? Bernie DeGroat  Since 2003, the antiwar movement in the United States has had much to protest with Americans fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, but the movement -- which has dropped off sharply the past two years -- may be more anti-Republican than antiwar, says a University of Michigan researcher ... "The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the antiwar movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions."  The Phony Anti-War Movement Glen Ford  ... In other words, much of the anti-war movement was phony, a cynical gathering of partisan Democrats who were really never all that concerned for the victims of U.S. imperial warfare, or for the huge dislocations that the national security state places on the U.S. economy. No, they just wanted their guy, the Democrat, to win. Once Obama was safely in the White House, the anti-war movement was all but dismantled, having served its partisan political purpose. For the phony anti-warrior, imperialism with a Democratic face, is just fine.  Class of 2011, Most Indebted Ever The Wall Street Journal  $22,900: Average student debt of newly minted college graduates. The Class of 2011 will graduate this spring from America's colleges and universities with a dubious distinction: the most indebted ever ... Together with loans parents take on to finance their children's college educations -- loans that the students often pay themselves -- the estimate comes to about $22,900. That's 8% more than last year and, in inflation-adjusted terms, 47% more than a decade ago.  Food Stamp Usage Up 11.6 Percent Dirk van Dijk  As of February, there were 39.589 million Americans on Food Stamps. That is up 11.6 percent from a year ago. It works out to be about one in seven citizens, or more than the combined populations of ... 23 states. The increase over the last year is almost equal to the population of Colorado.  Jewish Paper Edits Hillary Clinton Our Of White House photo  The Associated Press  An Orthodox Jewish newspaper on Monday apologized for digitally deleting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from a photo of President Barack Obama and his staff watching Navy SEALs move in on Osama bin Laden. The Brooklyn weekly Di Tzeitung, which says it doesn't publish images of women, printed the doctored photo Friday. It issued a statement saying its photo editor hadn't read the "fine print" accompanying the White House photo that forbade any changes. The newspaper said it has sent its "regrets and apologies" to the White House and the Department of State.  American Hellholes The Economic Collapse  ... All over the nation many of our greatest cities are being slowly but surely transformed into post-apocalyptic wastelands. All over the mid-Atlantic, all along the Gulf coast, all throughout the "rust belt" and all over the entire state of California cities that once had incredibly vibrant economies are being turned into rotting, post-industrial hellholes ... Incredibly, 60 percent of all the students attending California public schools now qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches ... Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over one million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country.  Egypt and Israel Relations Heading for Crisis Jonathan Cook  Israeli officials have expressed alarm at a succession of moves by the interim Egyptian government that they fear signal an impending crisis in relations with Cairo. The widening rift was underscored yesterday when leaders of the rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah signed a reconciliation pact in the Egyptian capital. Egypt's secret role in brokering the agreement last week caught both Israel and the United States by surprise ... The interim Egyptian government, under popular pressure, is consciously distancing itself from some of the main policies towards Israel and the Palestinians pursued by Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president overthrown by a popular uprising in February.  Israel Finalizes Purchase of Sixth German-Made Submarine Reuters  Israel has finalized the purchase of a sixth submarine from Germany, with payment to be spread over several years, an Israeli official said on Thursday. The proposed expansion of the diesel-powered Dolphin submarine fleet, considered Israel's vanguard against foes like Iran, had been held up by wrangling with Berlin over the $500 million to $700 million price tag. Israel currently operates three Dolphins and has two more on order from Germany with delivery expected in the next two years. Dedicated to the security of the Jewish state founded in the wake of the Holocaust, Germany had sold those submarines at deep discounts.  Special Relationship: US Tried To Hide Israeli War Crimes Colum Lynch -- Foreign Policy  In the aftermath of Israel's 2008-2009 intervention into the Gaza Strip, Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, led a vigorous campaign to stymie an independent U.N. investigation into possible war crimes, while using the prospect of such a probe as leverage to pressure Israel to participate in a U.S.-backed Middle East peace process, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables provided by the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a rare glimpse behind the scenes at the U.N. as American diplomats sought to shield Israel's military from outside scrutiny of its conduct during Operation Cast Lead.  What's In It for Us, Mr. Obama? Philip Giraldi  ... As is frequently the case, the United States and its citizens will pay the price in terms of America's approval rating sinking even lower worldwide. Defending Israel from criticism does not appear either in the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights and sacrificing American interests for those of a foreign power is just not acceptable, but Congress has long since abandoned any attempt to mandate minimal standards of accountability, either for itself or for the state of Israel.  University Blocks Honor For Kushner Over Israel Remarks The New York Times  In a rare move, the trustees of the City University of New York have voted to shelve an honorary degree that one of its campuses, John Jay College, planned to award to Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwriter of "Angels in America." The vote on Monday evening came after a CUNY trustee said that Mr. Kushner had disparaged the State of Israel in past comments, a characterization that the writer attacked on Wednesday. Amid calls from CUNY faculty and staff members for the board to reverse its decision, Mr. Kushner said in an interview that he believed the trustees had slandered him and owed him an apology. Even if the board was to reconsider and approve the degree, Mr. Kushner said, he would not accept it.  Hitler's Plans For Large-Scale, Affordable Holiday Resorts Daily Mail (Britain)  Secret Nazi files have been found that reveal how Hitler wanted his party to become the world's largest tour operator with holiday camps modelled on the British 'Butlins' chain. The long-lost plans for a chain of 'super-resorts' accommodating 20,000 holidaying Nazis at a time were found in the state archive of Greifswald in north-east Germany. One of the papers revealed how the Nazis envisioned 'British holiday camps designed to provide affordable holidays for the average worker'. The bundle of 62-pages, which were found last week, outlined plans from Dr Robert Ley, the Nazi head of the German Labour Front, for the sprawling Prora resort.  24 Signs Of Economic Decline In America The Economic Collapse  The United States is in the middle of a devastating long-term economic decline and it is getting really hard to deny it. Over the past year I have included literally thousands of depressing statistics in my articles about the U.S. economy. I have done this in order to make an overwhelming case that the U.S. economy is in deep decline and is dying a little bit more every single day. Until we understand exactly how bad our problems are we will never be willing to accept the solutions. The truth is that our leaders have absolutely wrecked the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen.  US Government Warns of Violence on US-Mexico Border  Department of State (Washington, DC)  You should be especially aware of safety and security concerns when visiting the northern border states of Northern Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Nuevo Leon, and Tamaulipas. Much of the country's narcotics-related violence has occurred in the border region. More than a third of all U.S. citizens killed in Mexico in 2010 whose deaths were reported to the U.S. government were killed in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana ... Carjacking and highway robbery are serious problems in many parts of the border region. You are urged to defer travel to those areas mentioned in this Travel Warning and to exercise extreme caution when traveling throughout the northern border region.  Israel Launches New Bid For Holocaust-Era Assets Reuters  Israel on Sunday launched a commission to track down property taken from Holocaust victims across Europe and get compensation for wartime losses. The Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Task Force or "HEART" is the first official Israeli effort in decades to reclaim assets of Jews killed by the Nazis. Germany has paid reparations to many survivors since the 1950s. But Israel says many claims have not been settled. "Most East European countries have yet to restore the property and rights plundered from the Jews during the Holocaust," Leah Ness, a deputy cabinet minister in charge of the project told journalists.  Osama Bin Laden: More Dangerous Dead Than Alive  Eric Margolis  ... The specter of al-Qaida provided a handy pretext to invade Afghanistan to secure strategic territory next to Central Asian oil, keep China out of that region, and double spending on arms. The invasion of oil-rich Iraq was also justified by patently false White House claims Saddam Hussein was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden over 9/11 ... Today, the nearly bankrupt United States is spending hundreds of billions annually waging small wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and the Sahara. Grotesquely overblown military spending and debt addiction are crippling United States. That is why the ghost of bin Laden may be smiling. An Empire's Shocking Decline And Fall  Matthew Norman -- The Independent (Britain)  The three interconnected forces that destroy empires - military over-reach, lack of money, and the catastrophic loss of self-confidence that stems from the other two - have coalesced with astonishing speed since the Twin Towers fell ... The real biggest issue that faces America today is that America, despite a recovering economy, is broke, dispirited, bamboozled and petrified. It is terrified by the suddenly bleak middle-class future faced even by graduates, by the prospect of losing its supplies of cheap oil from rebellious client kingdoms in the Middle East, and by the staggering speed with which China threatens to supplant it.  Bravo!: Palestinian Reconciliation And What It Means Uri Avnery  ... The news about the reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas is good for peace. If the final difficulties are ironed out and a full agreement is signed by the two leaders, it will be a huge step forward for the Palestinians - and for us ... The emergence of Palestinian unity should be welcomed by Israel, as well as by the European nations and the United States. They should get ready to recognize the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders. They should encourage the holding of free and democratic Palestinian elections and accept their results, whatever they may be. The wind of the Arab Spring is blowing in Palestine too. Bravo!  ElBaradei Suggests War Crimes Probe of Bush Team The Associated Press  Former chief U.N. nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei suggests in a new memoir that Bush administration officials should face international criminal investigation for the "shame of a needless war" in Iraq. Freer to speak now than he was as an international civil servant, the Nobel-winning Egyptian accuses U.S. leaders of "grotesque distortion" in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, when then-President George W. Bush and his lieutenants claimed Iraq possessed doomsday weapons despite contrary evidence collected by ElBaradei's and other arms inspectors inside the country. The Iraq war taught him that "deliberate deception was not limited to small countries ruled by ruthless dictators," ElBaradei writes in "The Age of Deception," being published Tuesday by Henry Holt and Comp  Washington on the Rocks Alfred W. McCoy and Brett Reilly  ... In Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East), Washington was funding both the autocrats and the young activists who opposed them and who, in Egypt, would be crucial players in the Tahrir Square movement that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak ... Across the Greater Middle East from Tunisia and Egypt to Bahrain and Yemen, democratic protests are threatening to sweep away subordinate elites crucial to the wielding of American power. Of course, all modern empires have relied on dependable surrogates to translate their global power into local control -- and for most of them, the moment when those elites began to stir, talk back, and set their own agendas was also the moment when it became clear that imperial collapse was in the cards.  