US News // Current

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24 days ago

7 million a day to israel in 2009 but no healthcare? WHY?

7 million dollars a day to israel in the form of aid and no healthcare. Ask your congress and your senate to stop funding the terrorist state of israel and pay for your healthcare instead.

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FROM THE LINK

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.”

- John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
"The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy"

* The source for US military aid to Israel during Fiscal Year 2009 is the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated February 3, 2009. According to this report, by early February 2009, the US had already given Israel at least $2.55 billion ($2,500,000,000) in military aid for Fiscal Year 2009.

Over the last 20 years, the U.S. has been slowly phasing out economic aid to Israel and gradually replacing it with increased military aid. Beginning in 2007, the U.S. has been increasing military aid by $150 million each year. By FY2013, we will be sending Israel $3.15 billion a year (or an average of $8.6 million a day) and will continue to provide military aid at that level through 2018. U.S. tax dollars are subsidizing one of the most powerful foreign militaries. According to the CRS report, “[current U.S. military aid] grants to Israel represent 18.5% of the overall Israeli defense budget.”

Contrary to ordinary U.S. policy, Israel has been and continues to be allowed to use over 26% of this military aid to purchase equipment from Israeli manufacturers. According to CRS, “no other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit.” Thanks in part to this indirect U.S. subsidy, Israel’s arms industry has become one of the strongest in the world. “In 2007, it was the 8th largest arms supplier to the developing world.”

In addition to military aid, the United States continues to provide Israel with additional aid and benefits. The numbers are not yet available for FY2009, but are likely to be significant.

By all accounts the United States has given more money to Israel than to any other country. The Congressional Research Service’s conservative estimate of total cumulative US aid to Israel (not adjusted for inflation) from 1949 through 2009 is $106.1647 billion.

A November 2008 Washington Report article “A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $114 Billion,” by Shirl McArthur, puts the cumulative total even higher.

According to McArthur, “[T]he indirect or consequential costs to the American taxpayer as a result of Washington’s blind support for Israel exceed by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel. Some of these ‘indirect or consequential’ costs would include the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the Arab oil embargo and consequent soaring oil prices as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the 1973 war, and the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria. (For a discussion of these larger costs, see ‘The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion,’ by the late Thomas R. Stauffer, June 2003 Washington Report, p. 20.)”

** The source for US aid to the Palestinians during Fiscal Year 2009 is the Congressional Research Service's Report “U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians”, written by Jim Zanotti, Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated February 20, 2009. According to the report the U.S. has never provided Palestinians with military aid (although we have provided Palestinians with aid for policing their own people as well as with humanitarian and development assistance).7 million dollars a day to israel in the form of aid and no healthcare. Ask your congress and your senate to stop funding the... more

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1 month ago

HOW WAS HAWAI`I ILLEGALLY TAKEN OVER?

http://FreeHawaii.Info USA covert and overt activities led to the invasion of the Hawaiian Kingdom and immediately recognized... more

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1 month ago

Roller derby culture takes off in Harrisburg area

Lady of Blocksley has received some elbows to the face, but she rolls with the punches. However, she and her sexy skater... more

b_reilly
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1 month ago

Sex offender law could go global with California lawmaker's bill

Megan's Law soon could go international. The law, named after Megan Kanka, a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and... more

Future_America
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1 month ago

College Shooting At An Alabama University

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35372168/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/ A biology professor was in custody Friday after a shooting at... more

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1 month ago

California may have to cut prison population by 40 percent

(CNN) -- Federal judges tentatively ruled on Monday that California must reduce the number of inmates in its overcrowded prison... more

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1 month ago

OBAMA HAS AUTHORIZED AN ECONOMIC WAR AGAINST VENEZUELA

WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in order to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez.

After a successful coup against Chavez ally, President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, and the very thin 51-49 percent electoral win by Chile’s billionaire right-winger Sebastian Pinera on January 17, a buoyed Obama White House has given a green light for political operatives in Venezuela, many of whom operate under the cover of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to set the stage for massive street demonstrations to protest Chavez’s devaluation of the bolivar, Venezuela’s currency.

