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Today's
Stories
November 2,
2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Holy
Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
November 1,
2005
Ron Jacobs
An
Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
Gary Leupp
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
John Ross
Days
of the Dead on the Border
Bill Quigley
Why
Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
Joseph Nevins
From a Boundary of Death to One of Life
Dave Lindorff
Thinking About Impeachment
Linda S. Heard
Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN?
Heather Gray
Thank You, Mrs. Parks
Michael Dickinson
To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond
Jeffrey St. Clair
Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off
October 31,
2005
Elaine Cassel
Libby's
Lies
Mark Weisbrot
Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed
Mike Whitney
Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald
Norman Solomon
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself
Farooq Sulehria
Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns
Nicole Colson
Scapegoating Immigrants
Madis Senner
Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights
Paul Craig
Roberts
Scooter
and the Neocons
October 29 / 30, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The
Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28,
2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation
Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing
the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The
Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia,
Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald
Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The
Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono
and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop
the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License
to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The
Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26,
2005
Kathy Kelly
For
Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics
of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of
the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith
Miller and Me
October 24,
2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke
Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22
/ 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When
Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter
from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An
Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley
Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of
the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
The
Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense
Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard
Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment
Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16
Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher
/
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas
Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The
Scandalous History of the Red Cross
October 19,
2005
Christopher Reed
Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking
Stephen Soldz
Bush
and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly
Chet Richards
War
and Intelligence
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam on Trial
Scott Richard
Lyons
Multicultural
Columbus?
Ralph Nader
An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin
Website of
the Day
Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans
October 18,
2005
Chet Flippo
Merle
Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq"
Ron Jacobs
Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag
Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor
A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo
Dave Lindorff
Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok
Virginia Rodino
A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement
Thomas Healy
The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years
Ralph Nader
A New New Orleans
Stephen Lendman
The Sorrows of Haiti
Patrick Cockburn
On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq
October 17,
2005
Peter Linebaugh
Spinoza
and the Black Limos
Norman Solomon
Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State
Cockburn /
Sengupta
"If
the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem"
Mike Whitney
Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments?
Uri Avnery
Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira?
Harold Pinter
Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom
Website of
the Day
Al Joudi v. Bush
October 15
/ 16, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ayatollahs
of the Apocalypse
Patrick Cockburn
"This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job"
Saul Landau
Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking
Neve Gordon
"Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions
Moshe Adler
Poverty in New York City
Christopher Brauchli
Lynndie England's Burden
Diane Farsetta
The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News
Sam Husseini
Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller
Monica Benderman
From Chaos to Conscience to Peace
Mickey Z.
POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here
Douglas C.
Smyth
George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time
Lee Sustar
Will Delphi Bust the UAW?
Fred Gardner
Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact
Elizabeth Schulte
A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine
Brown
Joshua Frank
Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers?
David Vest
Down with Formalism! Up with Values!
Ben Tripp
Epistle II: the Reawakenign
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise
Website of
the Weekend
The
Hidden Canyon
October 14,
2005
Farrah Hassen
A
Somber Ramadan in Syria
Ron Jacobs
The
Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We
Sasha Kramer
USAID
and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism?
Katrina Yeaw
The Student Struggle in Italy
Nicole Colson
Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care
Raúl Zibechi
Survival and Existence in El Alto
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo
Chávez and the Politics of Race
Website of the Day
LA Filmmakers Cooperative
October 13, 2005
Jeremy Scahill
Mr.
Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of)
Jeff Birkenstein
A
Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters
Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher
Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution?
Stan Cox
Did You Know This About Iraq?
Anis Memon
The Curious Case of Russ Feingold
Gary Leupp
Miller, Libby and the June Notes
Dave Zirin
A Tribute to August Wilson
Matthew Koehler
America's Endangered Forests
Werther
The
Two-Headed Monster
Website of
the Day
Hurricane Song
October 12, 2005
Omar Waraich
Britain
and the Quake: Mean and Stingy
William Cook
Voices
Behind the Entombment Wall
Phil Gasper
Countdown
to a Legal Lynching
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls
Matt Vidal
Capital, Power and Class
John Gautreaux
New Orleans will Never be the Same
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica
Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War
Mark Weisbrot
The IMF Has Lost Its Influence
Brian J. Foley
Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety
Website of
the Day
Columbus Day Lies
October 11,
2005
Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt
Strategic
Demands of the 21st Century
Lila Rajiva
Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib
Bill Quigley
New
Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again
Paul Craig Roberts
Natural Born Liars
Dave Lindorff
Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Suspect Thy Neighbor
Mitchel Cohen
Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese
Tariq Ali
Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror
Website of
the Day
L'Heure Americaine
October 10,
2005
Cindy and Craig
Corrie
Rachel's
Words Live
Joshua Frank
Washington's War Dems
Gideon Levy
The Beautiful Life Without Arafat
Alan Wallis
The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square
Mickey Z.