Egypt To Open Gaza Border Crossing Permanently BBC News  Egypt says it will open its Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on a permanent basis. The interim Foreign Minister, Nabil al-Arabi, said the blockade would be eased over the next few days. He described the support of the previous Egyptian government for the blockade as disgraceful ... Under Mr Mubarak Egypt strongly upheld its unpopular peace treaty with Israel, and opposed Hamas in the internal Palestinian power-struggle. The new government, though, has already helped broker a reconciliation agreement between the two Palestinian factions. The Rafah crossing is the only entry and exit point into Gaza that bypasses Israel. This decision will alarm Israel, which has already condemned the deal with Hamas ...  New Tension Roils Israel The Wall Street Journal  ... Egypt's new foreign-policy forays show how the country is adjusting policies to reflect popular opinion more closely in the wake of President Hosni Mubarak's resignation, while at the same time threatening to profoundly alter relations with the Jewish state ... It follows a series of Egyptian initiatives that have raised anxieties in Israel. Almost immediately after Mr. Mubarak's resignation, the new government legalized the long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, which has launched its own political wing. Meanwhile, Egypt recently announced it will re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran.  What the World Sees in America  Peggy Noonan -- The Wall Street Journal  I want to talk a little more this holiday week about what I suppose is a growing theme in this column, and that is an increased skepticism toward U.S. military intervention, including nation building. Our republic is not now in a historical adventure period -- that is not what is needed. We are or should be in a self-strengthening one. Our focus should not be on outward involvement but inner repair ... We have much to be proud of. And we know it. But take a look around us. Don't we have some reasons for pause, for self-questioning? Don't we have a lot of cultural repair that needs doing?  Hollywood is Owned by Jews, Says Marlon Brando Video  "... I am very angry with some of the Jews. I am very goddamned angry ... at some of the Jews," said famed film actor Marlon Brando in an April 1996 interview on "Larry King Live. "... Hollywood is run by Jews," he went on. "It is owned by Jews, and they should have a greater sensitivity about the issue of -- of people who are suffering.." He went on to say "Because they've exploited -- we have seen the -- we have seen the Nigger and Greaseball; we've seen the Chink. We've seen the slit-eyed dangerous Jap. We have seen the wily Filipino. We've seen everything, but we never saw the Kike. Because they knew perfectly well, that that is where you draw the wagons around."  A Straight Look at the Jewish Lobby Mark Weber  ... Jews wield immense power and influence in the United States. The "Jewish lobby" is a decisive factor in US support for Israel. Jewish-Zionist interests are not identical to American interests. In fact, they often conflict. As long as the "very powerful" Jewish lobby remains entrenched, there will be no end to the systematic Jewish distortion of current affairs and history, the Jewish-Zionist domination of the U.S. political system, Zionist oppression of Palestinians, the bloody conflict between Jews and non-Jews in the Middle East, and the Israeli threat to peace.  The Jewish Establishment  Joseph Sobran (1995)  ... It's permissible to discuss the power of every other group, from the Black Muslims to the Christian Right, but the much greater power of the Jewish Establishment is off-limits. That, in fact, is the chief measure of its power ... Explicitly "Jewish" organizations like the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League enforce a dual standard. What is permitted to Israel is forbidden to America. This is not just thoughtless inconsistency. These organizations consciously support one set of principles here -- equal rights for all, ethnic neutrality, separation of church and state -- and their precise opposites in Israel, where Jewish ancestry and religion enjoy privilege.  Obama Ran Against Bush, But Now Governs Like Him Steven Thomma -- McClatchy Newspapers  He ran as the anti-Bush. Silver-tongued, not tongue-tied. A team player on the world stage, not a lone cowboy. A man who'd put a stop to reckless Bush policies at home and abroad. In short, Barack Obama represented Change. Well, that was then. Now, on one major policy after another, President Barack Obama seems to be morphing into George W. Bush ... As a candidate he said that the president didn't have authority to unilaterally attack a country that didn't pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and even then the president should always seek the informed consent of Congress. Last month, without a vote in Congress, he attacked Libya, which didn't threaten the U.S ... On March 19, the U.S. attacked Libya on humanitarian grounds, absent any threat to the U.S. and without approval from Congress.  Ten Depressing Ways America is Exceptional David Morris  ... America is exceptional in the advantages we've had over other nations, not what we've done with those advantages. Indeed, to me there are two American exceptionalisms. One is the exceptionally favorable circumstances the United States found itself in at its founding and over its first 200 years. The second is the exceptional way in which we have squandered those advantages, in the process creating a value system singularly antagonistic to the changes needed when those advantages disappeared. Americans did not become rich because of our rugged individualism or entrepreneurial drive or technical inventiveness. We were born rich.  The US Maxes Out Its Credit Card Eric Margolis  ... Unless the Pentagon's budget is cut - perhaps by as much as half or more - the US, dangerously top-heavy with debt, may capsize. History amply shows more empires done in by poor finances and debt than invasion by enemies. Alas, America's governing system, dominated as it is by such powerful special interests as the military-industrial complex, Wall Street, and agriculture, can't seem to escape from the national addiction to war and debt ... While the US has spent $1.5 trillion on its Afghan and Iraq Wars, China is using US interest payments to win friends and customers around the world.  In Egypt, Most Want to Cancel Peace Treaty With Israel  The Associated Press  More than half of all Egyptians would like to see the 1979 peace treaty with Israel annulled, according to results of a poll conducted by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center released Monday. The poll highlights the deep unpopularity of the three-decade-old treaty, which is central to U.S. policy in the region and was scrupulously adhered to by former President Hosni Mubarak, until his Feb. 11 ouster. The poll also revealed that most Egyptians are optimistic about where the country is headed following the 18-day popular uprising that brought down the president, and they look forward to greater democracy in their country.  Insulting Christians on Israeli Television: `The Crucifixion of Yeshu' Video  In this Israeli television skit, a scantily clothed Jewish girl explains "Jewish history," and why Jesus ("Yeshu") is a great danger to the Jewish people. For the sin of preaching to "innocent Jews," a little gorilla who wants to live like the "goyim" is painfully put to death. "Yeshu [Jesus], you are a Nazi," she says as she kills him. Runtime: two minutes.  America 'Cursed' By God 'If We Reject Israel,' Says Bachmann Minnesota Independent  At a Republican Jewish Coalition event in Los Angeles last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann offered a candid view of her positions on Israel: Support for Israel is handed down by God and if the United States pulls back its support, America will cease to exist ... "I am convinced in my heart and in my mind that if the United States fails to stand with Israel, that is the end of the United States . . . [W]e have to show that we are inextricably entwined, that as a nation we have been blessed because of our relationship with Israel, and if we reject Israel, then there is a curse that comes into play."  What Christians Don't Know About Israel  Grace Halsell  American Jews sympathetic to Israel dominate key positions in all areas of our government where decisions are made regarding the Middle East. This being the case, is there any hope of ever changing U.S. policy? ... The answer to achieving an even-handed Middle East policy might lie elsewhere -- among those who support Israel but don't really know why. This group is the vast majority of Americans. They are well-meaning, fair-minded Christians who feel bonded to Israel - and Zionism - often from atavistic feelings, in some cases dating from childhood.  In Hungary, Nationalists Mark Hitler's Birthday AFP  A Hungarian online news channel backed by the extreme-right parliamentary party Jobbik paid tribute to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler on his birthday, online observers reported. The 30-second report, which originally aired on Wednesday evening on Hitler's 122 nd birthday, praised the "German politician" for his economic and moral contribution to his adopted country. Hitler "rapidly relaunched the destroyed, impoverished Germany, where an unprecedented upturn started in the economic, social, moral and cultural spheres," the news piece gushed.  Zionist ADL and YouTube To `Fight' Online `Hate' Haaretz (Israel)  The widely popular video sharing website YouTube has reached out to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) for its expertise in dealing with hate on the Internet. As a result of this partnership, the League is now a contributor to YouTube's newly launched Abuse & Safety Center, where users are empowered to identify and confront hate, and to report abuses. The YouTube Abuse & Safety Center features information and links to resources developed by ADL to help Internet users respond to and report offensive material and extremist content that violates YouTube's Community Guidelines on hate speech.  Diversity Perversity  Walter Williams  ... Behind this vision of justice is the silly notion that but for the fact of discrimination, we'd be distributed equally by race across incomes, education, occupations and other outcomes. There is absolutely no evidence that statistical proportionality is the norm anywhere on Earth; however, much of our thinking, laws and public policy is based upon proportionality being the norm. Let's look at some racial differences whilst thinking about their causes and possible remedies.  The Tribes of Libya: A Brief History  Geoffrey Clarfield -- National Post ·(Canada)  On Feb. 20, the world woke up to news that a group of Libyan rebels in the eastern part of the country (the coastal bulge known, since ancient times, as Cyrenaica) had risen up against Muammar Gaddafi. News outlets quickly framed the revolt as one of democracy activists versus a dictator, following the script of recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. Alas, the real plot is very different. The current Libyan civil conflict is not about democracy. It is a continuation of an ancient tribal war. The prize that drives both sides is control of Libya's immense oil wealth ... For almost a thousand years, such intertribal warfare comprised the dominant theme of Libyan history.  In Finland, Big Gains For Nationalist Party BBC News  A nationalist party has taken nearly a fifth of votes in Finland's general election, the electoral commission says. The True Finns finished just behind the conservative NCP and the Social Democrats on around 19%. While the Social Democrats have called for changes on EU bail-outs, including the planned Portuguese rescue, True Finns opposes the plans altogether.  Rudolf Hess: Enduring Riddle of Hitler's Deputy's Flight to Scotland  Daily Record (Scotland, Britain)  Nazi commander Rudolf Hess parachuted into a Scottish field 70 years ago. Hitler's deputy was arrested by pitchfork wielding ploughman David McLean on Floor's Farm near Eaglesham, south of Glasgow, in what was to become one of the strangest episodes of World War II. Ever since, mystery has surrounded the top Nazi's dramatic arrival. Conspiracy theories have raged about exactly what Hess was doing in Scotland at the height of the war and why the authorities are as stubbornly tight-lipped over the matter now as they were then. Official records of the incident are currently under seal until 2017 after the official secrecy of the event was extended from 30 to 75 years.  The Legacy of Rudolf Hess Mark Weber  .... He spent 46 years -- half his life -- behind bars, a victim of a cruel victor's justice. More than any other man, Rudolf Hess symbolizes the vindictiveness and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Tribunal ... Known as the "conscience of the party," he often used what power and influence he had to intervene on behalf of victims of persecution by extremists in the National Socialist party. In his detailed study, Justice at Nuremberg, which is generally very critical of the German defendants, historian Robert E. Conot called Hess a "decent and honest" man and "a pacifist at heart." ... Rudolf Hess was a prisoner of peace and a victim of a vindictive age.  Our Stalled Standard of Living  Les Leopold - AlterNet  ... Here are the brutal facts: The average real wage of the non-supervisory production workers (which comprise 82.4 percent of total private non-farm employees) actually declined by nine percent between 1975 and 2010. ; Meanwhile the to; one percent saw their share of national income rise from 8 percent in 1975 to 23.5 percent in 2005 ; More amazing still, the wage gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker jumped from $45 to $1 in 1970 to an unbelievable $1,723 to $1 in 2006.  