I Want My Money Back! (Pres. Obama!)

I want my money back.

I gave $20 a week for seven months, plus $60 every once in a while for a t-shirt and sticker.  I gave of my modest purse joyfully.  Once I add that all up, it makes a grand total of… $106 billion?!  Wait a minute, I thought I was supporting change I could believe in, not more of the same bloodshed and war!

Betrayal is a part of life.  After awhile, you just come to expect it.  Yet, the initial shock always hits you as a surprise.  Alas, the nature of betrayal.  Humans are vulnerable to being betrayed because underneath our husky shells, our pain and hardened hearts, we are soft and trustful creatures.  We want to believe in people.

I’m not that young, so I possess some cynicism.  But I’m not that old either, so I manage some idealism.  Sure, I am used to being betrayed by my government.  But I thought my days of calling the White House in tears were over.  To think that Barack Obama preyed on this naive hope in me and millions like me is unforgivable.

I expect the Republicans to throw money at the Military Industrial Complex.  Yet, from the Democrats, I was promised a different direction (like OUT of the Middle East).  Regrettably, there has been miniscule change.  There is still nothing to believe in.

It is against my religion to say the Pledge of Allegiance.  (I am a Christian so I pledge allegiance only to God.)  I did, however, pledge my time and treasure to Barack Obama.   On November 4, 2008, I danced in the streets waving the American Flag, feeling proud to be an American.  I was pathetically close to bustin’ out some Toby Keith ditties.

It’s not just the $106 billion that makes me feel betrayed.  It’s not just the fact that Gitmo probably won’t be shut down after all.  It is not even the president’s assurance to Republicans that he will not release the photos of detainee abuse.

It is the rumors of intimidation and strong-arming that are, to me, the greatest betrayal.

That President Barack Obama sent Rahm Emanuel and Nancy Pelosi to bully anti-war Democrats into voting for the supplemental (and threatening to withdraw the leadership’s support for their re-elections if they didn’t) is a shameful misuse of power.  Where’s the humanity I once saw in Barack?  It’s just more of the same and I can’t stomach it.

I knew I was naïve; yet like millions of Americans, I had no choice but to believe.  Our hearts were desperate for hope.  We saw Barack Obama as an oasis in the desert.  To think that he may be just a mirage is heartbreaking.

When you have a minute, give Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold a call at (202) 224-5323.  He was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against the war funding (along with three Republicans and an Independent).

Oh, and please consider supporting my grassroots campaign to get my $680 back so I can donate it to the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center. Thanks.

Source: Common Dreams

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No More Cash Payments on E-470 Tolls

Starting Saturday, July 4, cash payments will no longer be accepted at the tolls on E-470 in Colorado.

The only payments that will work are an Express Toll account or a license plate toll. With the license plate toll, a picture will be taken of the front and rear license plate and the owner of the vehicle will then receive a bill in the mail.

If you are using an Express Toll account, with an Express Toll tag that is attached to your credit card account, you get a 10 percent discount.

All of the cash lanes will be converted to the new system, with no employees needed to man the booths.

Source: KKTV

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Milk and meat from the progeny of cloned animals could soon be hitting the shelves of European supermarkets. Some groups have been critical of such products, which are already on sale in the United States.

European agriculture ministers approved the sale of milk and meat from the direct offspring of cloned animals on Monday. Germany had long opposed the move, but finally changed its position.

According to Monday’s decision, food products originating from the progeny of cloned animals will still have to receive approval by the European Food Safety Authority before they can be sold in the EU. The sale of meat and milk from cloned animals themselves, however, is not permitted.

No scientific differences

A scientific committee set up by the EFSA came to the conclusion in a July 2008 report that there were no convincing arguments against permitting the sale of food products from cloned animals.

“There is no indication that differences exist in terms of food safety for meat and milk of clones and their progeny compared with those from conventionally bred animals,” the EFSA report said. “Such a conclusion is based on the assumption that meat and milk are derived from healthy animals, which are subject to relevant food safety controls.”

The authority, however, also said there were uncertainties in the risk assessment of food from cloned animals due to the limited number of studies available and the small sample sizes investigated.

Ethical dilemma

Germany’s Farmers Association has come out against the sale of food products from cloned animals or their offspring. Also pointing to the small amount of scientific research on the topic, the group said food products from cloned animals and their offspring should not be sold until all possible consequences of consuming it have been analyzed.

The European Parliament has also criticized plans to sell the meat and milk of cloned animals’ progeny. The body’s most recent position on the issue came in March, when it opposed the sale of such products.

Peter Liese, a German member of the European Parliament, told reporters Monday that the agriculture ministers’ decision was “not the last word” on the issue, adding that the Parliament was against the cloning of animals for food production.

