Obama Administration Shuts Down 9/11 Families Lawsuit

The Obama administration has effectively ended the efforts of families of victims of the September 11th attacks to bring lawsuits against members of the Saudi Royal family for financial links to the conspiracy.

The Supreme Court today ruled that it will not allow any lawsuits to go ahead, just a few weeks after the government filed a court brief asking that the case be quashed.

The court, in an order Monday, is leaving in place the ruling of a federal appeals court that the country and the princes are protected by sovereign immunity, which generally means that foreign countries can’t be sued in American courts, reports the Associated Press.

Cybersecurity Is Framework For Total Government Regulation & Control Of Our Lives

The Obama administration’s new Cybersecurity system will only make the Internet more vulnerable to attack, while creating the framework for a massively upgraded government surveillance grid that will control and regulate every aspect of our daily lives through the implementation of “smart” technology.

Obama’s announcement of the new cybersecurity grid dovetails with a recently introduced Senate bill, the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, that would hand the president the power to shut down the entire Internet in the event of a “cybersecurity” crisis.

“The bill’s draft states that “the president may order a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic” and would give the government ongoing access to “all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access,” reports Raw Story.

Obama administration sides with Saudis on 9/11 suit

Members of 9/11 victims’ families, who filed a lawsuit seeking to pin blame on the Saudi royal family for financing attacks against the United States, just acquired a significant new opponent: the Obama administration.

A Department of Justice brief (PDF link) filed with the Supreme Court on Friday argues that the Saudi royal family is party to a sovereign state and cannot be sued in American courts.

Fifteen of the 19 alleged 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia, according to the FBI. Former President George W. Bush waited six years to acknowledge this in public.

Google’s Global Policy Head Said to Join Obama Administration

Google Inc.’s head of global public policy, Andrew McLaughlin, is leaving the company to become deputy chief technology officer for the Obama administration, a person familiar with the matter said.

McLaughlin, who was Google’s first public policy executive, built Google’s presence in Washington, helping promote the Mountain View, California-based company’s position on topics such as online privacy, so-called net neutrality and copyrights.

McLaughlin’s departure highlights the connections between Google, the most popular Internet search engine, and the Obama administration. Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt is part of the president’s council of advisers on science and technology. Schmidt also campaigned for the government’s economic stimulus package, which was passed earlier this year.

The ‘new’ Neapolitan?

On a hot summer day, nothing goes down quite like a frosty cold serving of racist ice cream.

Wait, what did I just write?!?

Okay, so being in media, we tend to develop a sort-of gallows humor about all the craziness we read and pass along to you guys every single day. But, here’s a new level of nucking futs: An ice cream maker in Russia (with the very Soviet-sounding name “Ice Cream Plant No 3”)  has launched an Obama-themed treat called “Duet,” a mixture of vanilla and chocolate.

Doublespeak on North Korea

Obama Calls on World to ‘Stand Up To’ North Korea” read the headline. The United States, Obama said, was determined to protect “the peace and security of the world.”

Shades of doublespeak, doublethink, 1984.

North Korea is a small place. China alone could snuff it out in a few minutes. Yet, the president of the US thinks that nothing less than the entire world is a match for North Korea.

We are witnessing the Washington gangsters construct yet another threat like Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, John Walker Lindh, Hamdi, Padilla, Sami Al-Arian, Hamas, Mahkmoud Ahmadinejad, and the hapless detainees demonized by the US Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as “the 700 most dangerous terrorists on the face of the earth,” who were tortured for six years at Gitmo only to be quietly released. Just another mistake, sorry.

The military/security complex that rules America, together with the Israel Lobby and the financial banksters, needs a long list of dangerous enemies to keep the taxpayers’ money flowing into its coffers.

Obama Out-Bushes Bush on Preventive Detention

If George Bush had had the gall to propose changing the laws of the United States to allow people to be detained for long periods without even the intention of putting them on trial, progressives across the nation would be howling that the fascist hordes were at the gates. And they would be right. Even the do-nothing, scared-of-nearly-everything Congressional Black Caucus would be up in arms. George Bush and Dick Cheney empowered to imprison people without trial? Progressives everywhere would be justified in crying out against the threat to civilization as we know it. But when Barack Obama last week proposed the very same thing, preventive detention without trial, there was relative silence…

Coming Soon To a City Near You

In November of 2008, millions of American voters went to the polls and voted for “change.” Many are beginning to realize that very little has actually changed. When those who run the state apparatus begin to realize a lack of confidence in their abilities to control, drastic measures are often employed.

For two consecutive election cycles, 2006 and 2008, the American electorate voted against the illegal, immoral wars of the Bush administration. Now that we have a Bush clone in a darker skin tone, no one seems to care about the killing, maiming and torturing. To the hypocritical voters in America, the crime is irrelevant, it only matters whose criminal is pulling the trigger.

The “change” since the election, as I see it, is: a much larger national debt, ever expanding wars in the Middle East, a greater threat to personal liberty, a huge increase in gun sales, a national shortage of ammo, and rapidly increasing fuel prices. Is that the “change” Americans voted for?

Obama Set to Create A Cybersecurity Czar With Broad Mandate

President Obama is expected to announce late this week that he will create a “cyber czar,” a senior White House official who will have broad authority to develop strategy to protect the nation’s government-run and private computer networks, according to people who have been briefed on the plan.