In the North, Civil War `Forgotten'  The Associated Press  ...As the nation marks the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, states in the old South -- the side that lost -- are hosting elaborate re-enactments, intricate memorials, even formal galas highlighting the war's persistent legacy in the region. But for many states in the North -- the side that won -- only scant, smaller events are planned in an area of the nation that helped sparked the conflict but now, historians say, struggles to acknowledge it. "It's almost like it never happened," said Annie Murphy, executive director of the Framingham History Center in Framingham, Mass.  Four in Ten Southerners Still Side With Confederacy, Survey Shows AOL News  A century and a half after the opening shots of the U.S. Civil War, nearly four in ten Southerners say they still sympathize with the Confederacy. That's according to a new CNN poll released on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, when Union soldiers raised a U.S. flag over Fort Sumter in South Carolina and the opening shots of the war rang out. The poll's results reveal that the war that divided the nation for four years still divides American public opinion today. In the South, 38 percent of respondents said they sympathize with the Confederacy, which lost the bloody war. More than 600,000 American soldiers on both sides were killed.  Jewish Defense Organization: A Legacy of Crime and Violence  Institute for Historical Review  The Jewish Defense Organization is a thuggish, militantly Zionist outfit founded by Mordechai Levy, a convicted criminal. Both have a well-documented track record of crime and violence. Here are notable highlights of that legacy.  Mordechai Levy and the JDO  Mark Weber - IHR  In August 1989, JDO founder Mordechai Levy was arrested following a dramatic night-time confrontation with Irv Rubin and other JDL members. Levy was found guilty of felony assault with a deadly weapon, and served 18 months of a four-and-a-half year sentence. On April 22, 1993, JDO thugs attacked demonstrators who were protesting the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. At least one person was seriously injured.  Is Tribalism The Future?  Patrick J. Buchanan  ... In this young century, America has gone to war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Pakistan. Belatedly, in all four, we discovered that, before we plunged in, we knew nothing of the complexity of these countries ... People are naturally attracted to the strong horse, not the weak horse, said Osama bin Laden. While democracy has great appeal to Third World peoples, it is often because democracy offers a sure path to power for the ethnonational majority to which they belong. If Muller and Kedar are correct in their assessment of the eternal appeal of tribalism, America's model of the ideal society -- the more diverse that it is religiously, ethnically, culturally and racially, the better it is -- would appear to be more than a mildly risky experiment.  In Germany, Sylvia Stolz Released From Prison C. Bärthel  After three years and three months' imprisonment in three different institutions for the crime of expressing proscribed political views, the so-called "Federal Republic of Germany" released Attorney Sylvia Stolz from Aichach Prison at 9 am on Wednesday, 13 April 2011. A large international group of free speech advocates, including supporters from France, Italy and Great Britain (Lady Michelle Renouf) were present at the main gate to celebrate the release of our intrepid Sylvia.  In Europe, Rabbis Unhappy Over Debate On Kosher Slaughter European Jewish Press  The Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) slammed the timing of a vote this week by the European Parliament's food safety committee for clear labeling so consumers can see whether meat has been stunned or not before it has been slaughtered. ... The RCE said it will begin lobbying MEP's from across the European Union to prevent the Parliament from adopting the draft legislation as law. An EU source cited by the British daily The Telegraph said the proposal is expected to be opposed by national governments who are concerned that the issue is too controversial to be included in EU food labeling regulations.  Europe's 'Revolutionary Conservative' Heritage: Armin Mohler Ian B. Warren -- Institute for Historical Review  ... In the intellectual climate that prevailed after 1945, conservative views were largely vilified and suppressed as "reactionary" or "fascist," and efforts to defend or revitalize Europe's venerable intellectual tradition of conservatism came up against formidable resistance ... In Mohler's view, the twelve-year Third Reich (1933-1945) was a temporary deviation from the traditional conservative thinking. At the same time, the conservative revolution was "a treasure trove from which National Socialism [drew] its ideological weapons."  Israel's Bogus Narrative on Palestinian Refugees Ghada Karmi -- Los Angeles Times  ... Contrary to the official Israeli version, still largely believed, that the Palestinian exodus of 750,000 people -- without which there would be no Israel today -- happened in the fog of war, people like me are living proof that many of us had been forced out of our homeland months earlier. The Israeli version claims that during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, the Palestinians fled, as happens in wars everywhere, or were panicked into leaving by their leaders. For more than 60 years, this has served to absolve Israel of its culpability for that tragedy.  The `First Holocaust': Origins of the 'Six Million' Don Heddesheimer  Even before World War II, the iconic figure of Six Million Jewish victims was already widely used in propaganda, as shown in these items, reproduced here in facsimile. During the years following the First World War (1914-1918), propaganda claims were widespread that East European Jewry was on the brink of annihilation. These claims regularly invoked now-familiar buzzwords such as "extermination" and "holocaust," as well as the now-familiar Six Million figure. In 1919, for example, The New York Times was telling readers that six million Jews in Poland and Russia were threatened with imminent holocaust: All this is from the 2003 book, The First Holocaust, by Don Heddesheimer.  Both Major Parties To Blame for $14 Trillion Debt The Associated Press  Two centuries after America's birth, the national debt was a bit under $1 trillion when Ronald Reagan took office in 1981. Just three decades later, it has soared above $14 trillion, and accusations of blame are flying. Both Republicans and Democrats played major roles in driving the figure sky high. If the tab were divided up now, it would come to roughly $47,000 for each man, woman and child in the United States.  Jewish Extremist Proposed Killing Churchill, MI5 Records Reveal Daily Mail (Britain)  A Jewish extremist who murdered a British government minister during the Second World War also proposed assassinating Winston Churchill, MI5 records show. Eliyahu Bet-Zuri suggested sending agents of the Stern Gang, a Zionist paramilitary group devoted to forcing the British out of Palestine, to London to kill the then-prime minister. Bet-Zuri was hanged in 1945 for murdering Lord Moyne, the UK's minister resident in the Middle East and a close friend of Churchill, in Cairo in November 1944 MI5 was deeply concerned that Jewish terrorists might try to assassinate other leading British politicians, in particular the post-war foreign secretary Ernest Bevin, files released by the National Archives reveal.  What Intervention in Libya Tells Us About the Neocon-Liberal Alliance Stephen M. Walt -- Foreign Policy  ... So if you're baffled by how Mr. "Change You Can Believe In" morphed into Mr. "More of the Same," you shouldn't really be surprised. George Bush left in disgrace and Barack Obama took his place, but he brought with him a group of foreign policy advisors whose basic world views were not that different from the people they were replacing. I'm not saying their attitudes were identical, but the similarities are probably more important than the areas of disagreement. Most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has become addicted to empire, it seems, and it doesn't really matter which party happens to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue .  Goldstone's Shameful U-turn Ilan Pappe  ... This shameful U-turn did not happen this week. It comes after more than a year and a half of a sustained campaign of intimidation and character assassination against the judge, a campaign whose like in the past destroyed mighty people such as US Senator William Fulbright who was shot down politically for his brave attempt to disclose AIPAC's illegal dealings with the State of Israel ... We should have recognized that Goldstone was one of them when he stated that, despite his report, he remains a Zionist. This adjective, "Zionist," is far more meaningful and charged than is usually assumed.  Straight Talk About Zionism Mark Weber  ... A Zionist Jew, by definition, owes his primary loyalty to the Jewish community and to Israel . Zionism is not compatible with patriotism to any country or entity other than Israel and the world Jewish community ... Zionist Jews and their non-Jewish supporters embrace a blatant double standard. Jewish-Zionist organizations, along with their non-Jewish allies, support one social-political ideology for Israel and the world Jewish community, and a completely different one for the United States and other non-Jewish countries. They insist that ethnic nationalism is evil and bad for non-Jews, while at the same time they vigorously support ethnic nationalism -- that is, Zionism -- for Jews.  U.S. Senate Unanimously Calls on U.N. To Rescind Goldstone Report JTA  The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the United Nations to rescind the Goldstone report. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and James Risch (R-Idaho) initiated the resolution last week after Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, retracted a key conclusion of the U.N. report he helped author on the 2009 Gaza war -- that Israel had targeted civilians as a policy.  UN Gaza Report Co-Authors Round on Goldstone The Guardian ( Britain )  Three members of the UN fact-finding mission on the Gaza war of 2008-09 have turned on the fourth member and chair of the group, Richard Goldstone, accusing him in all but name of misrepresenting facts in order to cast doubt on the credibility of their joint report. In a statement to the Guardian, the three experts in international law are strongly critical of Goldstone's dramatic change of heart expressed in a Washington Post commentary earlier this month. Goldstone wrote that he regretted aspects of the report that bears his name, especially the suggestion that Israel had potentially committed war crimes by targeting civilian Palestinians in the three-week conflict.  Heading Toward An Israeli Apartheid State Daniel Blatman -- Haaretz ( Israel )  ... The historical background of the Israeli apartheid state-in-the-making that is emerging before our eyes should be sought in 1967. It is part of a process that has been going on for about 44 years: What started as rule over another people has gradually ripened - especially since the latter part of the 1970s - into a colonialism that is nurturing a regime of oppression and discrimination with regard to the Palestinian population. It is robbing that population of its land and of its basic civil rights, and is encouraging a minority group (the settlers ) to develop a crude, violent attitude toward the Arabs in the territories.  In Austria , Two Arrested For `Neo-Nazi' Website The Associated Press  Austrian authorities have arrested two people suspected of involvement in a neo-Nazi website. The Vienna public prosecutor's office said Tuesday the arrests came Monday night after a total of six house searches in the Austrian capital and in the southern region of Styria. Spokesman Thomas Vecsey confirmed to the Austria Press Agency that one of the arrested is Gottfried Kuessel, a leading Austrian neo-Nazi figure who was convicted in the 1990s of trying to form a successor to the Nazi party. The website in question was recently shut down with help from U.S. authorities.  Prison Terms For German `Neo-Nazi' Internet Broadcasters  DPA  A German court sent nine men to prison Monday for operating an internet radio station that promoted neo-Nazi ideology until police closed it down and arrested them in November. The most severe sentence was 39 months. Nine further men were convicted and freed with suspended sentences. The accused were convicted in Koblenz of sedition and of forming a criminal gang. The activists, who were aged 20 to 37, called their German-language streaming online audio programme "Resistance Radio." All participated as announcers.  The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder Vincent Bugliosi -- Video - Trailer  Famed Charles Manson prosecutor and three time #1 New York Times bestselling author Vincent Bugliosi stars in this powerful, and thought-provoking documentary. He presents a tight, well researched legal case that puts George W. Bush on trial in an American courtroom for the murder of nearly 4,000 American soldiers fighting the war in Iraq . Bugliosi sets forth the legal architecture and incontrovertible evidence that President Bush took this nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses. Runtime 9:44 mins.  Hail Sylvia Stolz! Robert Faurisson  A noble cause like that of historical revisionism needs a noble figure to embody it: Sylvia Stolz, whose surname in German means "proud," is that figure. ... We need real men and real women. I shall not mention names here, lest I overlook any. Nevertheless I shall make an exception for Sylvia Stolz, "The German Joan of Arc," as we readily call her.  