The Israeli Lobby: Declassified Documents Expose Its Influence

The Israeli lobby’s brazen intrigues and naked power are becoming an embarrassment to the American political elite

INTOLERANT OF OPPOSING VIEWS, they’re suppressed for its own agenda, funded by PR propaganda domestically and overseas, America’s top publications paid off to go along, now revealed by a secret document subpoenaed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (FRC) investigation into the American Zionist Council (AZC), AIPAC’s parent lobbying arm.
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Stephen Lendman [print_link]
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“The US contingent of 60 Mayors returned from Israel where they attended (an earlier) Conference….While (there), a number of them were interviewed by (US reporters) who sent (pro-Israeli) stories back to their hometown papers; they were also recorded in interviews for local radio stations.”
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Overall, measures were taken to counteract his unfriendly Israeli positions, the same policy used against all critical public figures, strike back to discredit them.
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Bribing major US publications and their writers helped do it, including at the Reader’s Digest, Atlantic Monthly, Look, Holiday, Parade, Saturday Review, the New York Times Magazine, and various women’s and business ones. Today, the entire US major media serve as Israel’s PR arm, its mouthpiece, the fruition of efforts begun 50 years ago.
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AZC’s Research Bureau also analyzed books and articles on Israel. “When a book is favorable, it is recommended. When (it’s not), it is analyzed and distortions are pointed up by providing the factual data required, so that our local Councils will be prepared to react….Further, we (arrange) book presentations (in) community and university libraries….”
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He won a Pulitzer Prize for his lying, and got to fly on the plane that bombed Nagasaki, later describing the experience in The Times with religious awe. Today, the entire US major media cheerlead for Israel, even its most unjustifiable, unconscionable, criminal acts. Entirely suppressed is its history of international law violations, including:
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Senior Editor Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.


The Billionaire Right-Winger

The Kochs are poster boys for the plutocratic cancer devouring the American republic.

By Joe Conason | Posted on Aug 27, 2010  [print_link]

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For decades, the Koch brothers, billionaire heirs of one of the largest privately held companies in the United States, have covertly sought to promote their hard-right ideology through third parties, think tanks, foundations and front groups. Their late father, Fred, having earned a fortune assisting the nascent Soviet oil industry, eventually became a right-wing extremist and member of the John Birch Society. His sons, especially David Koch, have not only expanded the family business but infiltrated their father’s political views into the mainstream.
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Happily for them, the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars on nonprofit and “educational” ventures has served their corporate priorities perfectly. While Mayer cites many examples of self-serving Koch philanthropy that match their more direct program of buying politicians and policies, the enterprise that is currently most pertinent is the tea party movement. PHOTO (Right)-Charles Koch.
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Although the Kochs cannot be said to directly control the tea party outfits, they have succeeded in infusing their priorities, strategies and ideas into the movement through an organization called Americans for Prosperity. Typically, a Koch Industries spokeswoman sought to deny that David Koch, his brother Charles, their company or their foundations have funded the tea parties—and technically that may be true. David Koch says he has never attended a tea party event and that nobody representing the tea party “has ever even approached me.”
.[flv]https://www.greanvillepost.com/videos/RM-UnmaskingDavidKoch.flv[/flv]

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In short, Mr. Koch is not exactly a pitchfork populist and has no interest in mingling with such unfashionable types. He also doesn’t care much what they think. A former Koch adviser told The New Yorker that the Kochs back the tea party movement for the most cynical reasons. “This right-wing, redneck stuff works for them. They see this as a way to get things done without getting dirty themselves.”
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The kind of things that the Kochs want to “get done”—aside from advancing their social profile in places like the Upper East Side—mostly involve reducing taxes and regulations on themselves and their companies.
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If they had their way, Social Security and Medicare would disappear tomorrow, and so would any other program that benefits families without a billion dollars at their disposal. So would the Environmental Protection Agency, the Clean Air Act and every other obstacle to their massive effusions of deadly filth. Lately, they have been trying to prevent stricter regulation of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, because their company produces enormous amounts of the stuff for commercial use.
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Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist and historian who worked at one of the many right-wing think tanks funded by Koch money, believes that the Koch brothers are “trying to shape and control and channel the populist uprising into their own policies.” Perhaps the tea party activists should take a harder look at those policies—and try to figure out whether the national interest truly coincides with the avaricious, destructive attitude of these “libertarians.”
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Joe Conason writes for the New York Observer.
© 2010 Creators.com


