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Broken deals, bitter words and a state shuts down
Dayton renewed his call to tax the rich; GOP pointed to harm of long-term debt. The governor and legislative leaders worked into the evening in a last-ditch bid for resolution.
Dayton and Republican legislators have been stalemated since January over how to balance the budget and close out the projected deficit. Dayton largely won election on a promise to preserve cherished state services by increasing taxes on the richest 2 percent of (…)

By E.J. Dionne, Jr.Our nation confronts a challenge this Fourth of July that we face but rarely: We are at odds over the meaning of our history and why, to quote our Declaration of Independence, “governments are instituted.”
Only divisions this deep can explain why we are taking risks with our country’s future we’re usually wise enough to avoid. Arguments over how much government should tax and spend are the very stuff of democracy’s give-and-take. Now, the debate is shadowed by worries (…)

July 4, 2011: The Cycle of Dependency and the Atrophy of Self-Reliance
Charles Hugh Smith, July 2, 2011
The 4th of July marks the birth of the nation, and as such is a good time to distinguish between the nation and its Central government, the Savior State.
The 4th of July is a fitting day to ponder the reality that we are at Peak Government, and the Savior State is unsustainable. This is a matter of accounting: no nation can spend more than it generates in surplus real output forever. (…)

’War on terror’ set to surpass cost of Second World War
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Thursday, 30 June 2011
The total cost to America of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the related military operations in Pakistan, is set to exceed $4 trillion – more than three times the sum so far authorised by Congress in the decade since the 9/11 attacks.
Click HERE to view graphic (101 kb)
This staggering sum emerges from a new study by academics at the Ivy-league Brown University (…)

The World must stop Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) occupation and genocide variously in Occupied Palestine, Occupied Syria, Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan. The World should make 4 July Independence From America Day.
We all know the great words of the 4 July 1776 American Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain (…)

Holocaust ignoring is far worse than holocaust denial because at least the latter admits of sensible discussion. The taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) (Australia’s equivalent of the UK BBC) has under-estimated the currently 2.7 million war-related deaths in post-invasion Iraq by as much as a factor of 26 (while avoiding Australian complicity). Searches of the ABC for the terms “Iraqi Holocaust” and “Iraqi Genocide” yield zero (0) results whereas searches for “Jewish (…)

Climate criminal Australia leads the First World in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, is the world’s leading coal exporter and is among the world’s top liquid natural gas (LNG) exporters.
However Australia, like its fellow major GHG polluters Canada and the US, wants business as usual (BAU) GHG pollution despite public rhetoric to the contrary that, as described below, requires extraordinary censorship of major Elephant in the Room realities by Mainstream media, lobbyists (…)

T-Minus Two Months Until The $500 Billion Rolling Debt Ticking Timebomb Goes Off
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/01/2011 14:07 -0400
Debt Ceiling Fitch New Debt Issuance ratings Ratings Agencies Reality
Ever since the famous Stanley Druckenmiller Op Ed published in early May, which called for an outright default of the US, saying it would not be the end of the world, and in fact the US would emerge stronger as a result of finally taking the first steps to getting its fiscal house in (…)

Mr President Obama The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W.
Washington DC 20500
Mr President,
The five Cubans Gerardo Hernández Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Ramón Labañino, and René González, are imprisoned in your country for almost thirteen years now. They came to Miami to infiltrate the terrorist underworld in order to avoid the terrorist attacks that were increasing against tourist facilities in Havana during the eighties. The documents that the Cuban (…)

And what next? Israel to charge Palestinians for killing them?
A Committee of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) passed a first draft of a law that will require that Palestinians whose homes are destroyed by Israeli forces pay the Israeli government for the demolition costs :
http://www.imemc.org/article/61573
Followed shortly by Israel to charge Flotilla for making them attack and sink the ships.
Hypocrisy know no bounds when it comes to Israel