Demjanjuk Evidence Faked, FBI Report Found The Associated Press  An FBI report kept secret for 25 years said the Soviet Union "quite likely fabricated" evidence central to the prosecution of John Demjanjuk -- a revelation that could help the defense as closing arguments resume Wednesday in the retired Ohio auto worker's Nazi war crimes trial in Germany. The newly declassified FBI field office report, obtained by The Associated Press, casts doubt on the authenticity of a Nazi ID card that is the key piece of evidence in allegations that Demjanjuk served as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in occupied Poland.  An Evil Campaign to Frame an Innocent Man Lesya Jones (1995)  ... Sheftel [in his book] amasses incontrovertible evidence which proves that the Demjanjuk affair was not simply a case of mistaken identity but, rather, a deliberate and cold-blooded conspiracy by superpowers United States and former Soviet Union, as well as Germany, Israel and Poland to withhold exculpatory evidence in their possession and send to the gallows an innocent no man's man. These countries did this in pursuit of their respective agendas. In the United States, the Office of Special Investigation (OSI) at the Department of Justice, which was established to investigate alleged Nazi war criminals residing in the US, was particularly zealous in its efforts to destroy Demjanjuk.  Behind the Hunt for `Nazi War Criminals' Mark Weber -- Worldwatch (Audio MP3 file)  Weber reviews the 30-year ordeal of John Demjanjuk, and the outrageous record of fraud and vengeful, one-sided "justice" of the US government's "Nazi hunting" agency. US officials are now seeking to deport Demjanjuk, a frail 89-year-old, to stand trial in Germany. Weber reviews Washington's shameful campaign against Kurt Waldheim, Frank Walus, and other "Nazis." This entire campaign, says Weber, is an expression of the privileged status in the US for Jewish concerns and interests, and of the Jewish-Zionist grip on America's cultural and social-political life.  US Military Spending More Than China, Britain, France and Russia Combined Daily Mail (Britain)  ... For the U.S., international conflict and peacekeeping has become staggeringly expensive, with $698 billion spent in 2010. The figure is a 2.8 per increase from the previous year and around six times the expenditure as China, America's nearest rival when it comes to military spending. Incredibly, U.S. military spending has almost doubled in the last ten years as operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have dragged on - last year's outlay represented an 81 per cent increase on the 2001 figure.  Is America Addicted to War? Stephen M. Walt -- Foreign Policy  The United States started out as 13 small and vulnerable colonies clinging to the east coast of North America. Over the next century, those original 13 states expanded all the way across the continent, subjugating or exterminating the native population and wresting Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California from Mexico. It fought a bitter civil war, acquired a modest set of overseas colonies, and came late to both world wars. But since becoming a great power around 1900, it has fought nearly a dozen genuine wars and engaged in countless military interventions. Yet Americans think of themselves as a peace-loving people, and we certainly don't regard our country as a "warrior nation" or "garrison state."  `Mark Weber Report' Podcasts Voice of Reason Network  Audio recordings of broadcasts of the weekly "Mark Weber Report. Analysis and commentary of current affairs and historical issues by the director of the Institute for Historical Review.  We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers  Stephen Moore -- The Wall Street Journal  ... Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government. It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?  Manufacturing's Dismal Decade Patrick J. Buchanan  ... The U.S. trade deficit in 2010 worsened by 33 percent, rising from $375 billion to $498 billion, the largest percentage increase in a decade. If Obama keeps this up, he may prove as big a disaster for U.S. manufacturing as his predecessor, although these are big shoes to fill ... Despite all the propaganda about exports being the future, the foreigners' share of the U.S. market is $500 billion more than America's entire share of the world market ... If, as we once did, we produced here all the manufactured goods we consume and gave up every other manufacturing market in the world, we would add millions of jobs and our gross domestic product would surge.  The German-Jewish Chemist Whose Work Led to Zyklon B BBC  It has been claimed that as many as two out of five humans on the planet today owe their existence to the discoveries made by one brilliant German chemist. Fritz Haber's inventions both saved millions, and were eventually used to kill millions Yet this is the same chemist denounced by young German students today as a "murderer". No-one personifies better than Fritz Haber the debate over science's capacity for good and evil ... Of Haber's legacies, this was the bitterest. For this research was later developed into the Zyklon process, used by the Nazis to murder millions in their death camps, including his own extended family.  Obama's Humpty Dumpty War: Presidents Take US To War  Michael Kinsley  It really couldn't be clearer. "The Congress shall have power ... to declare war." Yet these are probably the most egregiously ignored words in the Constitution ... Presidents of both parties traditionally ignore the congressional war power when they feel like it. Or they wait until the troops are poised for battle -- putting Congress in an impossible position -- before asking permission ... President Obama has flip-flopped on this issue just as egregiously as Newt Gingrich (although not as quickly). He said in 2007, "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."  Obama's Confusing Rhetoric About War  John Kass -- Chicago Tribune  He attacked his own people. His own people. And he showed them no mercy by sending his well-armed troops to crush them. He refused to listen to the pleas of foreign leaders who begged him to stop the relentless attacks against his people. And still, he kept killing these people. His own people. I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln, of course. And while I'm not equating our own Honest Abe with a dictator, like, say, Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, let's not forget what civil wars actually involve.  The Libyan War: Unconstitutional and Illegitimate Michael Lind -- Salon  There is no doubt that U.S. participation in the Anglo-French-American attack on Libya is completely unconstitutional ... The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. ... The civil war in Libya is a perfect case of "a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."  Growing Doubts About British Soldier's Auschwitz Story Daily Mail (Britain)  Fact or fiction: In his book The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz, Denis Avey says he smuggled himself into the death camp - but his claims are becoming more and more refuted / ... Increasing numbers of people don't believe him. They include former Auschwitz prisoners, historians and Jewish organisations -- and they all doubt very much that he broke into Auschwitz. This week Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head historian at Auschwitz, said that he did not believe Mr Avey's story of the swap. He said that his fear was the story could provide ammunition for Holocaust deniers who are keen to exploit implausible memoirs in order to 'prove' that the Holocaust did not take place.  Israeli Rabbi Warns of `Negative Genetic Traits' of Non-Jews Ynet news (Israel)  Rabbi Dov Lior, a senior authority on Jewish law in the Religious Zionism movement, asserted recently that a Jewish woman should never get pregnant using sperm donated by a non-Jewish man - even if it is the last option available. According to Lior, a baby born through such an insemination will have the "negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews." ... "Sefer HaChinuch (a book of Jewish law) states that the character traits of the father pass on to the son," he said in the lecture. "If the father in not Jewish, what character traits could he have? Traits of cruelty, of barbarism! These are not traits that characterize the people of Israel."  Europe's Israel Romance Is On The Wane Daud Abdullah -- The Guardian (Britain)  In Europe, Israel has historically enjoyed a high level of support, not least because it was perceived as a progressive democracy in a sea of Arab backwardness ... The survey of 7,000 people in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Britain reveals only a small minority (10%) now believe their countries should support Israel rather than the Palestinians, while many more, 39%, think they should not  Two Californias  Victor Davis Hanson  The last three weeks I have traveled about, taking the pulse of the more forgotten areas of central California ... Many of the rural trailer-house compounds I saw appear to the naked eye no different from what I have seen in the Third World. There is a Caribbean look to the junked cars, electric wires crisscrossing between various outbuildings, plastic tarps substituting for replacement shingles, lean-tos cobbled together as auxiliary housing, pit bulls unleashed, and geese, goats, and chickens roaming around the yards. ... Over a hundred-mile stretch, when I stopped in San Joaquin for a bottled water, or drove through Orange Cove, or got gas in Parlier, or went to a corner market in southwestern Selma, my home town, I was the only non-Hispanic -- there were no Asians, no blacks, no other whites.  A Look Back At Eight Years Of War In Iraq Medea Benjamin & Charles Davis -- Al Jazeera  March 19 marks the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction and was not involved in the 9/11 attacks. It was sold to the American public as a war to defend our nation and free the Iraqi people. US deputy secretary of defence Paul Wolfowitz said our soldiers would be greeted as liberators and that Iraqi oil money would pay for the reconstruction. Vice president Dick Cheney said the military effort would take "weeks rather than months". And assistant defence secretary Ken Adelman predicted that "liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk". Eight years on, it's time to look back at that "cakewalk".  The Kill Team Photos and Videos Mark Boal -- Rolling Stone  How US soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon." / ... While the officers of 3rd Platoon peeled off to talk to a village elder inside a compound, two soldiers walked away from the unit until they reached the far edge of the village. There, in a nearby poppy field, they began looking for someone to kill ... Then, using a pair of razor-sharp medic's shears, he reportedly sliced off the dead boy's pinky finger and gave it to Holmes, as a trophy for killing his first Afghan.  Polish Cavalry Charging German Tanks: World War II Mythology The Guardian (Britain)  If you want to wind up a Pole of a certain age, there is no more reliable means than quoting the old myth about Polish lancers charging at German panzer divisions in the second world war ... In fact, as the war historian and Times columnist Ben Macintyre recently wrote: "The Polish contribution to allied victory in the Second World War was extraordinary, perhaps even decisive, but for many years it was disgracefully played down, obscured by the politics of the Cold War." ... To appease Stalin, the Poles were not even invited to Britain's 1946 victory parade.  Hitler Denounces Oppression of Palestinians Video  "Palestine is at present occupied not by German troops but by the English," says Hitler in this 1939 address. "And the country is undergoing restriction of its liberty by the most brutal resort to force, is being robbed of its independence and is suffering the cruelest maltreatment for the benefit of Jewish interlopers ... One fact is surely certain. In this case England is not defending herself against a threatened Arab attack, but as an uninvited interloper, is endeavoring to establish her power in a foreign territory which does not belong to her." From Hitler's address to the Reichstag, April 28, 1939. Palestine was then under occupation by Britain, which supported Zionist efforts to seize the country. Runtime: 1:58 mins.  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Meets With Hitler  German newsreel (1941) -- Video  Narration: "The Fuehrer receives the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (Amin al-Husseini), one of the most influential leaders of Arab nationalism. The Grand Mufti is the religious leader of the Arabs in Palestine, and at the same time their chief judge and financial administrator. Because of his nationalist position, he has been harshly persecuted by the British, who have offered a reward of 25,000 Pounds for his capture. After an adventurous journey he reached Germany by way of Italy." From the German weekly newsreel, "Deutsche Wochenschau" Dec. 10, 1941.  Women Subject to Objectifying Gazes Show Decreased Math Ability Science Daily  Women who are looked at as sexual objects not only react as sexual objects, they also exhibit less proficiency with math, according to a new study published in the March 2011 issue of the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly . The study examined the effect of the objectifying gaze (the visual inspection of one's body by another person) on undergraduates' math performance. Motivation to interact with the objectifying person in the future was also measured as well as body image outcomes, including body surveillance, body shame, and body dissatisfaction.  