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Stories collected from letters to the editor, blogs, and newspaper coverage highlighting the significant benefits that ObamaCare is already providing to real Americans throughout the country.

The soldier in a now-famous WikiLeaks video, who found a rocket launcher at the scene of a controversial 2007 Apache helicopter attack, in Baghdad, said in a radio interview this week that he did not believe an ambush was imminent. The video shows 12 men, including two Reuters newsmen, standing on a street corner before being fired upon by the Apache's 30mm cannon, resulting in what appears to be an unprovoked massacre.

After eating a bowl of oatmeal and drafting ten talking points, Senator Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) spoke for nine hours in opposition to the tax-cut deal struck between President Obama and congressional Republicans. "We should be embarrassed," he said, "that we are for one second talking about a proposal that gives tax breaks to billionaires while we are ignoring the needs of working families, low-income people and the middle class."1 2 3 Mark Madoff, son of Bernard L. Madoff, hanged himself in his Manhattan apartment while his toddler slept in a nearby bedroom; court documents filed last year suggest that Mark Madoff made almost $67 million through his father's Ponzi scheme.4 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was arrested in London on charges of sexual assault. "That sounds like good news to me," said U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates.5 State Department cables leaked this week revealed that Saudi media executives, over coffee in a Jeddah Starbucks, extolled the power of American television in the fight against Islamic extremism, while Saudi diplomats expressed their admiration for the movies Insomnia and Michael Clayton.6 Taymour Abdelwahab, a Swedish citizen, set off a car bomb and then blew himself up in Stockholm on Saturday, injuring two in what authorities believe was a botched attempt at a larger attack, and imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Online discussion of the chair symbolizing his absence from the ceremony in Oslo prompted authorities in China to censor the phrases "empty chair," "empty seat," "empty stool" and "empty table" from the country's major social networking sites.7 8 9

WASHINGTON, Jan 12, 2011 (IPS) - In one of U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower's most remembered speeches, he warned against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence" resulting from the close brotherhood between the country's defence agencies, Capitol Hill and private business interests.

The information below is based on the 2010 report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council (A/64/742-S/2010/181) issued on 13 April 2010. More information is available in the report. At the close of 2009, the effects of Israel's military operations in Gaza, codenamed "Operation Cast Lead", from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009, were still being felt across the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Gaza residents, including children, are still living in alternative or temporary accommodation and many schools, health facilities and parts of vital water and sanitation infrastructure networks have not been rehabilitated or repaired. The ongoing blockade by Israel and the resulting lack of necessary materials in Gaza make such repairs and rehabilitation difficult. A total of 374 Palestinian children were killed and 2,086 were injured during the reporting period, including at least 350 killed and 1,815 injured in Gaza alone during "Operation Cast Lead" by Israeli forces. The Israel/occupied Palestinian territory working group on grave violations against children confirmed 12 cases of Palestinian children who were killed while bearing arms and acting as combatants during "Operation Cast Lead". The working group also confirmed one case of recruitment of a 16-year-old boy by the armed group Ezz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The actual number of cases is believed to be higher and there had been other reported incidents of children being trained and/or used by Palestinian militant groups in Gaza. Community members are, however, reluctant to provide information on this practice.

By executive order on Aug. 4, President Barack Obama refused entry to the United States of war criminals and human-rights violators (jurist.org, Aug. 4). He ignored, as he often does, the deeply documented factual evidence of war crimes committed by the Bush-Cheney administration along with grim proof that the Obama administration also violates our anti-torture laws and the U.N. Convention Against Torture we signed. Take, for example, right now under Obama, "The CIA Secret Sites in Somalia" (the nation.com, July 12).

