In October 2009 I launched Boiling Frogs Post  with one purpose in mind: To establish a venue for investigative articles, editorials, analyses, discussions, and interviews on issues largely censored and blacked out by the media. After four months of a successful trial phase this venue is now ready to enter its next stage, and for that it needs your support.

Boiling Frogs Post is solely dependent on its readers, and has no ties to any institution, foundation, organization or corporation. This is the only model I see fit to be called an independent news and views venue, untainted by external pressures, special interests or partisan flavoring.

Our authors and analysts present their work, not agenda scripts or special recipes handed to them for creation of a particular propaganda to serve a particular interest. And, our weekly commercial-free Podcast Show hosts the voices of noteworthy guests on topics long-muffled and quashed by the mainstream media and their minions on lower levels posing as alternatives.

I’m happy to report that in the four months since the launching of Boiling Frogs Post we have accomplished and delivered every single objective set prior to the launching this site. I am proud to have established a distinguished team of journalists, analysts, authors, and an editorial cartoonist whose work is based on truth and real issues.

Whether it is going after hypocrisy-ridden foreign policy practices, the ever revolving doors of foreign lobbies, or our stomped upon and continuously assaulted civil liberties, our  work transcends the webs put in place by partisanship and special interests and agendas. Here are a few examples of our work:
 

• Sibel Edmonds- The Makings of a Police State Series
• Dr. Nafeez Ahmed- Yemen, Energy Crisis & the Nigerian Crutch Bomber Series
• Mizgin Yilmaz- Richard Armitage Series
• Dr. William Weaver – The Impulse to Secrecy: The Glomar Response
• Peter Lance: Fort Hood & the KSM Trial Series
• Sibel Edmonds- Op-ed Series

 
In this short time span the Boiling Frogs Show has been able to present you with over 20 distinguished experts and whistleblowers from the fields of journalism, intelligence, grassroots activism, academia, and foreign policy. Here is a list of select interviews:
 

• James Bamford on NSA & Illegal Domestic Wiretapping
• Pepe Escobar on the Current Energy Crisis & the Quest for Central Asia-Caspian Region
• Russ Baker on the Concept of Shadow Government and the Real Power Centers in the US
• Daniel Ellsberg on Obama Presidency & Whistleblowers
• Andy Worthington on America’s Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay
• Chris Hedges on the US Media & the Empire of Illusion
• Coleen Rowley on Accountability, Whistleblowers & Activism

 
I believe during this four-month trial phase Boiling Frogs Post has established a solid track record with what it has accomplished, and a view of what it can accomplish given your support and backing. We are now ready to begin our next phase, during which we will continue to provide what you have seen, read, and listened to thus far, and additionally, will present exclusive video clips and investigative stories.

This site will continue and expand only with your direct support. I am asking every one of you to consider yourself as the one who can make this possible, that without your active support this real alternative site will not continue or exist, and that without your help those who consider truly independent channels like this ‘impossible to survive and flourish’ will be proven right, and with that we will all lose. So please do your share, and contribute whatever you can now.

Our countdown to receive your support and donations begins today. No donation is either too small or too large. Please donate what you can to keep this home of the irate minority alive, and thank you for all you do.

Sibel Edmonds

Founder & Publisher, Boiling Frogs Post

This coming week will mark the fourth month of our website’s operation. During the last two weeks I’ve been talking with our team members and friends in the online forums and activism community, and evaluating our website’s success and the feasibility of continuing and expanding it.

I’m happy to report that during the last four months we have achieved every single objective set prior to launching this site. And, I am proud to have gathered a distinguished team of journalists, analysts, authors, and an editorial cartoonist whose work is based on truth and real issues.

I believe that during this four-month trial phase Boiling Frogs Post has established a solid track record with what it has accomplished, and a view of what it can accomplish given your support and backing. Also, in this short time span the Boiling Frogs Show has been able to present you with over 20 distinguished experts and whistleblowers from the fields of journalism, intelligence, grassroots activism, academia, and foreign policy.

Thousands of you have been visiting this website daily, and only you will determine whether we can continue and expand this unique forum. As you know, this site is solely dependent on its readers, you, and has no ties to any institution, foundation, organization or corporation. This is the only model I see fit to be called an independent news and views venue, untainted by external pressures, special interests or partisan flavoring.

