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Alice Palmer is a Chicago based academic, activist and former friend, employer and political ally of Barack Obama. In the mid 1990s Alice Palmer, then an Illinois State Senator, employed Obama has her chief of staff, when she attempted an ill-fated run for the US Congress. Obama was part of Friends of Alice Palmer, alongside controversial property developer Tony Rezko and Democratic Socialists of America members Danny Davis, Betty Wilhoitte and Timuel Black-also a member of Committees of Correspondence). continue reading Here

There was some obvious irony in Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gleefully informing Greta Van Susteren that the final vote tally in New York’s 23rd Congressional District might award the House Seat to Conservative Doug Hoffman, in spite of all Newt’s efforts. Speaking during his “On the Record,” interview, Gingrich stated: “They (the Conservative Party on election night) were given bad information. They’d done far better in Doug’s key county. As the absentee ballots come in, it keeps getting narrower and narrower.” Greta situated the significance of Hoffman’s supposed loss perfectly when she linked it to the dramatic...

Through the John Adams Project, the ACLU and the NACDL assembled a team of trial counsel, mitigation specialists and investigators to work with the under-resourced military lawyers in their representation of Guantánamo detainees accused in connection with the 9/11 attacks and other cases. The John Adams Project attorneys brought years of experience in criminal defense law, including much needed expertise in capital cases, to the defense effort. The Project’s lawyers, who were formally admitted by the presiding judge as part of the civilian legal team, appeared before the military commissions on their clients’ behalf numerous times and filed over 80...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Assailants fired an anti-tank grenade toward the building housing ballots for the upcoming Honduran presidential elections, which are taking place under the shadow of a four-month crisis caused by a coup, police said Friday. The grenade overshot the target, exploding 550 yards (500 meters) from the building in the capital of Tegucigalpa, police spokesman Orlin Cerrato said. Residents in several neighborhoods heard the explosion Thursday night, but there were no damages. Police believe the building housing election material was the intended target because the surrounding buildings are mostly residential. They said the Russian-made, rocket-propelled grenade was likely...

WASHINGTON — Under fire from allies in Latin America and on Capitol Hill, the Obama administration moved Tuesday to try to salvage the American-brokered agreement that had been billed as paving the way for a peaceful end to the coup in Honduras. Instead, the accord seems to have provided the country’s de facto government with a way to stay in power until a presidential election scheduled for the end of this month. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Craig Kelly (traveled) to Honduras on Tuesday for meetings with Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted from power four months ago, and with the...

Subject: Fwd: FW: This Sunday at 9:00 pm easternIt may be that Fox has been holding this information back due to the sensitivity of it and out of courtesy.  But, Obama has taken on Fox and it appears they are ready to spill the ugly beans of truth about the background of this individual who has had an extremely radical past.I'm not going to miss it and I hope you won't either. This should prove interesting!!This Sunday Fox news, is going to air a very important documentary about Barack Obama, Sunday night at 9 PM Eastern.The report will go back...

RADFEST 2004: MIDWEST SOCIAL FORUM FRIDAY, JUNE 44:00-5:15 REGISTRATION Education Center5:15-6:30 DINNER Dining Hall6:45-9:00 PLENARY PANEL Education "LATINOS/AS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL, SOCIAL, AND ECONOMIC ABC JUSTICE" Christine Neumann-Ortiz , Voces de la Frontera, Milwaukee Teofilo Reyes, Labor Notes, Transnationals Information Exchange, Chicago Graciela Sánchez, Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, San Antonio Renée Saucedo, La Raza Centro Legal, San Francisco9:15-? Musical Entertainment Outdoor AmphitheatreThroughout "CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION VS. GLOBAL JUSTICE GUERRILLA PHOTO Conference EXHIBIT" Education Orin Langelle, Global Justice Ecology Project Building An evolving exhibit of photographs from the most recent mobilizations against corporate globalization. The exhibit includes photographs documenting...

Some of my best friends have worked for ACORN. They are honest, dedicated and moral individuals who appreciated the mission of this group, which has done so much good for some of our poorest citizens. So I take it personally when Congress reduces ACORN to an object lesson about the purported immorality of some community organizers. ACORN isn't perfect. Both its loose organizational supervision and occasional zealotry of its organizers have led to abuses. But Congress has been extremely hypocritical and biased in cutting off federal funds. When two conservative activists posed as a pimp and a prostitute and with...

Diplomacy: The restoration of a president with dictatorial dreams in Honduras is being touted by the administration as a triumph of "dialogue." In truth, it's just old-fashioned yanqui interventionism. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed Thursday night's agreement in Tegucigalpa as "a restoration of the constitutional order," and praised it highly. "I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue." What worked here, though, wasn't dialogue, but U.S. diplomatic muscle. A last-minute mission from Assistant Secretary of State...