Chavez devalued the bolivar by 50 percent to make Venezuelan oil exports less expensive, thus boosting revenue for his country. However, the devaluation has also seen price rises and inflation in Venezuela and the CIA and its subservient NGOs have wasted little time in putting out stories about consumers rushing to the stories ahead of an increase in consumer products, with imported flat-screen televisions being the favorite consumer item being hyped by the corporate media as seeing a huge price increase and long lines at shopping malls favored by the Venezuelan elites.

The state has exempted certain consumer goods such as food, medicines, school supplies, and industrial machinery from being affected by the bolivar’s devaluation through a different exchange rate and price controls, but it is the price increases on televisions, tobacco, alcohol, cell phones, and computers that has the anti-Chavez forces in Venezuela and abroad hyping the ill-effects on the Venezuelan consumer.

To battle against businessmen who are trying to capitalize on the devaluation of the bolivar, Chavez has threatened to close and possibly seize any business that gouges the consumer by inordinately raising prices. The first target of a temporary closure was a Caracas store owned by the French firm Exito.

International investment analysts praised Chavez’s decision to devalue the bolivar and said the decision was overdue considering the fall of oil prices worldwide. However, the CIA and NGOs, many aligned with George Soros’s Open Society Institute and the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy are planning large street demonstrations against Chavez’s handling of the economy.

National Assembly elections are scheduled for September but the Obama administration has decided that if Chavez can be removed now, his allies in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and some Caribbean island states will quickly abandon Chavez’s alternative to American-led Western Hemisphere financial contrivances and free trade pacts, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The Obama planners then see Cuba, once again, being isolated in the hemisphere and ripe for increased U.S. political pressure. Cuba was placed on the list of 14 countries requiring additional airline passenger screening as part of the policy to pressure and isolate Cuba. There is a possibility that with the outbreak of U.S.-inspired violence in the streets of Venezuela, that nation could join Cuba on the list as the 15th country.

The Obama administration’s assault is two-fold: economic and political. Pressure is being applied against the gasoline chain Citgo, which is owned by the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, and Venezuelan investment favorability ratings. Politically, the U.S. is overtly and covertly funneling money to anti-Chavez groups through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and groups affiliated with George Soros.

There is also a small military component to Obama’s strategy of undermining Chavez. U.S., P-3 Orion overflights of Venezuelan airspace from bases in Aruba and Curacao are designed to intimidate Chavez and activate Venezuelan radar and command, control, communications, and intelligence (C3I) systems to gather electronic and signals intelligence data that would be used by the United States to jam Venezuelan military networks in the event of a U.S.-inspired uprising against Chavez by U.S. loyalists embedded in the Venezuelan military, police, PDVSA, and media. The U.S. is also stoking cross-border incursions into Venezuela by Colombian paramilitaries to gauge Venezuela’s border defenses. Last November, Colombian right-wing paramilitary units killed two Venezuelan National Guardsmen inside Venezuela in Tachira state. Weapons caches maintained by Colombians inside Venezuela have been seized by Venezuelan authorities. Venezuela has also arrested a number of Colombian DAS intelligence agents inside Venezuela.

Obama signed a military agreement with Colombia that allows the United States to establish seven air and naval bases in Colombia. An additional agreement by Obama with Panama will see the U.S. military return to that nation to set up two military bases.

It is estimated that some 25 percent of Venezuelans are likely Fifth Columnists who would take part in a revolt against Chavez. Many of them based in the Venezuelan oil-producing state of Zulia and the capital of Maracaibo, where successive U.S. ambassadors in Caracas have stoked secessionist embers and where the CIA and U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency have concentrated much of their efforts. In November, Venezuelan police arrested in Maracaibo, Magaly Janeth Moreno Vega, also known as “The Pearl,” the leader of the right-wing United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which has been directly linked to Colombia’s pro-U.S. President Alvaro Uribe and members of his government, including former Colombian Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio Isaza, appointed by Uribe as Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico.WMR’s intelligence sources have reported that the Obama administration has authorized an economic war against Venezuela in... more

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1 month ago

Pot returned — all 4 pounds of it

Daniel Sosa didn’t know what to expect when he flew into Crescent City on Friday to pick up 4 pounds of marijuana. Sosa... more

JackHerer
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1 month ago

Julie Falco brings hope to Multiple Sclerosis patients. Cannabinoids manage pain and promote repair!