STEM CELLS: score another win for the obscurantists

How conservatism keeps sinking the republic

If An Embryonic Stem Cell Gets Wasted, The Snowflake Program Gets Quite Irate

The forces of darkness strike again…and win. Enjoy the American Middle Ages folks.

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In 1988, a Federal Panel approved the funding of embryo research.
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BEN SISTO, Seismologik http://www.seismologik.com/ Monday, August 23, 2010
PHOTO: Human stem cell
In 1990, Bush the Elder vetoed a bill lifting a Moratorium on the research. The issue of Embryonic Stem Cell (ESC) is a delicate one and for the next two decades we see a lock-step dance of science v. conservatism with one step forward, one step back continuing to this very day.
  • In 1994, nearly as soon as he issued that Order, he reversed it. An NIH panel supported his Moratorium but he received letters from angry Xtians asking him to reverse the order, which he did. Federal funding of embryo research stops.
  • In 1998 NIH writes Guidelines for funding and (presidential candidate) Bush declares his opposition to to Stem Cell Research (SCR.)
  • In 2000 NIH Guidelines go into effect: this is the decision that permits private funds to pay for frozen embryos from clinics but disallows public funding.
  • In 2001 President Bush prohibits funding of human embryonic SCR.
  • In 2009 Barack Obama is sworn into office and promises to change current restrictions on SCR.
In March the President issues an Executive Order to expand SCR research.
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Today, US District Judge Royce Lamberth [a good ole boy from Texas] (left) decides to return federal policy to the “status quo”- essentially bringing us back to the Bush era. The ruling and the plaintiff in this injunction case comes in the form of the “Snowflake Program” from Nightlight Christian Adoptions.” If “Frozen Embryo Adoption” doesn’t creep you out, I don’t know what will. Their chief complaint is that God and Nightlight want to see those embryos protected- otherwise they are both likely to get irate. My feeling is, shouldn’t we enjoy the benefits of a Democratic presidency when we have a Dem in office?
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August 25, 2010

This Could Only Happen in America

By Dave Lefcourt
This could only happen in America. On Monday, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction essentially halting all stem cell research.
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The overwhelming majority of Americans support stem cell research. That fact alone should tell Congress what they need to do.
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But more significantly, the issue of stem cell research even being an issue highlights the essential split in this nation. This split contributes to why many issues remain unresolved in this country.
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Take the issue of immigration and of course its thorny cousin illegal immigration. There are perhaps 20 million illegal immigrants in this country. Those on the right would deport them all, ignoring the fact that many of the children of these people were born in the U.S. automatically making them citizens (some conservatives have suggested amending the Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to the children of illegals).
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All attempts thus far to enact federal legislation that would provide a solution to the immigration crisis i.e. a path to citizenship for current illegals, beefed up and effective border security, issuing tamper proof identity cards and a data base available for all employers to easily access to determine the status of all prospective hires, holding all employers accountable when they intentionally ignore the law and hire illegals et.al, go unattended.
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The whole issue of immigration remains a festering sore and is a constant reminder that we as a nation are unable to come to grips with our basic divisions that effectively prevent the solving of critical problems. Do we dare go the issue of global warming and our part in creating it? Not according to the deniers of the phenomenon that scientists the world over agree is man made and needs to be dramatically reduced, lest we eventually not have enough oxygen to survive as a species.
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dglefc22733@aol.com