Dershowitz on Intellectuals' Anti-Semitism Alan Dershowitz: -- Chutzpah (1991)  How does one understand -- not even forgive, simply understand! - the virulently anti-Jewish statements of intellectuals throughout history? ... Other famous anti-Semites include Tacitus, Cicero, Aleksander Pushkin, Pierre Renoir, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and, of course, Richard Wagner. This honor roll of anti-Jewish bigotry goes on, and included people of every race, religion, and geographic area, political leaning, gender, and age. The answer to the question why? probably lies more in the realm of abnormal psychology than in any rational attempts to find understandable cause in history, or economics.  The New Colonialism Paul Craig Roberts  ... Sixty-six years after the end of World War II and 20 years after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, the US still has an European Command, one of nine military commands and six regional commands. No other country feels a need for a world military presence. Why does Washington think that it is a good allocation of scarce resources to devote $1.1 trillion annually to military and security "needs"? Is this a sign of Washington's paranoia? Is it a sign that only Washington has enemies? Or is it an indication that Washington assigns the highest value to empire and squanders taxpayers' monies and the country's credit-worthiness on military footprints, while millions of Americans lose their homes and their jobs?  The Misery Of Diversity Ilana Mercer  ... Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam has found that diversity is not a strength, but a weakness; the greater the diversity in a community, the greater the distrust ... In diverse communities, Putnam observed, people "hunker down": They withdraw, have fewer "friends and confidants," distrust their neighbors regardless of the color of their skin, expect the worst from local leaders, volunteer and car-pool less, give less to charity and "agitate for social reform more," with little hope of success. They also huddle in front of the television. Activism alternates with escapism, unhappiness with ennui. Trust was lowest in Los Angeles, "the most diverse human habitation in human history," ...  Jewish Writer Grapples With Ethical Dilemma of the Holocaust and Zionism Robert Countess -- Institute for Historical Review  ... As Marc Ellis, a bright young Jewish scholar, persuasively argues in this insightful and provocative book [Beyond Innocence and Redemption], a pseudo-religious mythos centered upon the Holocaust and an increasingly brutal and suppressive Israel state have now firmly replaced the Jewish religion as the binding force that unites Jews everywhere. This new situation, Ellis goes on to emphasize, has had the most profound consequences for the Jewish people, and for the perpetually difficult relationship between Jews and non-Jews.  Target Israel, Not Libya  Stephen Lendman  ... A far greater Middle East menace threatens the entire region, the Israeli war machine based in Jerusalem. Besides illegally occupying Palestine, brutalizing Palestinians daily, persecuting Israeli Arabs, threatening and attacking its neighbors, its longstanding plan calls for dividing and dominating the region ... Of course, Israel isn't a democracy and never was, affording rights solely to Jews, increasingly fewer of them, the more privileged like in America. Others more than ever are on their own sink or swim, the reality major media in both countries downplay or don't report.  History Through Libyan Eyes Andrew North -- BBC News  Libyans are well aware of their long and largely painful history with Western powers - even if many in the West are not. ... There's a deeper suspicion borne of past experiences - especially as the four countries leading the military campaign - the US, Britain, France and Italy - are those that have been most involved in Libya before ... Less well-known outside Libya is British, French and American history there - after they drove out the Italians in World War II and occupied it themselves - with the British controlling most of the country, including Tripoli and Benghazi ... Libya became independent in 1951, under King Idris, but still remained a British protectorate - with both the UK and the US maintaining their military bases and control over the country's foreign and defence policies.  Neocon Foreign Policy Philip Giraldi  ... The view that the United States must use its waning power to remake much of the globe prevails. The policy is in some circles underwritten by the myth that the United States is a special nation that makes it somehow immune to the history of the decline and fall of past empires. The catch phrase "American exceptionalism" persists in the minds of presidential wannabes like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, both of whom conflate the country's genuinely unique national qualities with a divine right to intervene militarily anywhere and at any time, a continuation in perpetuity of the nearly forgotten Bush Doctrine.  A Rosenberg Conspirator Reveals More About His Role  The New York Times  Morton Sobell, who was convicted with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in 1951 in an espionage conspiracy case and finally admitted nearly six decades later that he had been a Soviet spy, now says he helped copy hundreds of pages of secret Air Force documents stolen from a Columbia University professor's safe in 1948. According to an article by two cold war historians, Ronald Radosh and Steven T. Usdin, in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Sobell, who is 93, said in an interview last December that he, Julius Rosenberg, William Perl and an unidentified fourth man spent a weekend, probably Independence Day, frantically copying the classified documents in a Greenwich Village apartment before they were missed.  Cold Case: Enduring Fascination With the Rosenberg Case Ronald Radosh -- The Tablet  ... Beginning with the first release in 1995 of the Venona decrypts of KGB messages to their agents in the United States, it became clear to even the most resolute doubters not only that Julius Rosenberg was a KGB agent who put together and ran an espionage ring made up of college friends who had become engineers or scientists but that his wife, Ethel, knew of and supported his activities. So, the question must be asked: Why did so many ignore the plain evidence of the Rosenbergs' guilt? And why do so many continue to argue that the Rosenbergs were framed by the U.S. government?  We're Number One! Yes! magazine  From President Obama to Sarah Palin, our politicians are constantly invoking America's superiority and exceptionalism or exhorting us to be Number 1. Yet from health care to education to environmental performance, we're more often found at the bottom of the list of developed countries. It's a good idea to set aside the rhetoric of national greatness and ask ourselves how we dropped to the basement on so many important issues -- and what we should do to climb out ... To our great shame, America now has: The highest poverty rate, both generally and for children; The greatest inequality of incomes ; ... The lowest social mobility ; ...  Detroit Homes Selling For One Dollar Amid Crisis The Guardian (Britain)  Some might say Jon Brumit overpaid when he stumped up $100 for a whole house. Drive through Detroit neighbourhoods once clogged with the cars that made the city the envy of America and there are homes to be had for a single dollar ... The recent mortgage crisis and the fall of the big car makers into bankruptcy has pushed the town into a realm unique among big cities in America. A third of the population are unemployed. Property prices have fallen 80% or more in large parts of Detroit over the last three years. The average price of a home sold in the city last year has been put at $7,500.  China on Track to Overtake US on Science in Two Years BBC News  China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected. That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy. The country that invented the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing is set for a globally important comeback. An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science. The study, Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge to the traditional dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan.  The Elusive `Six Million'  Mark Weber  ... The Six Million figure is hammered into the public consciousness, not only in newspapers, magazines, motion pictures, and television, but also routinely in our schools ... An information sheet issued by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council describes the grand Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, as a "living memorial to the six million Jews and millions of other victims of Nazi fanaticism who perished in the Holocaust." Just what is the basis for this familiar figure?  After the Revolution: A Republic or a Democracy?  Patrick J. Buchanan  ... "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule," said Thomas Jefferson, "where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49." James Madison agreed, "Democracy is the most vile form of government." Their Federalist rivals concurred. "Democracy," said John Adams, "never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." ... Today, we are taught to worship what our fathers abhorred to such an extent that politicians and ideologues believe America was put on Earth to advance a worldwide revolution to ensure that all nations are democratic. Only then, said George W. Bush, can America be secure.  Hamas Protests UN Plans For `Holocaust Education' in Gaza  The Associated Press  The United Nations has launched a new plan to teach the Holocaust in Gaza schools, drawing fierce condemnation from Gaza's militant Hamas rulers, school teachers -- and even the body tasked with peace negotiations with Israel. If implemented, it would be the first time most Palestinian children learn about Jewish suffering. But the outcry underscores how sensitive the issue is to Palestinians. "Playing with the education of our children in the Gaza Strip is a red line," Hamas Education Minister, Mohammed Asqoul told a website of the group. He said Hamas will block attempts to teach the Holocaust "regardless of the price."  In Canada, Poll Rejects Museum's Plan for Special Status for Holocaust  The Globe and Mail (Canada)  A poll sponsored by two organizations opposed to the exhibition plans of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights indicates Canadians wish to have "one exhibit which covers all genocides equally" rather than one zone devoted to "a particular genocide" such as the Holocaust and another dedicated to others. The telephone poll of 1,216 adults, conducted earlier this month by Nanos Research, is the latest installment in an ongoing feud between various communities and the CMHR over the Winnipeg-based museum's plans to establish a large, permanent space highlighting the Holocaust and a separate one for other atrocities ...  Moscow Prosecutor Declines to Ban `Protocols' AFP  Moscow's chief prosecutor has refused to ban the sale of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, one of the world's most infamous fake anti-Semitic texts, a top human rights group said Monday. The Moscow-based For Human Rights organization had asked the city to either ban the sale of the book or to publish it with a clear notice stating that the text was a fake ... A list of illegal extremist publications prepared by the Russian justice ministry includes more than 800 books, including Islamist pamphlets, neo-Nazi literature and anti-Semitic brochures. The list also includes material published by the US-based Jehovah's Witnesses.  Reinhard Heydrich's Son Wants To Restore Czech Chateau CTK - Prague Daily Monitor (Czech Republic)  A son of wartime SS-Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich, deputy Reichs-Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, wants to restore the dilapidated chateau in Panenske Brezany near Prague where his family lived, the public Czech Radio reported yesterday. The chateau may house a museum or a national resistance memorial, Panenske Brezany Mayor Libor Holik, told the radio. After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942, the son, Heider, kept living in the Panenske Brezany chateau with his mother and siblings until the end of World War Two.  An Administration Out of Control Rep. Ron Paul  Last week the Obama administration took the United States to war against Libya without bothering to notify Congress, much less obtain a constitutionally mandated declaration of war. In the midst of our severe economic downturn, this misadventure has already cost us hundreds of millions of dollars, and we can be sure the final price tag will be several times higher. Why did the U.S. intervene in a civil war in a country that has neither attacked us nor poses a threat? We are told this was another humanitarian intervention, like Clinton 's 1999 war against Serbia . A Foolish and Unconstitutional War Patrick J. Buchanan  "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation." So said constitutional scholar and Senator Barack Obama in December 2007 -- the same man who, this weekend, ordered U.S. air and missile strikes on Libya without any authorization from Congress. ... This is not the world's war. This is Obama's war ... Gadhafi did not attack the West. He faced an uprising to dethrone him and rallied his troops to crush it, as any ruthless ruler would have done. We have no vital interest in who wins his civil war.  Americans 'Have Right to Know' Before US Military Action, Said Candidate Obama in 2007 CNS News  Barack Obama, as a presidential candidate in 2007, says the American people have a right to know about and participate in the debate over U.S. foreign policy decisions and whether the nation uses military force. "But the fact of the matter is that when we don't talk to the American people - we're debating the most important foreign policy issues that we face, and the American people have a right to know," Obama said at the AFL-CIO debate on Aug. 7, 2007. "It is not just Washington insiders that are part of the debate that has to take place with respect to how we're going to shift our foreign policy," he said.  