The killing of Osama Bin Laden did not put cuts in national security spending on the table, but the debt-ceiling debate finally did. And mild as those projected cuts might have been, last week newly minted Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was already digging in his heels and decrying the modest potential cost-cutting plans as a "doomsday mechanism" for the military. Pentagon allies on Capitol Hill were similarly raising the alarm as they moved forward with this year's even larger military budget. None of this should surprise you. As with all addictions, once you're hooked on massive military spending, it's hard to think realistically or ask the obvious questions. So, at a moment when discussion about cutting military spending is actually on the rise for the first time in years, let me offer some little known basics about the spending spree this country has been on since September 11, 2001, and raise just a few simple questions about what all that money has actually bought Americans. Consider this my contribution to a future 12-step program for national security sobriety. Let's start with the three basic post-9/11 numbers that Washington's addicts need to know:

A BETTER LOOK AT THE NEWS

FUNNY VIDEO

I'm not sure how seriously to take this article. The articles references two commentators, one from Financial Times and the other from Foreign Policy. Those are pretty legitimate, I guess. They say that the US is forming an alliance with South Korea, Japan, and others contra Beijing.

Chokri Belaïd, a secular, anti-Islamist member of the National Constituent Assembly, was assassinated last week. The backlash of the assassination is causing strife in Tunisian politics. His widow has accused Ennahda of playing a role in the assassination, "which sparked mass demonstrations, attacks on Ennahda headquarters and clashes with security forces throughout the country." The Prime Minister, a high-ranking official in Ennahda, has declared his wish to form a non-partisan government of technocrats to manage the socio-political crisis. He has also declared that he will resign from his position if he's not allowed to do so. So things really are deteriorating. qt: Four opposition groupings-Belaïd's own Popular Front bloc, the Call for Tunisia party (Nidaa Tounes), the Al Massar party, and the Republican Party-announced that they were pulling out of the National Constituent Assembly and called for a one-day general strike last Friday, the day of Belaïd's funeral. The principal Tunisian trade union federation, the UGTT (Tunisian General Union of Labour) backed the call, resulting in the first general strike in Tunisia in 35 years. Reportedly, over one million people took part in Belaïd's funeral procession in Tunis on Friday, many calling for the fall of the Ennahda government and a second revolution. ... Much of the bourgeoisie, both secular and Islamist, has swung behind Jebali's proposal. The business journal l' Economiste asserts that "the prime minister's initiative and his proposal to form a non-political government of technocrats is a minimum response, but salutary. The rejection of this reasonable solution by his own party is evidence of the internal divisions that are eating away at Ennahda..." ... The revolutionary uprising of 2011 was channeled into parliamentary manoeuvring and constitutional wrangling by the Tunisian bourgeoisie, with the aid of the petty-bourgeois "left" parties and the UGTT. Underlying the present

Berlin immediately declared its unconditional support for the French invasion of Mali, and has been providing material military aid to the French invasion. As the weeks go on, Berlin is providing more and more support for the invasion. qt: Since the belligerent nature of these operations and the training of Malian soldiers cannot be denied, they must be approved by the Bundestag (federal parliament), which should happen retrospectively in early March. Chancellor Angela Merkel, Defence Minister Thomas de Maizière and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle never tire of protesting that they are acting out of "solidarity with France" and for the "defence of the security of Europe against terrorists." This is the same mendacious war propaganda with which the United States justified the war against Iraq. Paris and Berlin say the aims of the war are the elimination of groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). These same organisations were funded and armed in Libya by the US, France, Britain and their allies in Qatar and Saudi Arabia to fight against Muammar Gaddafi. In Syria, organisations like al-Nusra, which is close to Al Qaeda or works with it, are part of the National Coalition of the Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces (NCSROF), which is recognised by the NATO powers and the Gulf countries as "the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people", and is armed and financed by them to foment the overthrow of the Assad regime. The article says that the invasion is a "dirty colonial war" and that the hated bourgeois regimes in the region are supported only by the French support in putting down uprisings. The role of Germany is unconditional military support for the French invasion. They're making Mali into a military base for the subjugation of Africa for purposes of capital.