Wake Up Obama

By Joel S. Hirschhorn |  [print_link]

If the United States is not kaput it is certainly withering away even as a rich upper class enjoys all the things that money buys. There is massive, widespread economic pain inflicting a huge fraction of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, relying on food stamps, losing their homes, and who are feeling totally insecure financially. This maintains sluggish consumer spending that makes necessary economic growth impossible.
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The corporate bigwigs meanwhile are essentially using economic blackmail as they sit on trillions of dollars in cash, refusing to invest their capital and making great profits because they have cut workers and increased productivity. They want even more benefits from government that they think Republicans will give them.
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No wonder that only 11 percent of people have confidence in Congress and most Americans are fed up with both major political parties. It is bewildering why more Americans are not openly condemning President Obama and his administration. Perhaps because there is no clear Republican that warrants support to replace him.
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It seems that Obama has taken some power-narcotic and entered into a delusional mental state. He persists in talking as if the Great Recession is over and all is going just swell. His wife takes the kids for a vacation in Spain and soon the whole family will go up to a swank place in Cape Cod for another vacation and, of course, Obama likes to go out golfing frequently. Does any rational being perceive he really feels the pain that so many citizens feel? He lives the life of a typical rich and powerful corporate CEO, not a servant of the people.
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Obama finds self-satisfaction in making the argument that everything he has done is surely better than any Republican has done or would do. He misses the point that being better than the worst imaginable is not the same as doing a really first rate job that serves the interests of ordinary people and especially of those hit the hardest by the continuing recession. In many respects the economic conditions now savaging the nation are as bad as the Great Depression. The many millions facing hunger, no jobs, homelessness, foreclosure, inadequate better health care, bankruptcy and financial insecurity define a nation way down the toilet. The middle class has been murdered. We are now a two-class society with a rich Upper Class and a suffering Lower Class.
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That billions and billions of dollars are still being spent on two unnecessary wars should make everyone feel as if they are living in a big insane asylum. All that money should be going to investment (especially public infrastructure) and jobs creation here in the USA.
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Even more important than Obama waking up to reality is that more Americans wake up to their nasty political reality. Voting in elections has become a political placebo. Electing more Republicans to Congress in the fall is nothing more than taking two aspirin when you are near death from starvation.
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The real medicine needed for our delusional democracy is revolution that overthrows the two-party plutocracy. We need leaders for one, but there are none that most Americans could and should support, not even in the Tea Party movement. Time to learn from history: Even the greatest nations and societies end up losing their glory, wealth and power.
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To discuss issues write the author. The author has a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and was formerly a full professor of metallurgical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.



Social Security saved Dan Maes (but Ken Buck hates it!)

BY JOE CONASON AUG 12, 2010  [print_link]

The fractious and nebulous leadership of the Tea Party, a right-wing protest by the middle-aged and elderly, has never quite figured out how to talk about Social Security: a successful federal program despised by conservative ideologues but still beloved by older Americans, including those who identify with the movement. Although Democrats apparently lack the wit to exploit that latent contradiction, it could soon erupt in Colorado anyway, where the two freshly nominated Tea Party Republicans disagree sharply over the issue.


But Dan Maes, the gubernatorial candidate who came from nowhere to upset the establishment choice and lacks Buck’s Washington connections, says that Social Security saved his family when he was growing up. PHOTO: (Right) Ken Buck.

On  the opening page of his primary campaign website, the businessman and former police officer recalls that he was only 10 years old when his alcoholic father died, soon after his parents divorced. Although young Dan had to work delivering newspapers every morning as a kid to help support the family, he was able to graduate high school and attend the University of Wisconsin thanks to the financial support provided by Social Security and the Veterans Administration. And he sounds grateful for the help that government provided:

Dan knows that without the financial support provided by his father’s Social Security death benefits and his VA benefits, graduating with a college degree would [have been] merely a dream. He is sensitive to the fact that government benefits, for the neediest in our society, have their place.