Among the Hagiographers: A New Book About Gandhi The Wall Street Journal  Joseph Lelyveld has written a generally admiring book about Mohandas Gandhi, the man credited with leading India to independence from Britain in 1947. Yet "Great Soul" also obligingly gives readers more than enough information to discern that he was a sexual weirdo, a political incompetent and a fanatical faddist -- one who was often downright cruel to those around him ... The love of his life was a German-Jewish architect and bodybuilder, Hermann Kallenbach, for whom Gandhi left his wife in 1908. "Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom," he wrote to Kallenbach. "The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed."  Gandhi Left His Wife to Live With Male Lover, A New Book Says Daily Mail ( Britain )  Mahatma Gandhi was bisexual and left his wife to live with a German-Jewish bodybuilder, a controversial biography has claimed. The leader of the Indian independence movement is said to have been deeply in love with Hermann Kallenbach. He allegedly told him: 'How completely you have taken possession of my body. This is slavery with a vengeance.' Kallenbach was born in Germany but emigrated to South Africa where he became a wealthy architect.  Biography Examines Lives of Indian Nationalist Leaders Srinidhi Anantharamiah -- Institute for Historical Review  ... In terms of his courageous determination and the broad scope of his effort, probably no one did more to free India from British colonial bondage than Bose, who was affectionately known by his followers as Netaji (Hindi: "respected leader"). In his effort to deliver self-rule to India through armed struggle, Bose risked everything during the Second World War by forming a political and military alliance with the Axis powers. In this carefully researched and well documented 807-page biography, [Brothers Against the Raj ] , Leonard Gordon, a professor of history at Brooklyn College , examines the lives of Subhas Chandra Bose and his elder brother, Sarat Bose.  The Spaniards Who Fought For Hitler Iberosphere  The 'División Azul', a Spanish force that fought alongside the German army against Russia in World War II, has mostly been overlooked by history books and filmmakers. A new book by Jorge Martínez Reverte seeks to redress the balance. On June 24, 1941, two days after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, General Francisco Franco announced the creation of a Spanish volunteer unit "to fight Bolshevism" that would eventually grow to include some 48,000 troops.  Household Wealth in US Down 23 Percent In Two Years CNN  The average American family's household net worth declined 23% between 2007 and 2009, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. A rare survey of U.S. households, first performed in 2007 but repeated in 2009 in order to gauge the effects of the recession, reveals the median net worth of households fell from $125,000 in 2007 to $96,000 in 2009 ... Families that owned stock saw their portfolios drop by more than a third to $12,000 from $18,500, on average. The value of primary real estate holdings decreased by an average of $18,700. And families took on more debt, pushing median total debt levels to $75,600 from $70,300. They also made less money. Median household income dropped to $49,800 from $50,100.  The Mark Weber Report: Debut Show  Voice of Reason Network  In this debut broadcast, Mark Weber talks about how Americans' self-image and prevailing view of the US and themselves has changed drastically over the past 60 years, as reflected in the country's high school history textbooks. He quotes from the most popular and influential high school history textbook of the mid-twentieth century to show how very differently Americans regarded their country in the years before the "cultural revolution" of the 1960s. Weber also talks about the dangerous falsehood of "diversity" as a "strength," the myth of World War II as the "good war," the Jewish-Zionist grip on American US political life, and more.  Ancient Roads in Britain May Not Be Roman The Guardian ( Britain )  The long-held belief that the Romans introduced "proper" roads to the UK has been thrown into doubt after the discovery of a thoroughfare engineered by iron age Britons. Archaeologists working at a quarry in Shropshire have found a metalled and cambered road dated to the first century BC -- around 100 years before the Roman invasion. The discovery seems to show that the iron age Britons were better and more imaginative engineers than they are generally given credit for.  Big Surge in Hispanic Population in US AFP  The Hispanic population in the United States has grown to 50 million, becoming the largest minority with 16 percent of the population, according to US Census Bureau figures released Thursday. The Hispanic population grew by 43 percent in the past decade, accounting for more than half of the 27 million increase in the total US population, which rose by nearly 10 percent to 308 million. The white non-Hispanic population grew by just over one percent and its share of the total population fell from 69 percent in 2000 to 64 percent in 2010, according to a census report on population changes by race.  The US Budget Crisis: A Gloomy Prognosis World Future Fund  Data and projections suggest no end to the great US debt crisis. Although the grave consequences of the looming catastrophe are widely acknowledged, neither Democratic nor Republican party leaders offer viable solutions.  Jewish Group Worried Over Results of Survey of European Attitudes on Israel and Jews European Jewish Press  Results of a poll conducted by a German think-tank on European attitudes towards Jews and Israel are "deeply disturbing," said the European Jewish Congress (EJC). The Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a think-tank associated with Germany's Social Democratic Party, found extremely worrying attitudes amongst a host of Europeans ... When asked to respond to the statement that "Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians," 63% of the study's participants in Poland agreed with the statement, while in Germany 47.7 percent expressed agreement.  Our Veto in the Security Council Carl Coon - Progressive Humanism  When we vetoed the resolution on Israeli settlements in the UN Security Council [on Feb. 18], something that had been pretty clear before became crystal clear, at least to the rest of the world. No more fig leaf, no more excuses, we now stand naked before the eyes of the rest of humanity. It is now commonly understood that at all times, under all imaginable circumstances, when little Israel cracks the whip, the American colossus obeys. Most Americans probably won't be aware of the extent to which our nation has humiliated itself in the eyes of the rest of humanity, for our press will play the event down.  Prof. Nolte Tackles Taboos of Third Reich History Mark Weber  Decades after its dramatic demise, the Third Reich continues to fascinate millions and provoke heated discussion ... Consistent with the author's strong plea for a more thoughtful and objective look at the phenomenon of Hitler and National Socialism, Nolte presents his often highly unorthodox views without polemics, indeed with a certain reserve and tentativeness. Unlike those who incessantly insist that "we" must "never forget" the "lessons of the Holocaust," Nolte calls for an evaluation of the Hitler era as free as possible of strident, emotion-laden polemics and self-serving purposes.  In France, Court Orders Mayor to Remove Portrait of Petain The Telegraph (Britain)  A court on Tuesday ordered a French mayor to take down a portrait of Philippe Petain, leader of France's wartime Vichy regime, from the wall of a town hall. The portrait of Petain, branded an anti-semitic Nazi collaborator, hung in a municipal marriage chamber in Gonneville-sur-Mer, near the Normandy landing beaches used in World War II by Allied forces. The court overruled a decision by Bernard Hoye, the town's independent mayor, to keep the portrait which he said had been hanging there for years. It had nevertheless been taken down pending Tuesday's decision.  Large Crowds Cheer Marshal Pétain in Paris, April 1944 France-Actualités (1944) - newsreel  Large crowds cheer French Head of State Pétain during his visit to Paris in April 1944. Parisians cry out "Vive Pétain" and sing the national anthem, "La Marseillaise." Pétain also attends a memorial service in the Notre Dame Cathedral for victims of Allied bombing. This visit, is just a few weeks before the D-Day landing of British and American troops at Normandy. Newsreel narration in French. Runtime: 7:28 mins. Philippe Petain, who was a revered military commander during the First World War, was named French Head of State in 1940 by overwhelming vote of the National Assembly.  Virginia's Black Confederates Walter E. Williams  One tragedy of war is that its victors write its history and often do so with bias and dishonesty. That's true about our War of 1861, erroneously called a civil war. Civil wars, by the way, are when two or more parties attempt to take over the central government. Jefferson Davis no more wanted to take over Washington, D.C., than George Washington, in 1776, wanted to take over London. Both wars were wars of independence.  Ferocious Battle of the Volga Lives In Russian Memory  National Public Radio  Nowhere is the Volga River more hallowed than in the city named after it: Volgograd, better known to history as Stalingrad. During World War II, perhaps the bloodiest battle in history took place there. A total of two million people were lost on both sides in the fighting from the summer of 1942 to February 1943. Hitler's army, fighting to reach the Volga and seize the country's energy resources to the south in the oil-rich Caucasus, was met by the tenacious Soviet Red Army and a city that would not yield.  The Relentless Cult of Novelty  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (1987)  ... This relentless cult of novelty, with its assertion that art need not be good or pure, just so long as it is new, newer, and newer still, conceals an unyielding and long-sustained attempt to undermine, ridicule and uproot all moral precepts ... To decorate public spaces we put up sculptures that aestheticize pure ugliness -- but we no longer register surprise. And if visitors from outer space were to pick up our music over the airwaves, how could they ever guess that earthlings once had a Bach, a Beethoven and a Schubert, now abandoned as out of date and obsolete?  US Pro-Israel Group Claims Election Victory  Foreign Policy  One prominent pro-Israel lobbying group in Washington is already praising the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives as a net benefit for Israel. "While Democrats are likely to keep control of the U.S. Senate, Republicans will take over the U.S. House of Representatives following Tuesday's elections. This is likely to have implications for Israel-related issues such as Israel's relationship with the United States and the push for sanctions against Iran," said an e-mail blasted out by The Israel Project only minutes after news stations called the turnover of House control a certainty.  You Want War? Pay For It Eric Margolis  ... The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been ignored during the election race. After nine years of combat, 5,000 US dead and 35,000 seriously wounded soldiers, and expenditure of over $1 trillion - silence. These longest and second most expensive wars in US history have dropped off the radar. Not even the latest WikiLeaks shocker, which revealed the US condoning death squads, torture and mass human rights violations in Iraq, became a campaign issue ... Right-wing Republicans will press for more war, in more places - financed, of course, by the magic of credit. Few stop to think that this manic borrowing it wrecking America.  The Phantom Left Chris Hedges  ... The celebrities from Comedy Central and the trash talk show hosts on Fox are in the same business. They are entertainers. They provide the empty, emotionally laden material that propels endless chatter back and forth on supposed left- and right-wing television programs. It is a national Punch and Judy show. But don't be fooled. It is not politics. It is entertainment. It is spectacle. All national debate on the airwaves is driven by the same empty gossip, the same absurd trivia, the same celebrity meltdowns and the same ridiculous posturing. It is presented with a different spin. But none of it is about ideas or truth. None of it is about being informed. It caters to emotions. It makes us confuse how we are made to feel with knowledge.  A German Soldier's Photos of the Devastation of Dunkirk  Daily Mail (Britain)  Rare photos taken by a German soldier of the devastated beaches of Dunkirk after the evacuation have been found 70 years on by the family of a British war veteran. The pictures were taken a few hours after 330,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from the beaches by an armada of little ships having been defeated by the Nazis. The remarkable album was later taken from a German house as a memento by British serviceman Corporal Frank Smith. It includes shots of the Germans surveying the wreckage of downed aircraft and scores of damaged trucks and tanks on the battle-scarred shores of Dunkirk.  Hitler's Grand Error at Dunkirk: Why?  