In Defense of Liars
CounterPunch News Service
Vermont Independence Convention
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Police State is Closer Than You Think
Website of the Day
Dylan's Chronicles
October 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Rhetoric
and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People
Ralph Nader
Katrina
and the Growls of Greed
Jennifer Van Bergen
New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case
Saul Landau
An Oily Religious Dream
Jeff Halper
Setting Up Abbas
Lenni Brenner
The Millions More Movement and Zionism
Nikolas Kozloff
Bird Flu and Bush
Brian Cloughley
Training Soldiers in Iraq
Alice Slater
A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl?
John Gautreaux
A View from Cajun Country
Fred Gardner
Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Leveethan Approach
M.G. Piety
Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard
Tom Gorman
The Hitchens Doctrine
Mike Whitney
Bunker Days with George
Aseem Shrivastava
Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan
Ben Tripp
Religion, an Epistle
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Ford
October 7,
2005
Larry Johnson
The
Plame Case: the Real Issues
Will Youmans
Why
Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus
Dave Lindorff
Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design?
Judith Scherr
Haiti's Children's Prison
Russell D. Hoffman
Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle
Jared Bernstein
Katrina and Jobs
Jennifer Van
Bergen
New
American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir
Website of
the Day
FBI Witchhunt
October 6, 2005
P. Sainath
"Take
That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal
Idol Again
Scott Parkin
When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged
Paul Craig
Roberts
Blundering
into Syria
Andréa Schmidt
Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion
Dave Lindorff
Easy
Money in the Big Easy
Joshua Frank
In Defense of Lew Rockwell
M. Junaid Alam
Jackboots at George Mason
Matthew Koehler
Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot
Robert Pollin
Is
the Dollar Still Falling?
October 5,
2005
Heather Gray
Militarization is Not an Answer for
Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines
Robert Jensen
Is
Bush a Racist?
Ramzy Baroud
Bush's Final Choice: America or
the Empire
Col. Dan Smith
Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything
is Bad"
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds Laughs Last
Paul Craig Roberts
Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons
Took Over
Alan Maass
Doing
the Right Wing's Dirty Work
October 4, 2005
Nikolas Kozloff
Shocking the Two Party System:
a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt.
Mike Roselle
Houston,
You've Got a Problem
Joshua Frank
The Scoop on Harriet Miers
John Chuckman
War
Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say
Alan Farago
Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers,
Hurricanes and the Keys
Mickey Z.
An
Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski
Christine & Ethan Rose
Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims
Gary Leupp
An
Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History
Website of the Day
Rodney
Crowell on Bob Dylan
October 3,
2005
Vijay Prashad
Desperation at Holyoke
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
Rice: Gunslinger
Joshua Frank
An Interview with Cindy Sheehan
Seth Sandronsky
The
Hiring Crisis for Black Teens
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Great Green Scare

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Onward,
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November 2, 2005
Not
as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
Holy Alito!
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Let's
hear it for Protestant fundamentalists (American variety) yet
again. Was there ever a more pragmatic bunch? After centuries
of howling No Popery and denouncing the Whore of Rome, they're
now trying to give us a US Supreme Court that will, in the probable
event of Alito's confirmation, boast no fewer than five Roman
Catholics, a clear majority: in order of arrival on the bench:
Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, Roberts and, most likely, Alito.
You can see why the conservative
Christians don't trust Protestants when it comes to matters of
Choice or any of their other cherished issues. The two Protestants
on the Supreme Court are the Justices they hate most: a liberal
Republican, John Paul Stevens and a libertarian, David Souter.
So Alito comes to us more or
less from the same mold as Roberts: a tightly-wound Catholic
in his mid-fifties, educated at an Ivy League school, seasoned
in the Reagan Justice Department, specifically in the office
of the Solicitor General, meaning that both Roberts and Alito
were part of the core legal team pressing Reagan's counter-revolution
against civil rights laws. They both ended up on the federal
appeals court.
One difference is that after
his stint in the Solicitor General's office, Alito had sufficiently
impressed the Reaganites to get appointed US Attorney for New
Jersey, where he sharpened his claws as a federal prosecutor.
There's been sedate talk in
the mainstream press about Alito's legal caution, his sense of
fairness, his steady temperament, his understated humor, his
respect for the law as the executive instrument of fairness in
American society. How anyone can come to this bizarre conclusion
passes our understanding. Alito's record, from inside the prosecutor's
office, his justice department briefs and in his judicial opinions,
displays a rancid right-winger whose views fume with prejudice
against the weak and the poor.
Some samples of the "even-handed",
"legally cautious" Alito:
In 1986, Alito helped write
a opinion that employers could legally fire AIDS victims because
of a "fear of contagion, whether reasonable or not."
Alito honed a new edge to the notion of strict constructionism
by arguing that the employers were justified in so doing because
discrimination based on insufficient medical knowledge was not
prohibited by federal laws protecting the disabled.
In other words, irrational
popular hysteria (that for example you could get AIDS from touching
a door knob also touched by an AIDS victim) was in Alito's view
an entirely sound basis for breaching legal protections. Years
later Alito was still defending this position, saying that the
tide of science may have subverted the hysteria but nonetheless
it hadn't shaken "our belief in the rightness of our opinion".
