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Hollande takes up where Sarko left off as Paris police evict Roma gypsies

Peter Allen
Daily Mail, UK
Tue, 28 Aug 2012 04:51 UTC
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Police prevent Roma children and their parents from appealing for help at the local commune offices
French Interior Minister Manuel Valls today ordered police to destroy a Roma camp in his political powerbase and to deport illegal immigrants living there.

Officers armed with truncheons and shields moved in to the settlement in the Paris suburb of Evry, where he was mayor for 11 years from 2001.

By late morning more than 70 people including women and children had been evicted from caravans and makeshift huts, with most expected to be returned to Romania.

The raid is particularly significant because it shows the Socialist firebrand is determined to 'clean up illegal immigrants in his own back yard', said a party colleague.

The source added: 'Valls particularly wants to end the Roma problem - by breaking up a camp in his constituency he is showing he means business.'

A deportation order for residents of the camp was signed by the local Socialist mayor Francis Chouat who said: 'In addition to being unhealthy, the site is extremely dangerousness.'
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Star of David

Whitewashing Murder: Rachel Corrie's death was an accident, Israeli judge rules

Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian
Tue, 28 Aug 2012 03:24 UTC
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Judge finds no fault in military investigation that cleared defence force of responsibility for protester being killed by bulldozer

The death of the pro-Palestinian activist Rachel Corrie was not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army, a judge has ruled, dismissing a civil lawsuit brought by the family.

Corrie's death was an accident for which the state of Israel was not responsible, said the judge at Haifa district court.

There had been no fault in the internal Israeli military investigation clearing the driver of the bulldozer that crushed Corrie to death in March 2003 of any blame. The judge said the driver had not seen the young American activist.

Corrie could have saved herself by moving out of the zone of danger as any reasonable person would have done, said Judge Oded Gershon. He ruled that no compensation would be paid and the family would not have to pay costs of the case.
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War Whore

True colours shining through: François Hollande bypasses international law, calls on al-Qaeda-in-Syria to form provisional government

Julian Borger
The Guardian
Tue, 28 Aug 2012 03:17 UTC
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Meet the new boss, same as the old
The French president, François Hollande, has urged Syria's divided opposition to form a provisional government, saying Paris would give it official recognition.

The announcement on Monday came as Syrian fighter plane attacks on eastern suburbs of Damascus killed at least 60 people, according to opposition activists.

Hollande's intervention was aimed at increasing pressure on Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad but it also revealed differences with other western capitals.

American officials said the announcement was premature. "We're nowhere near that yet," one said.

Washington and London have been more guarded in their dealings with Syrian opposition groups which they see as too fractured and ineffective to form an alternative government.
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Vader

US "Fifty Wealthiest Lawmakers" list: A Congress of, by and for pathologicals

Eric London
World Socialist Website
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 02:46 UTC
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Last week's report by Washington, D.C. political blog The Hill details the vast wealth of the nation's legislative representatives and serves as an indictment of the anti-democratic nature of the American political system. The "50 Wealthiest Lawmakers" list shows that dozens of congressional politicians have amassed huge fortunes while simultaneously slashing the wages, benefits and social services of the American people.

In other words, not only are these members of Congress overseeing a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the ruling class; they are also profiting from this transfer.

The report reveals the bipartisan composition of the extremely wealthy in congress. Seven of the top 10 richest members of congress are Democrats; overall, Republicans make up 60 percent of the list.
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Sheeple

Authoritarian Followers: How Ordinary People Come to Embrace Paul Ryan's Cruelty

Joshua Holland
AlterNet
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 02:34 UTC
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Scientific research into the way we think explains the reasons decent people wind up supporting horrific policies.

Earlier this year, Democratic operatives looking for the best way to define Mitt Romney discovered something interesting about Paul Ryan's budget. The New York Times reported that when the details of his proposals were run past focus groups, they found that the plan is so cruel that voters "simply refused to believe any politician would do such a thing."

In addition to phasing out the Earned Income Tax Credit that keeps millions of American families above the poverty line and cutting funding for children's healthcare in half, Jonathan Cohn described the "America that Paul Ryan envisions" like this:
Many millions of working-age Americans would lose health insurance. Senior citizens would anguish over whether to pay their rent or their medical bills, in a way they haven't since the 1960s. Government would be so starved of resources that, by 2050, it wouldn't have enough money for core functions like food inspections and highway maintenance.
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Dollar

Syria Condemns Turkey, S. Arabia, Qatar for Exercising West's Policy in Region


Fars News Agency
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 06:38 UTC
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© Fars News Agency
Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Heydar blasted Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for practicing the western and Israeli policies in the region.

"Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar put the policies of the West and Israel into effect in the region," Heydar told reporters in a press conference here in Tehran on Monday, and added, "There is a great difference between those who present a plan against Syria, that is the US and Israel, with those who practice these plans, that is, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia."

He voiced his country's anger at the three regional states, and said, "We believe as long as the US policy on Syria remains unchanged, these states won't change their policies either, and this status will continue until after the US presidential election."

Heydar, who is in Tehran to attend a summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) from August 26 to 31, further underlined Syria's strong confrontation against terrorist and armed rebel groups.

Comment: More info on the continued atrocities in Syria can be had by reading the following:
'Free Syrian Army' aka 'al-Qaeda' aka US, Israel and British Mercenaries, Use Syrian Man as 'Suicide Bomber'
State-Sponsored Terrorism - Western Journalists Embedded With 'al-Qaeda' in Syria

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Eye 1

More People Ask: Are Politicians Psychopaths?

David Freeman
Huffington Post
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:24 UTC
Psychopaths
© SOTT.net
It's no secret that politicians can be driven by outsized egos. I mean, who among us really thinks he or she deserves a seat in Congress -- or a desk in the Oval Office?

But can egotism alone explain why so many elected officials seem to get caught telling lies, having affairs, committing financial improprieties or engaging in other scandalous behavior? Not everyone is convinced that it can, and some in the blogosphere have gone so far as to wonder if bad-boy (and bad girl) politicians are actually psychopaths. And a recent article in The Atlantic asks of these pundits:
Could they be right? If these pundits mean that the targeted office-seekers are evil or "crazy," probably not. But if they are pointing out that politicians and psychopaths share certain characteristics, they could be on to something.
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Sheeple

Authoritarian Followers: The temptations and perils of blind obedience to authority

Glenn Greenwald
The Guardian
Sun, 26 Aug 2012 17:04 UTC
Indie film Compliance recalls notions that the past decade's worst events are explained by failures to oppose authority

Obama
© Greg Wahl-Stephens/AP
Some noted a disturbing thirst for leader-worship that drove followers of Barack Obama.
One can object to some of its particulars, but Frank Bruni has a quite interesting and incisive New York Times column today about a new independent film called Compliance, which explores the human desire to follow and obey authority.

Based on real-life events that took place in 2004 at a McDonalds in Kentucky, the film dramatizes a prank telephone call in which a man posing as a police officer manipulates a supervisor to abuse an employee with increasing amounts of cruelty and sadism, ultimately culminating in sexual assault - all by insisting that the abuse is necessary to aid an official police investigation into petty crimes.
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Die

UN Chief to Visit Iran's Enrichment Facility This Week


Fars News Agency
Mon, 27 Aug 2012 03:56 UTC
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© Fars News Agency
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will visit Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment facility on the sidelines of his presence at a summit meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Tehran, sources said on Monday.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs Mehdi Akhoundzadeh told FNA that "the UN secretary-general will visit Isfahan province during his stay in Iran", while other sources said his presence in Isfahan will be aimed at a visit to the Natanz facility.

Ban is due to arrive in Iran later this week to attend the 16th NAM Summit in Tehran on Thursday and Friday.

Deputy foreign ministers and experts from the NAM member states started a meeting here in the Iranian capital on Sunday. The two-day experts meeting which ends this evening and will be followed by the NAM's foreign ministerial meeting on August 28 and 29 is drawing up the agenda for the 16th heads-of-state summit meeting of the bloc to be held in Tehran on Thursday and Friday.

Iran assumed the rotating presidency of the movement from Egypt for three years during the Sunday meeting.
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Chess

Why Salt Lake's Mayor Lost Faith in Mitt

McKay Coppins
The Daily Beast
Sun, 19 Aug 2012 02:09 UTC
Mitt Romney, Rocky Anderson.
© Associated Press
L-R: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.
He once campaigned for Romney; now he calls him a "political prostitute." Former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson tells McKay Coppins why he turned on the GOP frontrunner.

One evening, years before Rocky Anderson was elected mayor of Salt Lake City - where he would eventually make a name for himself as Utah's liberal lion - he was invited to a dinner party where he was told Mitt Romney would be attending.

"I had no idea who he was," Anderson recalls. "I had to Google him." The search results revealed an impressive resume, but little hope for sparkling dinner conversation: a mega-rich private-equity wizard who had tried (and failed) to run Ted Kennedy out of the Senate? Anderson expected a Republican stiff.

"So, I get up there and I'm greeted by this young, vivacious, friendly guy," Anderson says. "I'm looking around to find the stodgy person I thought I would meet, but no, that was Mitt. That's the kind of person he is..." he pauses briefly, and then adds, "Or at least was. Who knows now?"
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