Virtue magazine  ... Why the nonsensical halt order [by Hitler], when the enemy was beaten, and with no chance of stopping the powerful German army? ... But on May 24th, 1940, while the campaign was still in progression, Hitler expressed a deeper, more political motive, to members of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's staff ... "He then astonished us by speaking with admiration of the British Empire, of the necessity for its existence, and of the civilization that Britain had brought into the world ... He concluded by saying that his aim was to make peace with Britain on a basis that she would regard as compatible with her honor to accept." An incredible tale, and yet, it fits with the admiration Hitler expressed for Britain in Mein Kampf. Hitler offered peace to the British twice during World War Two ...  Israel Protests British 'Universal Jurisdiction' Law JTA  Israel reportedly postponed a strategic dialogue with Britain to protest a law that allows for the prosecution of Israeli officials for alleged war crimes. Strategic dialogue between Israel and Britain on defense and security issues occurs annually. This year's strategic dialogue meeting, scheduled for last month in Britain, did not take place, the French news agency AFP reported. The British law provides the country's courts with "universal jurisdiction" to issue arrest warrants for alleged war crimes, including to visiting foreign politicians.  Israel Ranks Among Western World's Most Corrupt Countries Haaretz (Israel) and Reuters  Israel ranks among the most corrupt countries in the Western world, according to a study released by the International Transparency Organization on Tuesday ... The least corrupt countries were listed as Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore ... The United States, meanwhile, has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics. The U.S. fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5. This was the lowest score awarded to the U.S. in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20.  German Police Swoop on Neo-Nazi Internet Radio Station AFP  German police staged dawn raids today against right-wing extremists accused of operating a neo-Nazi Internet radio station to whip up anti-foreigner sentiment among young supporters. Authorities swooped in 10 of Germany's 16 states on 22 homes with alleged links to "Radio Resistance", which features "racist and National Socialist" commentary and music from skinhead bands, the Federal Crime Office (BKA) said. "The 23 suspects aged between 20 and 37 from across the country are believed to have acted as administrators and hosts" of programs on the station, the BKA said in a statement.  Anger As Germany Cuts Funding to Orthodox Jews The Telegraph (Britain)  The German government has ignited a row with the country's Orthodox Jews after it stopped funding the training of Orthodox rabbis. The authorities have been subsidising the training of rabbis for several years, but the interior ministry recently announced that it would only fund Liberal rabbis from now on. Thomas de Maziere, the interior minister, blamed "the budget situation" for the decision, the Times reports. However, the move has upset the Jewish community ... Since the Second World War, Germany has been trying to re-establish a Jewish presence in the country. There are now some 120,000 Jews living in Germany, and many are Orthodox.  Dutch Authorities Recall Auto License Plates With `Nazi' Initials  The Telegraph (Britain)  The Dutch authorities have urgently recalled "Nazi" number plates issued to drivers after a computer error. Over 100 car owners received licence plates with the letters "NSB" on them, a Dutch equivalent of the word Nazi. NSB is the notorious abbreviation for the Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, the Dutch fascist party which collaborated with the Nazis during the Second World War. Number plates displaying the offending letters were recalled by the Dutch Vehicle Authority on Monday after the first angry complaints by drivers.  The Holocaust and the Myth of the Past as History Howard F. Stein  For the Jews, the term "Holocaust" does not simply denote a single catastrophic era in history, but is a grim metaphor for the meaning of Jewish history. The "Holocaust" lies at the heart of the Jewish experience of time itself. One is either anxiously awaiting persecution, experiencing persecution, recovering from it, or living in a period that is a temporary reprieve from it ... Thus the "reality" of the Holocaust is inextricably part of the myth in which it is woven -- and for which myth it serves as further confirmatory evidence for the timeless Jewish theme that the world is in conspiracy to annihilate them, one way or another, at least eventually.  The Shaming of America  Robert Fisk: -- The Independent (Britain)  As usual, the Arabs knew. They knew all about the mass torture, the promiscuous shooting of civilians, the outrageous use of air power against family homes, the vicious American and British mercenaries, the cemeteries of the innocent dead. All of Iraq knew. Because they were the victims. Only we could pretend we did not know. Only we in the West could counter every claim, every allegation against the Americans or British with some worthy general - the ghastly US military spokesman Mark Kimmitt and the awful chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Peter Pace, come to mind - to ring-fence us with lies.  The Ten Smartest and Dumbest U.S. Cities Daily Beast -- Alternet  The second annual list of the nation's smartest and dumbest cities. What makes a city "smart" or "dumb," per this list? The education level of the city's citizens, for one, and also its "intellectual environment," as measured by nonfiction book sales and the prevalence of colleges and libraries. Draw your own conclusions about what the list means in terms of a city's desirability. But one thing that seems to be objectively true is that there's an economic element to the rankings: The continuing economic malaise just reinforces a perennial fact: A city's potential lies mostly with the ingenuity and brainpower of its citizens. Regions with intellectual vigor are more likely to bounce back; those without risk a stupor.  British Legion's 1935 Visit to Third Reich Shown In Archive Photos BBC News  A delegation from the British Legion met Adolf Hitler in July 1935, recently uncovered photographs show. The 148 images were in a swastika-embossed album found by an employee. They show British veterans of World War I being saluted by Germans, and delegation leader Maj Francis Fetherston-Godley shaking hands with Hitler's deputy Rudolph Hess ... The five members of the Legion (now known as the Royal British Legion) met Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe. There were photos of German ex-servicemen in wheelchairs giving Nazi salutes as the delegation parade passed with the Union flag, and pictures of the delegation at Commonwealth war graves in Germany.  In Russia, One of `World's Worst' History Textbooks  Foreign Policy  Lesson plan: Buddy Stalin Subject matter: It can't be easy to put a positive spin on Stalin, under whose leadership more than 20 million Russians lost their lives. But that's what's being attempted in Russia today ... Aleksandr Filippov, the author of a new Kremlin-approved textbook told the Times, "It is wrong to write a textbook that will fill the children who learn from it with horror and disgust about their past and their people." His book devotes 83 pages to Joseph Stalin's industrialization plans, but only one paragraph to the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933 in which millions starved as a result of deeply flawed agricultural policy.  In Germany, Berlin Police Fear Entering Immigrant `No Go' Areas ZDF Heute Journal (Germany) - Television video  German television news report on "no go" areas in Berlin, populated by immigrants from outside Europe. These areas are so crime-ridden and disorderly that even police sometimes cannot patrol them without being insulted, spit upon or physically attacked. Runtime: 4:07 mins.  Dr. Siddique Stands By Anti-Israel and Anti-Zionist Statements The Philadelphia Inquirer  A Lincoln University professor who drew criticism this week for anti-Israel statements he made at a recent rally said Thursday that he stood by those words and would not back down from detractors he said are out to "threaten academic freedom." Kaukab Siddique, 67, an associate professor of English and literature, said that he had the support of his faculty and students and that he would continue to speak his mind, despite pressure from those who have referred to him as an "anti-Semite."  Sex Trafficking In Israel CNN  ... Over the past decade, about 10,000 women have been trafficked into Israel in what Keidar calls "modern slavery." The women are locked, beaten, raped, starved and forced to receive 15-30 men a day 365 days a year, according to the attorney. About three years ago, Israeli police greatly reduced women trafficking by pouring resources into the problem.  Israel Sees Double Standard in Response to Wikileaks' Iraq Files  The Christian Science Monitor  The Wikileaks release of US military field reports from Iraq that detail tens of thousands of civilian casualties in seven years of fighting is being used by some Israels to argue that their country is a victim of an international double standard on human rights ... On Monday, Israeli lawmaker Michael Ben Ari said he filed a formal complaint with the UN, calling for war crimes investigations of senior American politicians and "international arrest warrants for US government leaders." In a letter to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, he wrote: "I call on the UN to condemn the behavior of the US and especially its attempts to hide the facts... We need to expose the hypocrisy of the West."  Jewish Groups Launch New, Well-Funded Pro-Israel PR Campaign  JTA  The Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs are launching a multimillion-dollar joint initiative to combat anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns. The JFNA and the rest of the Jewish federation system have agreed to invest $6 million over the next three years in the new initiative, which is being called the Israel Action Network ... The network is expected to serve as a rapid-response team charged with countering the growing campaign to isolate Israel as a rogue state akin to apartheid-era South Africa - a campaign that the Israeli government and Jewish groups see as an existential threat to the Jewish state.  Muslim Sect Sees Struggle Through Christian Lens: A Little-Known Jewish Massacre  The New York Times  Among the ruins on the edge of this ancient oasis city are deep trenches littered with bones. That, local people say, is all that remains of one of the great atrocities of antiquity, when thousands of Christians were herded into pits here and burned to death by a Jewish tyrant after they refused to renounce their faith. The massacre, which took place in about A.D. 523, is partly shadowed by myth and largely unknown to the outside world. But it has become central to the identity of the people now living here, who mostly belong to the minority Ismaili sect of Islam.  Jews in US Sue Hungary Over World War II Railroad Role Haaretz (Israel)  Hungarian survivors of the Holocaust and families of the victims sued the Republic of Hungary and its two rail companies in U.S. court on Thursday, accusing them of collaborating with the Nazis to exterminate Jews during World War Two. The lawsuit accused the Hungarian government and rail companies of confiscating property of Jews and transporting them to ghettos and concentration camps where hundreds of thousands perished in Nazi-occupied Poland and Ukraine.  A New Book `Rehabilitates' Lindbergh, Says Salon  Salon  The influential conservative publishing house Regnery has just released a book that argues, contrary to popular belief, that aviator and political leader Charles Lindbergh was neither anti-semitic nor pro-German, but rather was the victim of an unfounded smear campaign by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. According to promotional material, the book, "Lindbergh vs. Roosevelt: The Rivalry That Divided America" by James Duffy, argues that Lindbergh was the target of a "vicious personal vendetta by President Roosevelt" that "blighted his reputation forever."  US Foreclosure Crisis Becomes More Widespread BBC News  The foreclosure crisis in the US has spread across a wider area of the country, according to RealtyTrac, which monitors repossession activity. The organisation said foreclosure notices increased across a majority of large metropolitan areas, including Chicago and Seattle. Previously, these cities had seen relatively low levels of activity ... The trend is the latest sign that the US foreclosure crisis is worsening as homeowners -- facing high unemployment, slow job growth and uncertainty about house prices -- continue to fall behind on their mortgage payments ... Earlier in the week, data from rating agency Standard and Poor's showed that US house prices also began falling again in August, mainly in response to the expired tax credit.  The Genocide Britain Hushed Up Daily Mail (Britain) A new film tells the terrible story of Stalin's own Final Solution - and Churchill's shameful complicity / … This is the harrowing scene of a devastating new film, Katyn. It takes its name from the village in western Russia where the bodies of more than 4,000 Polish prisoners of war were dug up in 1943. But these bodies were by no means the only ones to be disinterred. Near the Soviet city of Kalinin, now known as Tver, another 6,000 bodies were unearthed. Near Kharkov in Ukraine there were 4,000. In all, more than 22,000 Poles -- roughly two-thirds of them officers and policemen, the rest political prisoners -- suffered the same appalling fate: to be executed, without trial or even warning, and thrown like carcasses into mass graves.  