Anti-establishment aging hippies from the 1960s are now the Czars having a field day with a Marxist agenda. In the upside down world that comes with Barack Obama in the White House, everything is a prop—including Old Glory. “One of the 20 finalists in health care video contest run by Barack Obama’s campaign arm features a mural of an American flag splattered with health care graffiti until it’s covered completely by black paint.” (politico.com, Oct. 28, 2009.) “The video is accompanied by the sound of a heart monitor pumping and then flat-lining—words such as “pre-existing conditions”, “homeless” and “death panel”...

WASHINGTON -- The chairmen of the House and Senate foreign relations committees are asking the Law Library of Congress to retract a report on the military-backed coup in Honduras that they charge is flawed and “has contributed to the political crisis that still wracks” the country. The request, by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. and Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., has sparked cries of censorship from Republicans who say the Democrats don't like what the August report said: that the government of Honduras had the authority to remove President Manuel Zelaya from office. Zelaya has been holed up at the Brazilian embassy...

“Two people showed up saying they are responsible for making the consular changes demanded by Mrs. Patricia Rhodes, that of Marta Zuniga and Fernando Espinosa,” said David Hernandez, minister counselor of the consulate of Honduras in Washington. “They came in and locksmiths changed the locks without saying why.” The consulate is now run by people appointed by former Chancellor Rhodes, Hernandez said. Mario Fortin explained that Mrs. Marta Zuniga was named to the consular office by the former president Manuel Zelaya. The actions of former Foreign Minister Patricia Rhodes affects thousands of Hondurans living in the U.S., who now cannot...

QUESTION: Thank you. On Honduras, again? MR. KELLY: Uh-huh. QUESTION: Dialogue is again broken. I know the U.S. supports an electoral solution for that, but positions seems to be divided because the rest of the countries – I mean, the rest of the international community is not really very clear if they are going to recognize the results of this election. So where do we stand? MR. KELLY: Yeah. Well, I’m glad you asked. It is – I don’t know if I would characterize the situation as the talks have broken off, because the latest we heard this morning is...

America, I have to tell you, that your freedom of speech is under attack. Our most precious right — the one that leads directly to freedom of religion and our freedom of the press, the supposed watchdogs of our Republic — is being brutally and viciously assaulted. Here's what happened today: Jake Tapper asked Robert Gibbs about the White House's war on Fox News. Gibbs responded: "We render opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness of that coverage." Tapper then says: "That's a pretty sweeping declaration that they're not a news organization. How are they different from,...

Here is video of Rush Limbaugh today saying that radical statements by those surrounding President Obama actually reveal who President Obama is. Rush said it's not that these radicals just happened to be around Obama. "Obama is Anita Dunn - Obama is Van Jones - Obama is Ron Bloom - Obama is ACORN . . ." Rush makes this statement at around the 4:34 mark of the video. Rush played comments by both Anita Dunn and Ron Bloom praising or agreeing with Communist Dictator Mao Tse Tung. (VIDEO OF RUSH)

We know that "safe schools czar" and "Queering Elementary Education" essayist Kevin Jennings failed to oppose homosexual man-boy relationships and that science czar John Holdren has written, without objection, that "laws requiring compulsory abortion could be sustained under the existing Constitution." ...But what has not been adequately tallied is how many of President Obama's nominees and appointees are radical or just plain embarrassing. When radicalism and ethical shortcomings reach such a critical mass, it's time to broadcast the dishonor roll....The radicals: Van Jones: The "special adviser for green jobs"... Harold Koh: Barely approved to be the chief legal counsel for...

Free Press has helped put together a letter to the FCC and Congress in support of Mark Lloyd, the FCC's associate general counsel and chief diversity officer. The letter says its purpose is to speak out against the "the falsehoods and misinformation that are threatening to derail important work by Congress and the FCC." Read the whole story here

I first became aware of politics, in the ordinary sense, during the presidential election of 1948. My parents and their friends belonged to the Democratic Party and had voted for Roosevelt. It was what they called their “mass work”—going to where the people were, in order to lead them to something better. This had been the Party line since the days of the Popular Front, when under orders from Moscow the comrades abandoned their “ultra left” position and stopped calling Roosevelt a fascist. “Communism is twentieth-century Americanism,” the Party leader Earl Browder had said, promoting the spirit of cooperation...