During late 1990's Julie Falco was contemplating suicide. After being prescribed every pharmaceutical known to manage the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis, she found herself facing a grim reality.

The side effects of the drugs were even more debilitating than the disease itself."

Nothing worked. I forgot what it felt like to have MS. I had side effects from medication. The numbness due to drugs was a different feeling that totally masked the feeling of Multiple Sclerosis. My disease had escalated from side effects of the drugs. The muscle relaxer slowed my heart-beat to 40 beats per minute. I couldn’t move. I would get tightened fingers and toes. Is that an MS symptom or the drug side effect? I was in a total state of not functioning .
During that time with all of these side effects and sensations, I was getting more and more depressed. Nothing seemed to work and nothing seemed to make me feel better. I felt worse and worse day after day.

Julie's journey into the frightening world of Multiple Sclerosis began 23 years ago.

I was home from college for spring break. When I went to the store my foot was dragging on the ground but I figured it must have fallen asleep. It was like that the whole weekend...a numbness and tingly feeling. And I slept for a week. All of the sudden everything cleared up for 2 years.

In 1988 Julie lost her eyesight for a week. She had double vision and couldn't track people. Optic Neuritis is one of the most frequently presenting symptoms of multiple sclerosis, although there are other causes. Indeed, ON is the most common symptom at onset of MS and presents unilaterally (in one eye only) in 70% of cases. The majority of all cases of ON, MS-related or not, are caused by demyelination.

Julie's neurologist diagnosed her with Multiple Sclerosis. But at that time, there were no medications available, no treatments. The neurologist told her, "Don't bother to do anything about it." About that time they first came out with MRIs for MS. If you were having an exacerbation you would go into hospital for 3 days for steroids.

As the pharmaceutical industry developed drugs that the FDA approved for MS Julie tried everything except Cannabis.

In college I was familiar with Cannabis. By the late 90s my insomnia and leg spasticity were so bad that I decided to try cannabis. I'm prone to headaches and very sensitive. The smoke was irritating so I really didn't think Cannabis was a serious option for me.

MS is a progressive disease. I had no beacon of light. By 2004 when I was entertaining committing suicide Cannabis became my last hope.
I have pain relief for the day! I can get through the day and still manage my symptoms. It is a more manageable pain level. I have no diminished capacity for thinking. Cannabis has had a profound effect on my bladder and bowel functioning. Before taking it I experienced urgency and accidents which of course increased my stress. The urgency is all gone.now I'm no longer depressed, not wanting to take my life any more. Cannabis improved my emotional situation.

http://www.examiner.com/x-19678-Cannabis-Revolution-Examiner~y2010m2d10-Julie-Falco-brings-hope-to-Multiple-Sclerosis-patients-Cannabinoids-manage-pain-and-promote-repairDuring late 1990's Julie Falco was contemplating suicide. After being prescribed every pharmaceutical known to manage the... more

JackHerer
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1 month ago

"How Weed Won the West" VIP Screening at Organica Dispensary

On Saturday February 13th at 8:00PM, the new feature length documentary from Sacred Cow Productions, “How Weed Won the... more

JackHerer
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1 month ago

VODOO IN HAITI CAUSES ALL SORT OF DRAMA

Max Beauvoir, Haiti's "supreme master" of voodoo, alleged his faith's opponents had deliberately prevented... more

bking74
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1 month ago

East Coast Digging Out

A horrible winter storm grips the Northeast

Rickharmon25
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1 month ago

Al Qaeda Attacks on U.S. Soil: Brought to you by the military industrial complex « I Stay In So You Can Go Out

Pop Quiz- why do terrorist want to attack us? This is not multiple choice. Short answers only, leave your answers in the comments... more

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1 month ago

Real-life sleeping beauty

A 15 year old girl has a rare sleeping disorder that causes her to sleep for days.... more

Rickharmon25
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1 month ago

Pot-dispensary boom has affiliated businesses buzzing

Until a few months ago, J.B. Woods was your standard-issue insurance agent. Auto, home, life. Would you like flood coverage with... more

JackHerer
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1 month ago

Danica to race Daytona after successful ARCA race

MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Danica Patrick will make her Nationwide Series debut in the No. 7 Chevrolet Saturday at Daytona, JR Motorsports general manager Kelley Earnhardt announced Monday.

