Press TV: 75,000 US Veterans Face Homelessness!

Over 75,000 US Military Personnel face homelessness after they return from our wars abroad, according to data published by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, the number of US veterans, homeless on any given night , as of June this year, is more than 75,700. "It's a critical time - we have veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who may be homeless in greater numbers than in the past, said Anne Oliva, Dirctor of the Department of Housing and Urban Development's homeless office. Deployed in military missions overseas, veterans have trouble finding employment in their home states. At the present time, the employment rate among young veterans is nearly 21 percent. "It's a national disgrace, and reflects the overall situation of the US economy, which is currently in a state of collapse," said Edward Spannaus, Legal Affairs Editor. "Young men and women join the army because that is the only job which is now available". In addition, the homeless people come from the poor layers of society, and from the poorest parts of our country. Layered above all of their fears, the detrimental psychological effects of war on combatants has resulted in 300,000 post-traumatic stress disorders. Bottom line: The US government has failed in its duty to ease the transition from veterans' military lives to jobs in the civilian environment.

Obama Lied to Us: Former CIA Agent Says Americans Did Not Kill Bin Laden!

Osama bin Laden died a natural death nearly 5 years before Obama tried to take credit for his death. This sensational statement was made by a Turkish politician, and a former US intelligence agent. In an interview with Russia's Channel One, he said that the Americans simply found and opened the tomb of the former leader of al-Qaeda. The Russian journalists of Channel One first met Osama in 2008. At the time,he was featured in the documentary "Plan Caucasus," talking about the attempts of "western intelligence" services in the 1990's to separate the Northern Caucasus, and in particular Chechnya from Russia. Chechen by nationality, Berkan Yashar is now a Turkish politician, but in those years he was one of the ideologists of Johar Dudayev. He asked for a meeting, promising to tell the truth about the death of Osama bin Laden, whom he met in the early 90-ies in Chechnya. "In September of 1992 I was in Chechnya, and that was when I first met Bin Laden. The meeting took place in a two-story house in the city of Grozny. On the top floor was the family of Gamsakhurdia, the Georgian president, who later had to leave that country. We met on the bottom floor, and Osama lived in the same building. Berkan said he did not know why Bin Laden visited that town, but at the time, he just wanted to talk. According to the former employee of Radio Liberty Berkan, Yashar had taken the codename Abubakar, a name given to him by the American CIA. Berkan Yashar emphasized that his group did not participate directly in terror bombings. The men around him protected bin Laden so that he could concentrate on his important mission of liberating his people from the Yoke of the Americans.

Paul Shemm: AP - Libya Bars Italy From Oil Sector

Libya on Thursday barred Italy, one of the country's largest investors, from its oil sector because of Rome's role in the NATO airstrikes on the country, a move that raised serious questions about investments by Italian oil giant ENI SpA in the OPEC member state. In Moscow, meanwhile, a Russian newspaper quoted the Kremlin's special envoy to Libya as saying that Moammar Gadhafi has threatened to blow up Tripoli, if the Libyan capital falls into rebel hands. Mikhail Margelov told the Izvestia newspaper that Libyan Prime Minister Al-Baghdadi al Mahmoudi recently told him, "If rebels seize the city, we will deluge it with missiles and blow it up." "I presume that the Gadhafi regime has a suicidal plan of this kind," Margelov told the newspaper. The Canadian general commanding NATO's mission in Libya said Gadhafi is telling his forces to destroy facilities, including fuel refineries, as they retreat. But the troops are not necessarily carrying out the order, Lt. Gen. Charles Bouchard cautioned Thursday. "Let's be clear, just because Gadhafi has given a direction, it does not mean that "direction" is being undertaken by his own troops," he told reporters in a conference call from Naples, Italy. The civil war in Libya appears to have hit a stalemate, despite a protracted NATO bombing campaign against Gadhafi loyal forces under a UN mandate on protecting civilians. On Wednesday, NATO reported carrying out 50 strikes, including against missile launchers near Tripoli. Rebels control eastern Libya and pockets in the west, while Gadhafi is holding on to Tripoli and large stretches of Western Libya.

CBS NEWS: Group Urges Probe into Alleged Bush Era Torture

In a 107-page report issued Tuesday, titled "Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and the Mistreatment of Detainees", Human Rights Watch said that such an investigation should examine the roles of the former president, Vice President Dick Chaney, Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and CIA Director George Tenet. The group claims Mr. Bush had the ultimate power on detainee operations, and that he publicly approved the CIA's use of torture. Cheney was the "driving force" in establishing legal justifications for the detention policies, Rumsfeld approved the interrogation methods that involved torture, and Tenet sanctioned the CIA's use of water-boarding and other forms of torture. The group also said in the report that the Bush Administration endorsed interrogation practices by the CIA that would qualify as torture, created an illegal clandestine CIA detention program in which prisoners were detained in secret locations without informing their families, or allowing access to the International Red Cross, and that the detainees were illegally sent to other countries such as Egypt and Syria, where they would most likely be tortured. Human Rights Watch also said there are many classified documents on detention and interrogation policies, among them a presidential authorization of secret prisons that would bolster a case for a criminal investigation. It added that the government's disregard for human rights following September 11 has diminished the moral standing of the United States, set a negative example for other governments, and undermined US government efforts to reduce anti-American militancy around the world. The report also recommended to President Obama that he should authorize the attorney general to launch a criminal investigation into the detention practices and examine US officials' roles regarding torture. It also asked Congress to create a non-partisan commission to investigate detainee mistreatment, and that foreign governments should have the power to prosecute American officials who were allegedly involved in crimes against detainees.

