Scandal-plagued Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi complained on Friday that constitutional constraints hindered his government from making major reforms as Italy came under mounting pressure in the euro zone debt crisis.

Lashing out at "communists" and an "anti-Italian" press and opposition, Berlusconi told a rally of young supporters in Rome that it was almost impossible to change Italy's deeply entrenched problems given limits on executive power.

"We have found it is extremely difficult to do anything concrete in a system that gives no power to the person who is in charge of the government," he said. "In all these years, I have felt a truly dramatic sense of impotence."

The U.S. Senate, in an unusual procedure, cleared the way Thursday for the U.S. to lift its borrowing authority by $500 billion to $15.19 trillion, enough to keep the support federal government borrowing through late January or early February.

The action came under an unusual legislative procedure spelled out under the August agreement to raise the U.S. debt ceiling and avoid a U.S. credit default. In a 52-45 vote, the Senate blocked an attempt by Republicans to slow down the process that will result in the $500 billion debt-ceiling increase.

The increase stems from a deal between Congress and the White House, finalized last month, that spells out how the borrowing limit would be increased by $500 billion. Under the process, lawmakers in both the House and Senate must vote on a resolution of disapproval against the increase in the borrowing limit. President Barack Obama would then have to veto the resolution of disapproval, and Congress would then vote to try and override that veto.

The complicated procedure, designed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), would allow an increase of the borrowing limit while allowing most Republicans to vote against such an increase.

There was a twist in this scenario Thursday evening, however. Democrats held firm, rejecting the resolution of disapproval, thereby speeding the process and increasing the borrowing limit immediately.

Only Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) broke from his party to vote with the Republicans in trying to move forward with the measure.

The next increase in the borrowing limit, likely in the first quarter of next year, will be dependent on the ability of a panel of 12 lawmakers to reach a deal that cuts at least $1.2 trillion from federal budget deficits over the next decade.

Key California legislators passing an anti-parent bill grabbed campaign financing from the gigantic Merck conglomerate, a CalWatchDog.com investigation revealed. The legislation is AB 499 by Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. In the bill's language, it "authorizes a minor, who is 12 years of age or older, to consent to medical care related to the prevention of a sexually transmitted disease."

Current law allows such care only with a parent's permission. AB 499 passed both houses of the Legislature and awaits a decision by Gov. Jerry Brown.

AB 499 commonly is called the "Gardasil Bill" because the major drug to be administered to 12-year-old girls - without their parents' consent - is Gardasil, manufactured by Merck. According to Merck's Gardasil Web site:

GARDASIL is the only human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine that helps protect against 4 types of HPV. In girls and young women ages 9 to 26, GARDASIL helps protect against 2 types of HPV that cause about 75% of cervical cancer cases, and 2 more types that cause 90% of genital warts cases. In boys and young men ages 9 to 26, GARDASIL helps protect against 90% of genital warts cases.

Polls Show that Americans Think We Overreacted, Overspent and Weakened Ourselves Through the War on Terror

As the Brooking Institution reported yesterday, Americans think that the government overreacted and overspent in reaction to 9/11:

These are a summary of findings of a new poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland.

• Six in ten Americans believe that that the United States weakened its economy by overspending in its responses to the 9/11 attacks. In particular, respondents felt this was especially true of the U.S. mission in Iraq. Two out of three Americans perceive that over the decade since 9/11, U.S. power and influence in the world has declined. This view is highly correlated with the belief that the United States overspent in its post-9/11 response efforts - the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• At this point, a large majority (73%) wants the United States to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan, but less than half (44%) want troops withdrawn completely.
• Fifty-five percent say that the United States has spent too many resources in the Iraq war, while a plurality of 49% called the Iraq war a mistake (45% right decision). This criticism is a bit lower than other polls that asked similar questions in 2010 and found a majority ranging from 51 to 62% saying that it was not the right decision.
• Support for the decision to go to war is highly correlated with beliefs held by substantial and undiminishing minorities that Iraq was providing support to al Qaeda (46%) and either had a WMD program or actual WMDs (47%). Among those with such beliefs, large majorities say the war was the right thing while among those without such beliefs large majorities have the opposite views.
• A modest majority (53%) believes that the U.S. should withdraw its troops according to schedule even if the Iraqi government asks the US to stay another year.
• A clear majority (61%) says that the United States should not take sides in its efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while just 27% want the United States to lean toward Israel (5% toward Palestinians).

Lt. Robert Medairos, "First Incident Commander at the Scene":

Winston Churchill rightly explained that "(a) lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." Today, of course, it circulates everywhere instantly.

Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's Reich Minister of Propaganda, once said:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

He added that

"truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Corporate media manipulators love a big story they can hype, distort, and falsify to attract large audiences supportively for the worst imperial crimes.

In fact, the bigger the event, the worse the reporting, sacrificing truth for managed news and opinions everyone should understand and avoid.

Distinguished scholars like David Ray Griffin exposed the 9/11 lie in his exhaustive research and writings. In numerous books, articles, and lectures, he provided convincing evidence about an inside job, not an attack carried out by "crazed Arabs."

In an April 5, 2006 lecture titled, "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," he concluded saying:

"It would seem, for many reasons, that the official story of 9/11, which has served as a religious Myth in the intervening years (and still does), is a myth in the pejorative sense of a story that does not correspond to reality."

It was Griffin's polite way of calling it a Big Lie, the biggest of our time.

For ten years independent scholars and researchers have been investigating the troubling anomalies of the 9/11 official account.

One such scholar, Dr. David Ray Griffin, has written ten encyclopedic books documenting fundamental problems with the government account. For this work he has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize (2008 and 2009), and his The New Pearl Harbor Revisited was named "pick of the week" by Publisher's Weekly in November 2009.

Although 9/11 has been the seminal event of this century, none of the research by Dr. Griffin and other critics has been reported by the North American media. Today, the formation of the 9/11 Consensus Panel, involving 22 investigators of the September 11th events, is being announced at consensus911.org.

The 13 Consensus Points issued by the Panel were derived from a Delphi survey modeled on consensus statements developed by expert panels in medicine to guide diagnosis and treatment. The strength and credibility of the Delphi method is based on the fact that respondents are blind to one another through several rounds of review, during which feedback is continually refined until consensus is reached.

In this way the "best evidence" is identified and legitimized. The 9/11 Consensus Panel, co-founded by Dr. David Ray Griffin and medical librarian Elizabeth Woodworth, conducted three survey rounds with 22 respondents, and reached an average consensus of 94% on 13 points of evidence that directly contradict the fundamental claims of the official account of September 11th.

A beleaguered land which has been usurped and populated by the Zionist Jews for decades is now on the brink of being evacuated of its occupants.

The 'land of milk and honey' has turned into that of bitter gall for the Israelis who no longer seek solace and security in a country which is inching towards instability and insecurity on a daily basis. The Israeli people live in constant fear; they no longer believe in their authorities if they ever did; their hopes are broken; their dreams are shattered. It is now time for them to give back the dreams they have long stolen from the Palestinian people.

A recent report carried by AP reveals that increasing fear and angst among the Israelis has pushed them to scramble for their European passports so they can have an immediate escape path once Israel is engulfed by insurmountable crisis. Despite enjoying a world-class technology and a mighty army and the support of the U.S. government as its staunch ally, Israel suffers from an internal crisis which is incapacitating it to a degree beyond measure.

In recent months, many Israeli citizens have requested and obtained European passports from Germany and Poland, ironically the two countries which the Jews say to have been home to the Nazi extermination camps where millions of Jews are fallaciously believed to have been killed. Pundits in favor of the Israeli policies have taken recourse to an oversimplification of the issue and argued that an EU passport gives the holder the chance to travel and work in the entire union of 27 nations but the fear for a stable future is the main concern.

Mass panic over erroneous kidnap claims

Mexican prosecutors are pursuing terrorism and sabotage charges against two Twitter users who falsely reported an armed attack by drug gangs was in progress at a local elementary school.

The tweets falsely claimed gunmen had stormed several schools in the Mexican state of Veracruz and either injured or kidnapped children. A Veracruz prosecutor compared public reaction to the series erroneous tweets to the mass panic that greeted Orson Wells's 1938 radio broadcast The War of the Worlds and claimed that it touched off 26 traffic accidents as parents rushed to schools to save their children.

Team Poison will hit US government agencies on the anniversary

Team Poison have promised to support activists looking to protest against the US government on 11 September with attacks against its agencies.

In a message posted on document sharing web site Pastebin, the hackers announced Op911 and explained that they plan to protest against what they claim was an "Inside Job".

"9/11/2011 will be the 10th anniversary of the september 11 attacks. We the people will take to the phone lines and protest against the inside job that led to thousands of innocent people being killed," they wrote.

"On 9/11 phone the numbers bellow and say:
"Dear USA, your 9/11 is our 24/7, Sincerely. [a country that has been bombed/attacked by USA]. so; e.g: "Dear USA, your 9/11 is our 24/7, Sincerely. Iraq".