Soon after Former President Zelaya was deposed for trying to go around the countries constitution, the "Nobel Peace Prize winner" took a position against democracy, contra to the Honduras Constitution and on the wrong side of history. “America supports now the restoration of the democratically-elected President of Honduras, even though he has strongly opposed American policies,” the president told graduate students at the commencement ceremony of Moscow’s New Economic School. “We do so not because we agree with him. We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we...

American taxpayers are planning to storm more than 100 mainstream media offices and stations across the nation next week in protest of a media blackout of the growing movement against Obama administration policies. Following sparse coverage of a massive 9/12 march on Washington, talk show host Rush Limbaugh urged citizens to bring their protests to the front doors of major media outlets. "The media [are] no longer reporters. They are repeaters," Limbaugh said on his Sept. 14 show. "There have been hundreds and thousands of protests by conservative groups that haven't been covered, and tiny turnouts by the Left that...

A diplomatic delegation has left Honduras without resolving an ongoing political stalemate over the ouster of President Manuel Zelaya. Members of the delegation sponsored by the Organization of American States departed Thursday, following talks a day earlier with representatives of both interim President Roberto Micheletti and Mr. Zelaya. Envoys also met with Mr. Micheletti, who criticized the diplomats for failing to understand why Mr. Zelaya was forcibly removed from office June 28. Additionally, Mr. Micheletti criticized the suspension of aid to the Central American nation.

QUESTION: Can we go to Honduras or -- MR. KELLY: Honduras, sure. QUESTION: It seems by the reports that the Organizational States presence there is not getting any results by the moment. I don’t know if you have more updates. And also -- MR. KELLY: Well -- QUESTION: -- it seems, I don’t know, to me – and also I was reading some reports in so many countries of Latin America that the – it’s surprising that you have there in that meeting the secretary of the hemisphere – acting secretary of the hemisphere Thomas Shannon? MR. KELLY: Assistant Secretary....

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – Diplomats from across the hemisphere on Wednesday told Honduras' interim government to reinstate ousted President Manuel Zelaya during at-times confrontational talks aimed at ending a standoff that has paralyzed this impoverished Central American nation. Delegations from about a dozen countries met with representatives of Zelaya and the coup-installed government behind closed doors in Honduras' capital, then later held talks with interim President Roberto Micheletti in a confrontation broadcast on local television. Micheletti, his voice at-times bristling with rage, scolded the diplomats for refusing to recognize what he insisted was the lawful removal of Zelaya under the Honduran...

Main points: - Look for Zelaya’s daughter, Xiomara Hortensia to take the helm of her father’s party - Foreign and domestic business owners are pressuring the interim government to negotiate - the interim government lifted their emergency powers, somewhat…details needed ------------ Honduras’ constitution prevents Manuel Zelaya from running for a second term. He wants that changed, but the new elections are next month. What if Manuel’s daughter appeared on the ballot for the November 29th run off?

U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam was in Honduras Friday to meet with the torn nation's interim president as part of a Republican fact-finding mission that flew in the face of current U.S. foreign policy. Roskam, as part of a contingent headed by South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, met with interim President Roberto Micheletti. But President Barack Obama's administration is seeking to isolate Micheletti and other architects of the military coup that ousted the nation's president for allegedly trying to defy term limits. The U.S. and European Union, among many nations around the world, have condemned the ouster of Honduras President Manuel...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Four U.S. Republican lawmakers met with Honduras' interim president on Friday in a challenge to Washington's condemnation of the coup that brought him to power. The brief, amicable visit with the leaders of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya highlights a divide in Washington, where the Obama administration is working to reinstate Zelaya but many conservatives side with the government installed after soldiers arrested the president in his pajamas and flew him into exile. South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, the leader of the delegation, said before the trip that even calling Zelaya's overthrow a coup is...

A simmering feud over U.S. policy toward Latin America burst into the open Thursday when Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) tried to prevent a fact-finding trip to Honduras by a Republican senator who is blocking two important diplomatic appointments. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) denounced Kerry's move on the Senate floor and sought the intervention of the minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Republican leader appealed to the Defense Department to provide an aircraft for DeMint's trip and the Pentagon agreed to do so, according to the South Carolina senator's office.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has blocked Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) trip to Honduras slated to begin Friday, according to DeMint's office. DeMint’s office informed The Hill of Kerry’s decision Thursday afternoon. On Thursday morning, the freshman Republican announced that he would lead a congressional delegation to Honduras on Friday ahead of the country’s Nov. 29 elections. The U.S. State Department, which acknowledges ousted President Manuel Zelaya as the legitimate ruler of the Central American nation, has said it will not recognize the contests because of ongoing political turmoil. “No U.S. Senator has...