Tom Engelhardt: Making Earth a Global Free Fire Zone

Is the Obama National Security Team a Pilotless Drone? George W, who? I mean the guy is SO over. He turned the big six-five the other day, and it was barely a footnote in the news. And Dick Cheney, tick-tick-tick. Soon his ticker will stop and no-one will bother to remember him when his time is finally up. Should we ask Condoleeza Rice? She-s already to her next memoir, and yet it's as if she's been wiped from history. The evil that man, or woman do lives after us, the good is often buried with their bones! As for Donald Rumsfeld, he published his memoir in February, and it briefly hit the bestseller list. But a few months later, where is he? Can anyone be surprised? They were wrong about Afghanistan. They were wrong about Iraq, but Almighty God will make certain that they will ultimately burn for their sins: For the radio-active babies in Fallujah, who were born to their angry parents without legs, arms, and other parts of their "normal" bodies! And they said that Adolf Hitler was bad!! My parents hated him, but when we had to get out of Breslau, now "Wroclaw", Poland. Well, Hitler was, but not nearly to the extent that Bushie tortured the wailing mothers and fathers of their progeny. If all-mighty GOD has a special place in HELL for those who do evil on earth, Bush and Cheney are the prime candidates on HIS list. Torturing innocents in Guantanamo will not abscond Obama from his dastardly deeds. They may have disappeared from our lives, but the post-9/11 world is a grim reminder of those who died in these towers. On the night of September 11, 2001, addressing the nation, President Bush first spoke of winning "the war on terrorism". Of course, he really, really meant the terrorism we would bring to the innocents who had nothing whatsoever to do with that atrocity. For those who are up to it, you may still find a U-tube that depicts the death of millions of German citizens in Dresden. Like our cowardly presidents said: "There will be no retreat, it must be victory or death." Before I served in Vietnam, my father pulled me into a part of our house where my mother would not be listening. Since he served with the German Forces in Italy, he told me that I must promise to bring the men under my command back safely. Of course, that's a tall order, but I agreed to it. When my team and I returned safely to my home, I saluted, and told my father that I had followed his orders!!

Weldon Berger: Millionaires Gather to Steal From the Old, the Sick, and the Poor!!

The rich are never, if possible, ashamed to steal from the poor. It has always been like that, and, as they say: "The beat goes on, the beat goes on!" Nobody in Congress will ever have to rely on Social Security to remain solvent, or on Medicare or Medicaid to stay alive. On rare occasions, the press might mention that even the most impoverished inhabitants of Congress , even if they never have to work, have no other income, and never get a dime from Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid remain solvent. The 2009 financial disclosure numbers show Joe Biden as one of the few people involved in the negotiations who wasn't worth something comfortably in the seven figure range during that year. The average net worth of the people who will be voting on the fate of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid was about $3.4 million in the House and an astonishing $13.6 million in the Senate, and that was only in 2009, when the stock market was struggling for most of the year and investment portfolios had taken massive hits, but Congress still had 237 millionaires, almost 45% of the 535 federal legislators. Of course, Biden isn't the only participant skating close to the financial edge. John Boehner and Barack Obama may each have been worth as little as $2 million in 2009 (or as much as $14 million, but they're worth it?)
So too might Eric "Robespierre" Cantor, who appears intent on inflicting his own version of the "Reign of Terror" on the least of us.

Chris Stephen: GOOD NEWS: Qadafi Forces Destroy Front Line of NATO

Forces loyal to Muammar Qaddafi attacked the Libyan city of Misrata, breaching the opposition's front line to the west, and killing 11 rebel fighters, military officials in the rebel-held enclave said. The aim was to capture a strategic hill, the high ground near the city. There was no comment on the fighting from the Libyan government, except to say that "things are going well". "They advanced 300 meters over the front line," said the soldiers! Misrata, about 170 kilometers (100 miles) from the capital Tripoli, is the main rebel-held city in western Libya, and has been under siege for most of the uprising that began in February. The attack comes four days after rebel forces pushed west to within 3 kilometers of the nearby government-held town of Zlitan, where they are now dug in. Duew said that the rebels were angry, that there were no signs of any North Atlantic Treaty Organization assistance during the battle, which saw a heavy bombardment by government rockets and mortar shells. "Every day 10 die, 11 die," he said. "Where is NATO?": Counting their money, and throwing it away!