Somewhat in the same vein,
in 2001 Alito wrote a majority Appeals court opinion striking
down a public school policy prohibiting harassment against gay
students. Alito bluffly tore down the policy, saying it interfered
with the First Amendment rights of other students to engage in
"simple acts of teasing and name calling".
In 2003, when Alito was serving
on what the Washington Post bizarrely describes as "the
left-leaning" Third Circuit, he actually managed to outflank
Judge Michael Chertoff from the right. Chertoff, (now director
of Homeland Security and noted defender of torture and of holding
so-called enemy combatants, without access to attorneys or judicial
review) wrote a majority opinion in Doe v. Groody ruling that
a search warrant should be confined only to the person named
on that warrant.
Alito brushed such pettifogging
notions aside, arguing for the minority opinion that the cops
(in this case in Schuykill county, PA) would be severely hampered
if they had to interpret any search warrant in its written terms,
rather than having the power to infer that such warrants gave
police the power to search anyone else with the misfortune to
be in the vicinity. In the case under consideration, the Schuykill
police had strip-searched not only the suspect but also a mother
and her 10-year-old daughter who lived in the same house.
Also in 2003 Alito wrote a
majority opinion approving the conditions for probation laid
down by the state of Delaware on a man who had pled guilty to
possession of child pornography, said conditions being his agreement
to undergo random polygraph tests.
It's a prime function of the
so-called "left-leaning" Third Circuit to attend to
the interests of big business, massed in its Delaware corporate
enclave. Here Alito joined Roberts in his deference to the Money
Power, slashing away at the ability of stockholders to launch
class action suits, or employees to litigate against racist treatment.
In all, Judge Alito has issued
700 opinions, most of them on business/labor issues. All of these
have been, in the opinion of the US Chamber of Commerce, home
runs for the Business Team.
In 2001 Alito wrote a majority
opinion striking down an EPA order mandating that the W.R.Grace
Company clean up drinking water that its fertilizer plant had
poisoned in Lansing, Michigan. Alito said the EPA lacked a rational
basis for imposing such a costly burden on the company.
In a 1997 Appeals Court dissent Alito argued that a black housekeeping
manager from Marriott, who claimed she'd been passed over for
promotion for racial reasons, had no standing. To allow her to
sue, Alito, wrote, was to allow " disgruntled employees
to impose the cost of trial on employers who, although they have
not acted with the intent to discriminate, may have treated their
employees unfairly."
There's no doubt that Alito
is vehemently opposed to any woman's right to choose. As his
90-year old mother Rose snapped at reporters the day Bush nominated
him, "Of course he's against abortion.
Alito's 1991 Appeals Court
minority opinion on abortion has been widely publicized, and
rightly so. The issue before the Appeals Court was the constitutionality
of a Pennsylvania law saying that a woman had to inform her spouse
of an impending abortion.
The actual case concerned a
woman terrified that her abusive partner would beat her up if
she so informed him. Alito's arguments were rejected by US Supreme
Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who staked out her own ground
with a tart dismissal: "The state may not give to a man
the kind of dominion over his wife that parents exercise over
their children."
Liberals now girding themselves
for a showdown over the nomination have an inconvenient skeleton
to deal with. When New Jersey's two Democratic senators -- Bradley
and Lautenberg -- glowingly ("an accomplished and distinguished
lawyer") presented Alito to their colleagues on the Senate
Judiciary committee in April 1990, the room hummed with good
vibrations.
Kennedy warmly praised President
George H.W. Bush's nominee, and said he was "sure"
Alito would be a successful judge. Though they had his record
in the Solicitor General's office and as US Attorney before them
the committee only asked Alito four questions, before voting
to confirm. One of these piercing interrogatories went to Alito's
4-year old son, coyly (this was Kennedy) asking whether the lad
thought his father was judicial timber.
The Democrats claim they're
going to battle Alito down to the wire, but the recent Roberts
nomination casts a shadow over this pledge. Senator Leahy of
Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, voted
for Roberts and so did that hero of the progressive wing of the
Democratic Party, Feingold of Wisconsin.
So if any effective undermining
of Alito's nomination is to take place, it will probably come
from Republican moderates, the political grouping that has no
appetite for a knock-down fight on abortion. Bush needs just
such a showdown, to give him a stronger political profile amid
his current woes. The Democrats have Choice as almost their sole
remaining issue and money raiser. But the Republican moderates
who have to face the voters in the mid-term elections next year,
know that this issue could mean the difference between victory
and defeat. A majority of the American people have no desire
to abolish a woman's right to choose.
What
You're Missing in the Special Expanded Print Edition
The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam
by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
"The need
for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because
it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest
disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because
the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater."
Get
the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition
of CounterPunch
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from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
Click Here to Advance Order Philosopher
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
INSIDE
Grand
Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
by Jeffrey St. Clair
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