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Business and political leaders who backed the coup overthrowing President Manuel Zelaya now are considering the unthinkable: returning him to office with limited powers. The reversal, and Zelaya's decision to consider it, reflect the growing desperation to resolve a three-month standoff that has turned this Central American country upside down. John Biehl, special adviser to the Organization of American States, said Wednesday he sensed some movement toward talks. "The moment has arrived for tempers to cool and reason to reign, and that's when errors will start being corrected," Biehl said. "I have found a strong willingness for...

But two significant themes emerged from the secret session at Llorens' residence on Sunday, themes that have the potential to finally ease the deepening political crisis that has divided and isolated Honduras and vexed Washington and other regional powers: Key backers of the coup that ousted President Manuel Zelaya three months ago have begun to temper their support for the de facto government they helped to install. And some even mention a concession until now taboo. They might agree to allow Zelaya to be reinstated and finish his term due to expire in January.

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Costa Rica's President Oscar Arias on Tuesday commended the interim president of Honduras for saying he will reverse an emergency decree suspending civil liberties in his country. But he warned that the results of the Nov. 29 presidential election in Honduras would not be internationally recognized if it is held while interim President Robert Micheletti's government is in charge. Arias said Micheletti's government "has not moved an inch" in negotiations to return ousted President Manuel Zelaya with limited authority. snip Also to blame was the Honduran constitution, he said. He called it "the worst in the...

President Obama’s “Dreams From My Father” is creating a nightmare for 1,099 Hingham High students cramming to wrap up their “required” summer read - a book, it turns out, they didn’t have to read in the first place. With school opening Tuesday, the Herald has learned teens whose offended parents complained were allowed by Principal Paula Girouard McCann and Helaine Silva, head of the Hingham Public Schools English Department, to pick any other memoir - an option they never publicized. “I had no idea,” sophomore Graham King, 15, who was only on page 120 of the 460-page autobiography yesterday, told...

Honduras' ousted president addressed the United Nations General Assembly by cellular phone late Monday from the Brazilian embassy in his country where he is holed up, calling on the world body to guarantee his personal safety and turn back the "dictatorship" that has taken power. "Those who still harbored any doubt that a dictatorship has been installed here can lay those doubts to rest," Manuel Zelaya said via a telephone brought to the General Assembly podium by his foreign minister, Patricia Rodas. "This is a fascist dictatorship that has repressed the Honduran people." Zelaya sought refuge at the Brazilian Embassy...

Today, Honduran President -- if you can still call him that -- Manuel Zelaya, continues to hide out inside the Brazilian embassy to Honduras, where he and his wife have sheltered since Sept. 21. Since being overthrown and ejected from the country by his own troops, Zelaya has been trying to win international support for his return to power. Makes sense...but he should probably scratch Israel off the list of governments to get on the blower with... Carlos Alberto Montaner, in Firmas Press, points out that Honduras actually gains by having Zelaya trapped in the Brazilian Embassy: "True, Zelaya is...

TEGUCIGALPA (Reuters) - Honduras' de facto government came under mounting pressure on Tuesday to restore civil liberties and negotiate an end to a three-month crisis sparked when President Manuel Zelaya was toppled in a coup. Zelaya was overthrown by the army on June 28, but he secretly slipped back into the country and took refuge in the Brazilian embassy a week ago. De facto leader Roberto Micheletti has ordered Zelaya's arrest, suspended civil liberties, shut two media stations loyal to Zelaya and warned Brazil it has 10 days to decide on the fate of the deposed leader or its embassy...

Let me say it again – I don't trust Barack Obama, and neither should you. And it has nothing to do with the color of his skin. How can we trust a commander in chief who values playing basketball more than he does giving immediate and full attention to his general's desperate plea for more troops? What other president, Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro notwithstanding, has publicly threatened and bullied privately owned companies in his own country for providing accurate information pursuant to what his proposed measures will truly mean for their clients? Obama promised that his administration would be...

No links from Bloomberg allowed. Link to article at site posted or below.

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – The coup-installed president of Honduras backed down Monday from an escalating standoff with protesters and suggested he would restore civil liberties and reopen dissident television and radio stations by the end of the week. Riot police ringed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya who gathered for a large-scale protest march, setting off a daylong standoff. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti declared the march illegal, sent soldiers to silence dissident broadcasters, and suspended civil liberties for 45 days. But in a sudden reversal, Micheletti said Monday afternoon that he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for...

The Law Library of the Congress of the United States has issued an opinion on the removal of Manuel Zelaya as president of Honduras. The conclusion: Zelaya’s removal was legal but his deportation from the country was not. Here is the summary: The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings. The Constitution no longer authorizes impeachment, but gives Congress the power to disapprove...

