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Yearly Archives: 2010
Rush: Bin Laden Tape Is “Democrat Talking Points,” Sounds Like “Russ Feingold”
Putting aside for the moment the dubious authenticity of the Bin Laden tapes, Rush Limbaugh is displaying just how off-the-wall crazy Republicans are. I...
Would Obama Speak For a KKK Prayer Breakfast?
Would President Obama speak at a prayer breakfast organized by the KKK? Would Jim Wallis and other "progressive" Christians attend?
Then what will they be doing on Thursday Feb 3 at the National Prayer Breakfast founded and sponsored by the notorious gay-bashing "The Family" fringe far right group? (I ask this as a practicing progressive Christian and repentant former religious right leader).
Economist Roubini: Obama’s Fiscal-Econ-Social Agenda Imperiled
Recommend reading and signing up for a free economic newsletter from these guys, they have been prophetic: Roubini Global Economics! (RGE)
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This week, RGE tracked...
Anti-ACORN Activist Attended Racist Conference
The anti-racism group One People's Project has a blockbuster that rightwing rising star James O’Keefe, attended a white supremacists' conference in 2006 held at...
Robert Gates – the MANIPULATOR
This is a supplement to Bob Higgins' post on Secretary of Defense Bob Gates in Seven Days in January: How the Pentagon Counts Coups...
A “conspiracy theory” like no other!
In a blog article entitled Abiotic we learn something, that if it is true or even only partially true, underscores the incredible charade that...
Smoker loses six teeth when cigarette explodes in his mouth – Daily Telegraph
We have all heard the reasons why people should not smoke; lung and mouth and throat cancers, heart problems, prematurely aged skin, smelly clothes...
Editors Picks: News and Opinion Around the Web
Robert Scheer writes that if Glass Steagal worked for 60 years, it probably ain't broken. A book on evolution to help kids get through the confusion caused by the flat Earthers. Where's all that damn oil? is the quetion at Tomgram. Vets urge close of Gitmo at Huff Post, Objectivity is not the Holy Grail at Truthdig and the sad news of our losses in Pakistan in today's picks.
How come nobody ever levels with us?
Today's news takes us away from our tunnel vision of domestic political woes and shows us how deeply disturbed our world is and how...
Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 2/3/10
Top 10 Veterans news from around the country features the top stories on Veterns Benefits,Health, Education and other issues in summary form from the Veterans Administration.
Not Holding Leaders Responsible For Crimes Only Breeds More War
In Viet Nam, for example, U.S. leaders caused the deaths of thousands of their own men and several million Vietnamese after they already knew they had made probably the worst mistake in American history. Velvel writes, “Our top military men create(d) free fire zones where civilians are killed on sight, and bomb and defoliate to the nth degree.” In Iraq, our leaders unleashed “a horrendous reign of terror from the skies, create a thus far thoroughly destabilized post-war society, and then, when all their other myths have shown to be myths, retroactively justify the war by saying that we got rid of an admittedly horrible dictator, his equally horrible sons, and his entirely horrible government.”
3 U.S. Soldiers Die in Attack by Pakistan Militants
Update: Soldiers’ Deaths in Pakistan Raise Questions on U.S. Presence - The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack Wednesday lifted the...
Defense Secretary Gates fires officer in charge of F-35 program
By Bob Cox | The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates voiced strong dissatisfaction Monday with a lack of progress on the F-35...
U.S. Intel: Al-Qaeda ‘certain’ to attack U.S. within months
By Joby Warrick
The Obama administration's top intelligence officials on Tuesday described it as "certain" that al-Qaeda or its allies will try to attack the...
Regional Veterans’ News 2/3/10
Today's regional stories on veterans affairs, health, benefits and education from: Fargo, North Dakota, Gainesville, Georgia, Seattle, Washington, Madison, Wisconsin, Tallahassee, Florida, Des Moines, Iowa, Sacramento, California, Washington, DC, Wagner, Souh Dakota, Roseburg, Oregon, Omaha, Nebraska, and Starkville, Mississippi.