The adviser will have the most comprehensive mandate granted to such an official to date and will probably be a member of the National Security Council but will report to the national security adviser as well as the senior White House economic adviser, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations are not final.

America’s Nightmare: The Obama Dystopia

After 8 years of the Bush-Cheney nightmare during which we saw the wanton destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, the cynical  negation of centuries of Law designed to protect the most basic human rights and a foreign policy worthy of Genghis Khan, there came along the “Great Black Hope” in the persona of Barack Obama. The collective world consciousness turned uncritically to what was presented as a new era for peace, change and trust in Government.

Never before had one witnessed such an accomplished use of manipulation, propaganda, imagery and public relations wizardry to sell the public a man who was to take the baton from Bush and run with it in the race to destroy the economy, the rights of the people and help birth a nation totally controlled by those who have always lurked in the shadows of power. “Change” was promised and was delivered in the form of a deepening of the already Dystopic  nightmare.

Rachel Maddow on Obama’s Indefinate Preventative Detention Plan

Geithner Rejects Limits On Bailed out Bankers Pay

Timothy Geithner, US treasury secretary, said on Monday he opposes caps on executive pay in companies receiving bailouts from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

Geithner, speaking at a live broadcast interview hosted by Newsweek, made a number of notable remarks, including the claim that the economy has “clearly stabilized” despite the daily growth of unemployment and other indices of social distress. However, his comments on executive compensation stood out most of all.

Geithner, who said he received a “generous salary appropriate for a public servant,” was asked if “it would be a reasonable proposal that companies receiving TARP money should [have their executive pay] capped at what the secretary of the treasury makes?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Geithner replied. “I don’t think our government should set caps on compensation.”

Obama to Keep Israel’s Nuclear ‘Secrets’

Israeli officials breathed a collective sigh of relief today, as a senior Israeli diplomat assured that the nation’s massive nuclear arsenal, well known though never publicly acknowledged, would remain a secret.

Barack Obama to appoint Louis Susman American ambassador in London

President Barack Obama, who promised to appoint more career diplomats to prestige posts abroad, is to install a wealthy financier who was one of his top campaign fundraisers to the plum job of American ambassador in London.

‘Go home Nazi scum,’ Serb hardliners tell Biden

Serb ultra-nationalist lawmakers held up insulting signs in parliament Wednesday as US Vice President Joe Biden, considered a strong backer of Kosovo independence, arrived in Belgrade.

“Biden, you Nazi scum, go home,” said the posters brandished by opposition Radical Party deputies during the live national broadcast of a parliament sitting which coincided with the start of Biden’s visit.

The Radicals, who occupy around a fifth of places in the 250-seat assembly, then pasted the signs which also labelled Biden a “fascist” on a notice board and hallway.

Democrats move to deny funds for Gitmo closure

US President Barack Obama’s plan to close the Guantanamo Bay prison by early 2010 hit a snag Tuesday as his Democratic Senate allies moved to deny his 80-million-dollar request to shut the facility.

Guantanamo Baywatch – The Final Season

WATCH IT HERE

HR 645: Congress Seeks to Authorize & Legalize FEMA Camps

A new bill has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives called the National Emergency Centers Act or HR 645. This bill, if passed into law, will direct the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish national emergency centers otherwise known as FEMA camp facilities on military installations. This is an incredibly disturbing piece of legislation considering that the powers that be have already set in motion an agenda to setup a nationwide marital law apparatus through U.S. Northern Command and the Department of Homeland Security.

Obama Picks Up Where Bush Left Off: From My Lai to Bala Baluk

Barack Obama is aggressively stepping up the war in Afghanistan. He’s intensified the cross-border bombing of Pakistan and he is doubling the number of U.S. troops to 68,000 by 2010. He’s also a strong proponent of pilotless drones even though hundreds of civilians have been killed in bombing raid blunders.

Obama believes that civilian casualties are an unavoidable part of achieving one’s policy goals. The end justifies the means. He has strengthened the Bush policy, not repudiated it. So much for “change”.

The Impotent President

What do you suppose it is like to be elected president of the United States only to find that your power is restricted to the service of powerful interest groups?

A president who does a good job for the ruling interest groups is paid off with remunerative corporate directorships, outrageous speaking fees, and a lucrative book contract. If he is young when he assumes office, like Bill Clinton and Obama, it means a long life of luxurious leisure.

Anger at Obama Guantanamo ruling

Civil liberties groups have reacted angrily to US President Barack Obama’s decision to revive military trials for some Guantanamo Bay detainees.

Mr Obama has previously denounced the Bush-era judicial system, but in a statement said new safeguards would ensure suspects got a fairer hearing.

New rules include rejecting statements obtained from harsh interrogations and limitations on using hearsay evidence.

There are still 240 detainees at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Little Crop of Horrors

Sam Bee warns that Michelle Obama’s elitist organic garden could simultaneously cause starvation, obesity and cancer.

Moral Kombat

Barack Obama blocks the release of detainee photos, and refuses to intervene in the dismissal of a gay lieutenant.

Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

Obama will continue Bush-era military tribunals

Breaking a key promise from his campaign, President Barack Obama is expected to announce Friday the return of military commission trials for a small number of terrorism suspects. Obama had previously promised to abolish them.

The tribunals, often criticized as overly protective of state secrets and willing to accept evidence obtained while defendants were allegedly tortured, were suspended mere hours after Obama took office.