The Big Whorehouse on the Potomac

by Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch

Americans celebrate July 4, they can contemplate that the union of “free and independent states,” like the former British colonial power, has evolved into its final manifestation–a complete whore house.  While Members of Parliament in London charge their expense accounts with every personal expenditure, including the rental of adult xxx-rated films, an American newspaper put the reporting of public policy out to bids until politico.com blew the whistle.

Gob Smacked

by Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch

There’s no continent where the pwogwessive  “left” (I have to set this exhausted noun on the crutches of gloomy quotemarks) in the United States has entertained higher hopes of Obamian change from traditional U.S. thuggery than Latin America. This was a big constituency for Obama to allure last year. Radicals here in their senior decades have been rooting for Cuba ever since they cheered Fidel’s triumphant entry into Havana in 1959. Twenty-five years later in the late 70s and mid-80s the hottest issue for young people on the left in the US was the brutal and ultimately successful efforts of the US government in the Carter and Reagan years to crush revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. To this day the “Hands off Central America”  movement of those years remains by far the most determined mobilization of the US left in the post Vietnam era.

Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land

(It is important to note, that this film was made in 2004 and they talk a great deal about the “suicide bombings” in Israel. There have been no “suicide bombings” in Israel since January of 2007 in which 3 Israeli civilians were killed, according to B’TSelem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.  Before that one attack, you have to go back to May of 2006, for the second most recent “suicide bombing” in Israel. From Jan of 2007 thru Dec. 26th of 2008, 823 Palestinian civilians have been killed (if you wish to go back to May of 2006 simply add 628 Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces for a total of 1451)… and that does NOT include what happened during the Israeli attack on Gaza from late Dec. 2008- mid January 2009.  Nor does that include the numbers of Palestinians killed since then.)

The Israeli propaganda machine knows, that if the general public were to understand just how many Israelis and Jews opposed the illegal occupation of Palestine and the tactics used to continue and expand it, then it would be impossible for them to portray any dissent of Israeli policy as “anti-Semitic”.

Part 1

[Part 2 after the break]

US unemployment rate for June at 9.5 percent: Another 467,000 jobs lost

(“The Recovery Act DID IT’S JOB...” Barack Obama, “town-hall meeting” on healthcare, 2 days ago….)

by Andre Damon, WSWS

The US economy lost far more jobs in June than had been predicted by economists, and the unemployment rate hit 9.5 percent, its highest level since 1983, according to data released by the Labor Department on Thursday. The June jobless report undercut the efforts of the Obama administration and the media to downplay the depth of the economic crisis and generate illusions of a rapid recovery.

… According to the Labor Department report, when these workers (“discouraged” and part time workers who want full time employment) are included, the jobless rate soars to 16.5 percent.