Without regard to one's views about the health care legislation promoted by President Obama and currently being redrafted by Sen. Max Baucus, everyone is entitled to expect that the task will be carried out with competence and integrity — also with dignity and a high regard for the intelligence of the American people. Further, even if everyone agreed that the proposed federal interventions in health care were consistent with "best medical practice" and produced the best possible medical care at the least price, all these federal actions would still have to meet constitutional standards. The controversial tax that both Obama...

WASHINGTON — The United States pledged Tuesday to do whatever it can to help Brazil's embassy in Honduras, which was surrounded by soldiers and had its lights, water and phone lines cut off after deposed President Manuel Zelaya took refuge there. "Our embassy in Tegucigalpa is in contact with their counterparts in the Brazilian embassy in Tegucigalpa and we're discussing what kind of assistance that we can provide to help them during this crisis," said State Department spokesman Ian Kelly. "It's a very sensitive situation there on the ground, and I don't want to get into the details of what...

Some Americans are still denial that a guy who appoints avowed communists to his circle of advisors, pursues massive government intervention in the economy, seeks to redistribute wealth, and sides with Marxist dictators like Castro and Chavez against the free people of a sovereign country ... is probably a socialist himself. But the Communist Chinese are under no such delusions. Hat Tip: Knowledge Is Power

Nadler: Liberals prepared to buck Obama, Dem leadership By Michael O'Brien - 09/21/09 03:13 PM ET Liberals in the House are prepared to buck President Obama and House Democratic leaders if they're presented a healthcare bill without a public option. Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said Monday he is optimistic that any healthcare bill from the House will include a public (or "government-run") option, and are undertaking a whip count to test lawmakers' commitment to that measure. "The public option is still very much alive only because the progressives have stood together and held our ground and said that, regardless of...

TEGUCIGALPA - Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya has taken refuge inside the Brazilian embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, Telesur television network reported Monday. Zelaya had announced Monday he returned to Honduras almost three months after he was toppled in a coup, despite warnings he would be arrested. The U.S. State Department confirmed that Zelaya, an ally of Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez, was back in Honduras but the Central American country's de facto ruler denied Zelaya had returned. "I am here in Tegucigalpa. I am here for the restoration of democracy, to call for dialogue." Zelaya told Honduras'...

ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN went nationwide. Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration...

TEL AVIV – There is no moral concern regarding cloning human beings since human embryos, which develop into a baby, are "only a handful of cells," argued President Obama's newly confirmed regulatory czar, Cass Sunstein. "If scientists will be using and cloning embryos only at a very early stage when they are just a handful of cells (say, before they are four days old), there is no good reason for a ban (on cloning)," wrote Sunstein, who was confirmed by the Senate last week as administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. "It is silly to...

The Boise City Council passed a controversial health care resolution Tuesday night by a four to three margin. Mayor Dave Bieter passed the deciding vote after listening to more than an hour of public testimony. Most of that testimony was against the resolution on the national health care crises. Less than a handful sided with the mayor who'd proposed the resolution. "You're not concerning yourself with city Business at all I don't think you guys need to comment on it," one man told the council just before applause broke out inside council chambers. The resolution reads "The city council of...

Here is video of Fox News' Major Garrett pressing White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about President Obama's use of "Czars" in his administration. Gibbs mentioned that Republicans were OK with Bush having "czars," and said there's a lot of politics going on in criticizing Obama about the use of czars. Of course, Gibbs did not say anything about the fact he is using an unprecedented number of Czars in a way that in essence, seems to be circumventing his own Cabinet, and the need for confirmation by the Senate. . . . (VIDEO)

It doesn’t matter what side of the debate you are on. One thing is becoming clear, and that is that Mark Williams, along with the racist sign holders during protests (and I mean the ones with the actual racist signs, not the protesters in general) are not coming off well. Mark Williams was on the panel of CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″, and he didn’t come off looking very good. Not only did he contradict a number of his own points, but he stumbled through the interview, and was actually openly laughed at by the other panelists. It is a trend...

The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.”—George Soros - “George Soros is an evil man. He’s anti-God, anti-family, anti-American, and anti-good.” —Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson - Is it possible to lay the global financial meltdown, the radicalizing of the Democratic Party, and America’s moral decline, at the feet of one man? It is indeed possible. If George Soros isn’t the world’s preeminent “malignant messianic narcissist,” he’ll do until the real thing comes along. Move over, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. There’s a new kid on the block. What we have in Soros,...