Patrick, Earnhardt, and team officials convened Sunday following the ARCA event at Daytona, in which Patrick raced to a sixth-place finish in her stock-car debut. The decision for Patrick to compete in the Daytona Nationwide Series event is supported by sponsor GoDaddy.com and JRM co-owners Dale Earnhardt Jr., Tony Eury Jr., and Rick Hendrick.

"Racing in the Nationwide Series race was my goal during this entire two-month preparation process, but we wanted to make sure it was the right thing to do,"m Patrick said. "The ARCA race was a blast, and I'm not ready for my first Daytona Speedweeks to end just yet. I want more racing."

Patrick's entry in the Drive4COPD 300 puts her in a JR Motorsports tandem with Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will drive the No. 88 Chevrolet. Patrick will continue her Nationwide Series schedule on Feb. 20 at Fontana and Feb. 27 at Las Vegas. Patrick is guaranteed starting positions in all three races based off JRM's acquisition of points from CJM Racing's No. 11 team, which finished 15th in the 2009 Nationwide Series owners' point standings.

"I think Danica proved to everyone that she can compete in stock cars at a high level, and right now seat time is extremely important," Kelley Earnhardt said. "She has worked extremely hard during the past two months for this opportunity. Her dedication and work ethic is infectious."

Patrick, the only woman to win an IndyCar Series race, had considered not competing at Daytona because of the uniqueness of restrictor-plate racing and also the number of Sprint Cup drivers in the event. But having survived a spin and moving from the back of the pack to near the front during the ARCA race, Patrick felt as if she progressed enough to make her NASCAR debut on NASCAR's biggest stage a day before the Daytona 500.

"There's been a lot of people, a lot of really good people, that have told me it's not the right place to start," Patrick said Friday. "It's a weird race. There's so many Cup guys out there. I don't want to be out there and make a mistake and take somebody out that's running for a championship or, God forbid, take out one of the Cup guys and making them mad right away.

"And it will not happen on purpose but it will be inexperience, so I just want to play it smart."MOORESVILLE, N.C. -- Danica Patrick will make her Nationwide Series debut in the No. 7 Chevrolet Saturday at Daytona, JR... more

Rickharmon25
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1 month ago

Super Bowl XLIV

Super Bowl XLIV was the 44th Super Bowl game that was played on February 7, 2010, pitting the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts against the National Football Conference (NFC) champion New Orleans Saints. The New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 31-17, earning their first Super Bowl win. The venue was the Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, and the game's kickoff took place at 6:28 p.m. EST (23:28 UTC) on February 7, 2010, the latest calendar date for a Super Bowl yet. The game features the Saints' first Super Bowl appearance since their founding in 1967, while it is the fourth time a Colts franchise team has appeared, since their founding in 1953 as the Baltimore Colts. In their three previous Super Bowl appearances, all also in Miami, the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts have lost once in 1969 and won twice in 1971 and 2007.

The Saints entered the game with a 13-3 record for the 2009 regular season, compared to the Colts' 14-2 record. In the playoff games, both teams had a 1st round bye. The Colts entered the Super Bowl off of 20–3 and 30–17 victories, while the Saints advanced with scores of 45–14 and 31–28 (in overtime), defeating last year's runners up the Arizona Cardinals in their first game. The Pittsburgh Steelers, as defending champions, failed to make the playoffs based on tiebreakers. It was the first time since Super Bowl XXVIII (16 years previously) that both number one seeds have reached the Super Bowl. The Saints' head coach was Sean Payton, having joined from the Dallas Cowboys in 2006, while his opposing head coach Jim Caldwell was appointed the Colts head coach in 2009 having joined them in 2002 as assistant head coach.

It was the tenth time the Super Bowl has been held in Miami at the home stadium of the Miami Dolphins: four previous games have been played in the Sun Life Stadium, and five were played in the Dolphins' now demolished former home, the Miami Orange Bowl. Per convention as an even numbered Super Bowl, the Colts as the AFC representatives have the home team designation, wearing blue jerseys with white pants, while the Saints (who wore their white jerseys in several home games this year) will wear white jerseys with gold pants. The game was broadcast live on CBS, and the halftime show featured the English rock band The Who.Super Bowl XLIV was the 44th Super Bowl game that was played on February 7, 2010, pitting the American Football Conference (AFC)... more