Christians Desecrate Wiccan Religious Site at Air Force Academy
What the hell goes through the minds of these evangelicals who think they can tell other religions—at a military academy no less—what to believe?
No Defense for This Budget
Deficit hysteria has reached new levels, yet where is the attention to an out of control defense budget that is now the largest since World War II? While the Obama Admistration's three-year freeze on discretionary spending is a bad idea, it's made even worse because unprecedented Pentagon spending is exempted from it.
Rush Limbaugh’s Anti-Semitic Idiocy OK, He Supports Militarism
First, Rush Limbaugh makes a bone-headed statement about Jews and bankers correctly drawing condemnation from the ADL. "Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline...
Veterans Case Against DoD Moves Ahead
By Hope Hodge --- A Jacksonville (NC) resident who is suing the Department of Defense for using experimental drugs on him during the Vietnam war...
Why is America In So Many Wars? Part 1
Since World War Two, an indisputably necessary conflict, Velvel points out the U.S. has fought the Korean War, the Viet Nam War, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, the First Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the Second Gulf War in Iraq. It has also invaded, bombed or “quarantined” Panama, Grenada, Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, the Sudan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia and Libya, and has “declared” a global war on terrorists.
U.S. Department of Defense Announces Latest Contract Awards
No. 086-10
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CONTRACTS: NAVY
The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, Mass., is being awarded a $131,107,546 cost-plus-incentive-fee contract for the Trident II (D5) MK6...
America’s Secret Afghan Prisons
In the past few years Pashtun villagers in Afghanistan's rugged heartland have begun to lose faith in the American project. Many of them can point to the precise moment of this transformation, and it usually took place in the dead of night, when most of the country was fast asleep. In its attempt to stamp out the growing Taliban insurgency and Al Qaeda, the US military has been arresting suspects and sending them to one of a number of secret detention areas on military bases, often on the slightest suspicion and without the knowledge of their families.
On debt, Canada shows us the way out – Washington Post
In today's Washington Post there is an article entitled On debt, Canada shows us the way out in which we see that Canada has produced...
Huge Deficits May Hamper America’s Ability to Wage Pointless Wars
Mounting budget deficits for the foreseeable future may "greatly hamper" the U.S.' ability to wage pointless wars, a leading Pentagon general says.
According to Gen. Blanton Creegan, "The days of our invading a country for no reason whatsoever may be at an end."
Gen. Creegan adds, "In the past, we were able to start a war with a country simply because we said they might have WMD - now, we may actually have to check first."
KHALIL NOURI: AFGHANISTAN: BIZ-JIRGAH: A TOOL FOR BOTTOM-UP APPROACH
Day by day a growing chorus of voices is heard saying that the tribes are the solution in Afghanistan. This very powerful grassroots movement is blossoming; and it can give the Afghan people new hope, self-esteem and a sense of belonging. As Representative Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) told the news media Russia Today; "For about one billion dollars we could…(obtain)... the good will of all the tribal leaders and all the ethnic leaders in Afghanistan, and for another billion dollars, we could put nice projects in local villages." But, to make sure that there is success to this notion, an effective bottom-up approach tool is required to match the existing top-down approach so that jointly both approaches can rescue the nation.
Top 10 Veterans News from Around the Country 2/2/10
Find out What's Inside Today's Local News for Veterans
VA Website Offers Detail On IT Projects.
Workout Helps Iraq Vet Regain Strength.
Hospice Receives Grant Funding...
CH2M Hill: Global Company in Full-Service Engineering, Procurement, Construction, and Operations Solutions Wants Veterans...