Germar Rudolf Released from Prison in Germany Altermedia Germar Rudolf, 44, a German chemist and intellectual dissident who had been serving a prison sentence for violating Germany's law against "Holocaust denial," was released from Mannheim prison on July 4 after three years and nine months behind bars. Upon his release, he was met by his American wife and four-year-old US-born daughter. In October 2005 he was arrested in Chicago, and deported to his homeland, where he was tried, sentenced, and imprisoned.  David Irving Speaks in 17 US Cities in July In a tour of the western US, David Irving is addressing meetings in 17 cities, including Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Costa Mesa, and Kansas City. His topic is "Hitler, Himmler and `Enigma': Re-writing World War II history using Nazi messages decoded by the British Secret Service." The best-selling British historian also has available copies of his prison memoir, which tells of his headline-making arrest and harrowing prison ordeal in Austria, 2005-06.  Alarm in Baltic as Kremlin Seizes Control of Soviet Past The Independent (Britain) In Russia it is not only the future that is unpredictable; often the past is equally in doubt … When authorities in Estonia removed a monument to Soviet soldiers from the centre of Tallinn two years ago, riots between police and ethnic Russian citizens of Estonia ensued, and the Kremlin made furious noises. With its new commission and law, Moscow is upping the stakes. Russia accuses the governments of Estonia and Latvia of glorifying partisan regiments which fought on the side of the Nazis. In recent years, relations between Latvia and Russia have normalised in many spheres, but the Second World War is still a thorny issue.  Jewish Group Objects to Ukraine 'Great Famine' Case JTA A Jewish group in Ukraine is objecting to a criminal case brought over the "Great Famine" committed in the 1930s. The nation's security service is pressing the case against a list of former Soviet officials accused of committing the Holodomor, which caused the deaths of millions in Ukraine in 1932-33. Most of the names on the list were Jewish.  Holocaust Denial And Uncomfortable Truths Robin Davis It has always been those few who can see through the political correctness and hypocrisy of popular attitudes who are considered dangerous. "Holocaust denial laws" are now in place in about a dozen countries. Defenders of these laws claim that the expression of unconventional views about the Jewish genocide is "hate speech" and "incitement to violence" and therefore must be suppressed. But history shows the greatest purveyors of lies, hatred and incitement to violence are those with the power to spread their poison by manipulating popular opinion via the control or complicity of the mass media.  Jewish Leader: Obama May Be 'Most Hostile President to Israel' Ronald Kessler President Barack Obama's refusal to take a stand on protests in Iran stands in sharp contrast to demands he has made on Israel, Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, says in a Newsmax interview … Klein says leaders of Jewish organizations are rethinking their support of Obama in light of his attitude toward Israel. "There are many leaders in the organized Jewish world who have privately discussed this issue with me, and say they are deeply concerned about Obama's actions and policies toward Israel, and now they're rethinking their support for Obama during the campaign and the election," says Klein …  A `Virulent' New Anti-Semitism is Rife in Britain, Says Chief Rabbi The Times (Britain) Britain is in the grip of a "virulent" new strain of anti-Semitism, according to the Chief Rabbi. Sir Jonathan Sacks told The Times in an interview that in January the number of anti-Semitic incidents reached the highest level since records began. Jews have been physically attacked, schools targeted and cemeteries desecrated … Although the new "mutation" was different from the anti-Semitism promoted by Hitler, it was dangerous because it was international, he said. "The internet means that we no longer have national cultures; we have global cultures and the new anti-Semitism is very much a phenomenon of the global culture." Whereas in the past, hatred was focused against Judaism as a religion or Jews as a race, the focus this time was on Jews as a nation.  The Pentagon Spigot is Wide Open: How Obama Will Outspend Reagan on Defense Winslow T. Wheeler … Not counting money projected for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presidentially approved budget plan would continue increasing the Pentagon's budget: by another $8.1 billion in 2011 (up 1.5 percent), another $9 billion in 2012 (up 1.6 percent), and $10.4 billion in 2013 (up1.8 percent), and so on all the way out to 2019. If we add in the costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon budget for the current fiscal year - 2009 - exceeds any year since the end of World War II, including the spending peaks for the Korean and Vietnam wars. President Obama's plan is to increase that lead. Obama also will outspend Ronald Reagan on defense.  The Language That Absolves Israel Saree Makdisi -- Los Angeles Times … Reality can be so easily stood on its head when it comes to Israel because the misreading of Israeli declarations is a long-established practice among commentators and journalists in the United States. In fact, a special vocabulary has been developed for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the United States. It filters and structures the way in which developing stories are misread here, making it difficult for readers to fully grasp the nature of those stories -- and maybe even for journalists to think critically about what they write. The ultimate effect of this special vocabulary is to make it possible for Americans to accept and even endorse in Israel what they would reject out of hand in any other country.  The U.S. Regime-Change Recipe for Iran Paul Craig Roberts … In Iran's system, election fraud has no purpose, because a small select group of ruling mullahs select the candidates who are put on the ballot. If they don't like an aspiring candidate, they simply don't put him on the ballot. When the liberal reformer Khatami ran for president, he won with 70% of the vote and served from 1997-2005. If the mullahs didn't defraud Khatami of his win, it seems unlikely they would defraud an establishment figure like Mousavi, who was foreign minister in the most conservative government, and is backed by another establishment figure, Rafsanjani.  Historian Says He's Found `Real' Reason for Hitler's Hatred of Jews Daily Mail (Britain) Adolf Hitler's obsessive hatred for Jews was sparked by his experiences after World War One, according to a new book. Respected historian Ralf-George Reuth argues the dictator blamed them for both the Russian revolution and the collapse of the German economy. The claim is a stark contrast to previous theories … At the time almost half of all German private banks were Jewish owned, the stock exchange dominated by Jewish stockbrokers, almost half of the nation's newspapers were Jewish run as were 80 per cent of chain stores. It became fashionable to decry the loss of the war on Jewish financiers. But Hitler, according to Reuth, also blamed Jews for the Russian revolution …  The Underworked American The Economist (Britain) Americans like to think of themselves as martyrs to work. They delight in telling stories about their punishing hours, snatched holidays and ever-intrusive BlackBerrys … But when it comes to the young the situation is reversed. American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more.  Canadian Politician Sues Jewish Groups JTA An ex-candidate in Canada is suing the country's leading Jewish advocacy groups, alleging they ruined her political career. Lesley Hughes, who was dumped as a Liberal candidate in a Winnipeg-area electoral district, claims the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith Canada made false and defamatory accusations that she is anti-Semitic. In a lawsuit filed June 16, Hughes alleges that as a result of the actions of the CJC and B'nai Brith, former federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion revoked her candidacy in last September's federal elections.  Sharp Drop In US Support for Israel, New Poll Shows Mondoweiss … The state-run radio station's Washington correspondent, Nathan Guttman, obtained data from a recent unpublished poll, conducted by the Israel Project, an organization that works to improve Israel's image in the United States. The Israel Project has been conducting a periodic running poll, asking American registered voters questions about Israel … There is a steep decline in the percentage of Americans who say that the U.S. should support Israel. That has dropped from 71% in March 2008 (at the time of the Annapolis process) to only 44% now.  Israeli 'Settlements': Fictions on the Ground Tony Judt -- The New York Times … Thus President Obama faces a choice. He can play along with the Israelis, pretending to believe their promises of good intentions and the significance of the distinctions they offer him. Such a pretense would buy him time and favor with Congress. But the Israelis would be playing him for a fool, and he would be seen as one in the Mideast and beyond. Alternatively, the president could break with two decades of American compliance, acknowledge publicly that the emperor is indeed naked, dismiss Mr. Netanyahu for the cynic he is and remind Israelis that all their settlements are hostage to American goodwill. He could also remind Israelis that the illegal communities have nothing to do with Israel's defense, much less its founding ideals of agrarian self-sufficiency and Jewish autonomy.  The Risky Provocations of Mr. Netanyahu Leonard Fein -- Forward (New York) … I sometimes fear there's a genetically inbred survival characteristic of the Jews that predisposes us to try to beat the system, to get away with things, a characteristic that came in very handy for all those many centuries during which the nerve and cleverness to beat the system enabled survival, but that has now become a dysfunctional anachronism. Be that as it may, Netanyahu's stance will likely turn out to be a serious miscalculation of Obama's intentions and abilities. Obama has no intention of endangering Israel, but when it comes to outsmarting a would-be outsmarter, he is not exactly a beginner.  Netanyahu's Speech: When He Says Yes, What Does He Mean? Uri Avnery (Israel) … The idea of the Palestinian state has now become a part of the national consensus, and only a handful of ultra-rightists reject it directly. But this is only the beginning. The main struggle will be about turning the idea into reality. The entire speech was addressed to one single person: Barack Obama. It was not designed to appeal to the Palestinians … Obama is not seeking a frontal collision with the Israeli government. It seems that he wants to exert "soft" pressure, vigorously but quietly. To my mind, that is a wise approach.  U.S. Jewish Leaders Deeply Troubled by Obama Haaretz (Israel) There is growing concern among the American Jewish community over Obama's Mideast initiatives, this according to the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Malcolm Hoenlein. "President Obama's strongest supporters among Jewish leaders are deeply troubled by his recent Middle East initiatives, and some are questioning what he really believes," Hoenlein, said in an interview published Monday.  Carter Says Palestinians Treated 'Like Animals' AFP Former US president Jimmy Carter on Tuesday met Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in the Gaza Strip, where he called for a lifting of Israel's blockade, saying Palestinians are being treated "like animals." Following the talks, Carter called for an end of "all violence" against both Israelis and Palestinians. "This is holy land for us all and my hope is that we can have peace ... all of us are children of Abraham," he said at a joint news conference with Haniya, prime minister of the Hamas government in the Palestinian enclave.  Holocaust Lawyer Edward Fagan is Disbarred For Misusing Victims' Funds The Star-Ledger (New Jersey) Only a few years ago, Edward Fagan was a world-renowned lawyer for the underdog, brash and audacious enough to take on Swiss banks and even whole countries to win judgments for Holocaust survivors and victims of South African apartheid. This week, the Supreme Court announced he was barred from practicing law in New Jersey, completing one of the steepest falls from grace in the state's law community. The court found Fagan, 56, misappropriated nearly $400,000 of the money he won for the victims he so effectively championed.

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Fun stuff to read, tell and watch:

Now FREE to watch all 91 minutes: "Defamation," from Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. LINK: http://tinyurl.com/3rvhdvc

Some of His Best Friends Are Jewish: The Saga of a Holocaust Revisionist By Nathaniel Popper. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3v6m88c

...an Israeli lawyer has filed a class-action lawsuit against former President Jimmy Carter, seeking $5 million in damages because his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" allegedly defamed Israel. Link: http://tinyurl.com/3pltqg2

"...when you have laws against questioning the Holocaust narrative, you are screaming at the other person to stop thinking!!!" ---Mike Santomauro. *Anthony Lawson's Holocaust Video "were the Germans so stupid"... Link: http://tinyurl.com/44nsrco

An anti-Semite condemns people for being Jews, I am not an anti-Semite.--Mike Santomauro. Link: http://tinyurl.com/42z9p8o

Peace.

Mike Santomauro

253 West 72nd St

New York, NY 10023

Call anytime: 917-974-6367

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