While food from cloned animals is not necessarily harmful to humans’ health, “its risks also cannot be ruled out,” he said.

German Agriculture Minister Ilse Aigner has called for the EU to analyze the ethical dimensions of selling food from progeny of cloned animals in a year’s time, a demand also made by the German Farmers Association. But further discussions are likely as not all EU members are in favor of such a study.

Labeling requirements

The consumer rights group Foodwatch also called for a study examining the ethical dimensions of cloning animals. The group wants regulations requiring any food products from cloned animals or their offspring to be clearly labeled.

“People should be have the right to refuse cloned meat and fish for any reason,” Foodwatch head Matthias Wolfschmnidt told reporters. “If cloned meat is in something, then the label has to say so.”

The United States was the first country to allow the sale of meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the products for human consumption in 2008 and does not require that they be specially labeled.

Despite the debate raging in the European Union, Germany’s Deputy Agriculture Minister Gert Lindemann said he doesn’t expect many foods from cloned animals to be landing on tables.

“At the moment, a cloned animals costs about 50 times as much as a non-cloned animal,” he said.

Source: Dw-World

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Court case aimed at revealing Saudi Royal family links to attacks quashed after pressure from government

The Obama administration has effectively ended the efforts of families of victims of the September 11th attacks to bring lawsuits against members of the Saudi Royal family for financial links to the conspiracy.

The Supreme Court today ruled that it will not allow any lawsuits to go ahead, just a few weeks after the government filed a court brief asking that the case be quashed.

The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts, reports the Associated Press.

In late May, the Justice Department had sided in court with the Saudi monarchy in seeking to halt further legal action to hold it liable for the attacks.

The move came less than a week before Obama was scheduled to meet Saudi King Abdullah as part of his “rebuilding” trip to the Middle East.

More than 6000 family members denounced the move as an “apparent effort to appease a sometime ally” in a public statement.

The lawsuits claimed that Saudi Arabia and four of its princes actively aided in financing the plot through front groups posing as charities.

Last week, the New York Times ran a report highlighting how documents uncovered by lawyers for the 9/11 families “provide new evidence of extensive financial support for Al Qaeda and other extremist groups by members of the Saudi royal family.”

The documents consist of “several hundred thousand pages of investigative material” assembled by the 9/11 families, according to the report.

The families also point to a 28-page, classified section of the 2003 joint congressional inquiry into 9/11 that deals with the Saudi role in the attacks.

Senator Bob Graham, who sat on the 9/11 Commission, has also charged that Saudi involvement in the attacks has been covered up.

As we have previously reported, US authorities, including the FBI, allowed the entire Bin Laden family to fly out of the US, and back to Saudi Arabia, in the days after 9/11, without questioning any of them.

Furthermore, agency documents later revealed that the FBI were aware that Osama Bin Laden himself may have personally chartered one of the flights. They subsequently redacted his name from the records in order “to protect privacy interests.”

The documents provide clear proof that the FBI was protecting the Bin Laden while the rest of the world was being told that he had masterminded the biggest terror attack in history. The FBI then attempted to cover up this fact.

The same documents revealed that the Bureau did not consider a single Saudi national nor any of the Bin Laden family worthy of investigative value.

The protection of Bin Laden by federal authorities has been ongoing since BEFORE 9/11 when agents were told to “back off the Bin Laden family” in order to protect business interests that the Bush family had with the Bin Ladens and other Saudi nationals.

The FBI asserts that no one on the planes that left had any terrorist links, yet documents (specifically FBI document 199I WF213589) uncovered back in November 2001 prove this to be a falsehood.

The Obama administration is now continuing the exact same long running policy as the Bush administration by obediently backing the Saudi monarchy and keeping secret this vital information on 9/11.

How disgustingly ironic it is that “sovereign immunity” is cited in a case relating to 9/11, when the same notion of sovereign immunity is violated on a daily basis as CIA drone delivered missiles rain down on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As pointed out by writer Barry Grey, in his excellent piece on the effort to shut down the lawsuits, any exposure given to the Saudi connection would open the flood gates for more suppressed evidence:

“The revelations would undoubtedly shatter the official explanations of the September 11 attacks and point to complicity on the part of US intelligence and security agencies.” Grey writes.

“Given its longstanding and intimate ties to the Saudi royal family and Saudi intelligence, it is not possible to believe that the CIA would have been unaware of Saudi support for Al Qaeda and at least some of the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals, as they were preparing to carry out the attacks on New York and Washington.”

Again, the mountain of suppressed information regarding the most important event of the century, as well as the continued efforts on the part of the new administration to keep it that way, highlights the need for a new independent investigation into 9/11.

Source: Prison Planet

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