Diplomacy.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | United States to Israel: you have one more week to blast Hizbullah

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Thank You Time Inc.

AOL Retention Manual Revealed - Consumerist

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Bloglines - FEINGOLD CALLS ON ADMINISTRATION TO RECONSIDER ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING

CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS - LiveJournal.com

FEINGOLD CALLS ON ADMINISTRATION TO RECONSIDER ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING FEINGOLD CALLS ON ADMINISTRATION TO RECONSIDER ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING PROGRAM FOLLOWING SUPREME COURT’S HAMDAN DECISION Supreme Court’s Ruling Directly Undercuts the Administration’s Arguments In Defense of Illegal NSA Wiretapping Program July 17, 2006 Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Russ Feingold is urging President Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to reconsider their position that the NSA domestic surveillance program is legal following the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Administration’s expansive theory of executive power in the Hamdan case. In a letter to the President and the Attorney General, Feingold urged them to reconsider the position no later than the wiretapping program’s next periodic review. According to the Department of Justice, the warrantless wiretapping program is reviewed approximately every 45 days meaning that some time in August, the Administration will evaluate whether the NSA program should be renewed. Earlier this year, Feingold introduced a resolution to censure the President for authorizing the warrantless surveillance of Americans without the court approval required by law. “The Hamdan decision is a direct repudiation of the Administration’s theory that the President basically has unlimited power under Article II of the Constitution,” Feingold said. “It is time for this Administration, which too often has ignored our constitutional system of checks and balances, to recognize that the NSA wiretapping program has no legal basis.” On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the President could not try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, using military commissions that Congress had not authorized. In its decision, the Court held that the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) passed by Congress in September 2001 did not authorize military commissions. The Administration had previously used the AUMF as a basis for the wiretapping program as well. “Now that the Supreme Court has rejected in Hamdan the weak justifications upon which the Department of Justice has relied in approving the program in the past, I urge you to finally recognize what has been clear to most observers for some time -- that the NSA warrantless wiretapping program has no legal basis,” Feingold wrote in the letter. A copy of the letter is attached. Read Senator Feingold's Fact Sheet on The President’s Agreement with Chairman Specter on NSA Wiretapping. http://www.feingold.senate.gov/~feingold/statements/06/07/20060717htm.htm Comments

Bloglines - Friendly Fire: Americans Caught in a Bush-Backed Circle of Slaughter

Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque - High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium.

Friendly Fire: Americans Caught in a Bush-Backed Circle of Slaughter By chris@chris-floyd.com U.S. and British Navies Join Evacuation Efforts (NYT) Excerpt: A five-ship United States naval group and a British flotilla steamed toward Lebanon today to help in a large and hastily organized evacuation - and perhaps to send an implicit message - as thousands of foreign nationals continued to flee the violence by helicopter, passenger ships and chartered ferries, or by bus or car to Syria. ...And many Americans said they were distressed to learn they would have to pay their own evacuation costs. Some lawmakers called on the government to waive a portion of a 2003 law requiring such payments. The Navy said it was sending a strike group led by the amphibious-assault ship Iwo Jima to assist in the departure of some of the 25,000 Americans in Lebanon. The ships have hospital facilities, and carry 2,200 marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. Well, here's something you don't see everyday: a nation evacuating its citizens so they won't be killed by their close and faithful ally. Is this not a tacit admission that Israel is carrying out indiscrminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure - i.e., committing state terrorism? If they are "carefully targeting military objectives only," then why are American citizens in danger? The subtext of this story - which will never, ever be stated anywhere in the mainstream American media - is clear: American citizens in Lebanon are at dire risk of being killed by Israeli bombs, despite the fact that few if any of these citizens have even the slightest connection to Hezbollah, because the IDF is methodically laying waste to the whole country regardless of how many civilians they kill, or where they might come from. This is what the Bush Administration is saying - through deeds, not words - with this evacuation. It is a remarkable admission. Yet at the same time, the Bushists are sending $210 million worth of vital jet fuel supplies to Israel to help run the IDF war machine (which is already well-stoked by American largess) as it wages mass slaughter and threatens the lives of up to 25,000 Americans. Obviously, Bush doesn't really care how many civilians the Israelis kill, or where they might come from, either. But we have certainly arrived at yet another surreal moment in the Bush Imperium: American taxpayers are paying millions of dollars to fuel a war machine that is menacing the lives of thousands of, er, American taxpayers - who are having to pay to be rescued from the war machine they are already funding with their taxes. .

H. Clinton Update

Hil, Rupert sly as Fox at fund-raiser
BY HELEN KENNEDYDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERTwo of the most public people in the world had a chummy breakfast yesterday, but media mogul Rupert Murdoch and Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) tried to keep their political get-together as secret as possible.

New York Daily News - Home - Hil, Rupert sly as Fox at fund-raiser

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‘Al-Qaeda Is a U.S.-sponsored Intelligence Asset’

Bulatlat - The Philippines's alternative weekly magazine

Michel Chossudovsky, author of the international bestseller America’s War on Terrorism, personally graced the jam-packed local launch of his latest book held at the Asian Center at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City last June 24. During the launch, he gave a lecture about the imminent danger of a U.S.-made nuclear catastrophe amid the Bush administration’s preparations for war with Iran.

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"One of the most malignant aspects of the new chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict is the myth of Israel as the assaulted party,..."

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - Israel's path to total war

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HuffPo has a problem with their headline writer; he or she often produces headlines that read like the National Enquirer

33% Say Syria/Iran to Blame? Not True, Arianna | TPMCafe

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The Category of Terror

The Neocon Agenda

Reality in Lebanon

"US policy has turned to dust and ashes."

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - The Gumps of August

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By KATHLEEN CHRISTISON, former CIA analyst

Kathleen Christison: Atrocities in the Promised Land

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This could never happen.... yeah right...

Hezbollah website hosted by a US defense subcontractor (Hejailan Projects / United Defense Industries, Inc. / BAE Systems Land and Armaments)

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