Multiple recipient of Fortune Magazine’s 100’s Award-winning, Best-in-Class Global Company CH2M Hill is Seeking to Hire Veterans for Their Problem-Solving Skills, Integrity and Team Spirit
Breaking down the FY 2011 Veterans Affairs Budget
While most of the DC military press is focused down on the Pentagon today, the Department of Veterans Affairs is also unveiling its fiscal 2011 spending plans and ambitious goals for the near future. Secretary Eric Shinseki will hold a press conference at 315, and we'll have a full story later this afternoon.
But even though the $125 billion VA budget proposal is only a fraction of the proposed Defense Department budget, the plans could have wide-reaching ramifications for current service members as well as veterans.
Schwarzenegger Appoints Nation’s First African-American, Female NG Ad-Gen
Schwarzenegger Appoints Nation's First African-American, Female NG Ad-Gen
Editor’s Picks: News and Opinion Around the Web
Yes Magazine's Brooke Jarvis brings tells an entertaining and timely story of Murray Hill Inc, the first corporation to run for political office; proving, I suppose, that some Corps retain a sense of the absurd. Haiti's thoroughly inept government is taking increasing fire from her beleaguered citizens and Jim Hightower is back firing away at Corporate personhood in today's picks.
PBS’ Favorite Unsung Heroine for 2009 Abandoned for Speaking Out
Last December I posted an article Military Divorces continue to increase, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) said that,
"Every marriage has...
Mil Brass: Won’t Enforce Ban Against Gays and Lesbians
The year, 1960: It had been over a decade since that damn Harry Truman integrated the armed forces when the Greenboro Four decided to...
Russia unveils its first stealth fighter jet – BBC News
Here is a short and really neat video (included in the piece) from the BBC showing the basic flight characteristics of Russia's new stealth fighter. ...
Pentagon’s Black Budget Tops $56 Billion – Wired blog
On a blog that is named Wired we have a story reported today entitled Pentagon’s Black Budget Tops $56 Billion . That is a...
China Warns Obama Against Meeting Dalai Lama – AOL News
China is flexing her rather large and ready-to-use muscles warning the USA that if our leaders meet with the Dali Lama, they will make...
Obama’s Base Pact With Colombia Accelerates “Dangerous Trend”
The Obama administration’s pact to use seven Colombian military bases accelerates “a dangerous trend in U.S. hemispheric policy,” an article in The Nation magazine warns.
Although much of Latin America is in the vanguard of the “anti-corporate and anti-militarist global democracy movement,” Grandin writes, the Obama administration is “disappointing potential regional allies by continuing to promote a volatile mix of militarism and free-trade orthodoxy in a corridor running from Mexico to Colombia.” Grandin’s article in The Nation’s February 8th issue is titled, “Muscling Latin America.”
More on VA Shreddergate Exposed
In the past two years we at VT have been following and reporting on Department of Veterans Affairs attempts to cut costs by shredding...
Regional Veterans’ News 2/2/10
Today's regional stories on veterans, health education, other benefits and issues from: Baltimore, Maryland, Fort Worth, Texas, Spokane, Washingon, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Melbourne, Florida, Jefferson City, Missouri, Huntington, West Virginia, Madison, Wisconsin, Greenville, Texas, Chattanooga, Tennessee, Winfield, Kansas, Watertown, New York, and Klamath Falls, Oregon
Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power – New York Times
Economically, we are apparently on our way out, barring some miracle. We are now so deeply in debt to China and other lenders, that there...
Obama Proposes Another Surge in Military Spending – AOL News
AOL News is reporting in a piece entitled Obama Proposes Another Surge in Military Spending that we are once again engaged in group insanity. ...
Political candidate takes on Republicans in the American Legion
Bob Krause, Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate, said today that Republican collusion against Veterans' spouse unemployment compensation in the Iowa House is part of...
White House Seeks $125 Billion for Veterans in 2011
To expand health care to a record-number of Veterans, reduce the number of homeless Veterans and process a dramatically increased number of new disability compensation claims, the White House has announced a proposed $125 billion budget next year for the Department of Veterans Affairs.