Starting next week, and for the next few weeks, we’ll be running our online fundraising campaign, and we’ll let you determine the outcome. I am counting on every single one of you, and asking you to support, spread the word, and recruit the support of others you know.

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Here are a few noteworthy links:
 

Another case of TSA overkill
Daniel Rubin, Philadelphia Inquirer

Did you hear about the Camden cop whose disabled son wasn’t allowed to pass through airport security unless he took off his leg braces?

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Activist’s case will test U.S. anti-terrorism law
David G. Savage, LA Times

Ralph Fertig hardly resembles a terrorist, but the soft-spoken 79-year-old pacifist and human rights activist from Los Angeles might well qualify as one under the government’s strong anti-terrorism law.

He is the lead plaintiff in a Supreme Court case to be heard next week that will test whether speaking out on behalf of an oppressed foreign minority — represented by a group that’s been deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S. — can result in a long

In 1996, Congress expanded the anti-terrorism law, imposing a prison term of up to 15 years for providing “training” or “expert advice or assistance” to a designated international terrorist group. The ban on supporting terrorists forbids sending not only money, weapons and fighters, but also charitable funds. Government lawyers say it even forbids filing a legal brief or writing an op-ed essay on behalf of a designated terrorist group.

For his part, Fertig says he wants no part of terrorism or violence, but rather the freedom to advocate for the rights of the Kurdish minority in Turkey. He is troubled that Kurds can be punished for speaking their own language or displaying their national colors. And he believes the 1st Amendment protects his right to counsel Kurdish leaders to steer away from violence and to take their cause to the United Nations.

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No Justice Forever: America’s New Foreign Policy of Indefinite Detention
Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, The Public Record

It is tempting to assume the decision to hold detainees indefinitely is based on a review of credible evidence. But if the evidence is so persuasive, why not introduce it in a court of law and secure a legitimate conviction? Time and again, federal courts have proven fully capable of handling terrorism cases. In fact, the Bush administration successfully prosecuted at least 319 terrorism or terrorism-related cases in civilian courts.

If the evidence is not reviewed by a court of law, who does review the evidence and determine the fates of individual suspects? The evidence is classified and the identities of those making the determinations are closely guarded. This process is entirely secret and inherently un-American. A system that authorizes indefinite detention based on secret evidence can only result in distrust and suspicion.

I represent Fayiz al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti citizen who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years without a trial. In my July 2009 letter to the Washington Post, I explained how every time I visit my client he asks whether I have news of justice for him. Each time, I am forced to answer “I have no justice today.” Assuming Fayiz would someday have his “day in court,” I prepared him for the probability that “justice” would come in the form of a military commission – a second-rate judicial system largely designed to permit rumor as evidence. Unfortunately, I am now left to wonder whether Fayiz will ever be afforded any semblance of justice.

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Hold on to your underpants
Tom Engelhardt, Asia Times

The 9/11 attacks, which had the look of the apocalyptic, brought the fear of terrorism into the American bedroom via the TV screen. That fear was used with remarkable effectiveness by the Bush administration, which color-coded terror for its own ends. A domestic version of shock-and-awe – Americans were indeed shocked and awed by 9/11 – helped drive the country into two disastrous wars and occupations, each still ongoing, and into Bush’s “global war on terror”, a term now persona non grata in Washington, even if the “war” itself goes on and on.
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The fear of terrorism has, by now, been institutionalized in our society – quite literally – even if the thing we’re afraid of has, on the scale of human problems, something of the Will o’ the Wisp about it. Read more ?

Phil Weiss provides us with his experience and analysis of the US media’s stand, and their one-sided coverage and one-sided censorship on issues and cases related to Israel and the Israel lobby. He discusses the parallels between the tactics used in Gaza by Israelis and those implemented during the holocaust. Mr. Weiss talks about the Jewish identity question around the Israel lobby, the Obama administration’s hypocritical stand on and lame no-response response to the Goldstone Report, the importance of Jewish money and the Israel lobby to Obama and the Democrats, the recent changing perception of Israel, and much more!

Philip Weiss is an investigative journalist who has written for The Nation, The New York Observer, The American Conservative, Harper’s Magazine, and New York Times Magazine among other publications. He is the author of American Taboo: A Murder in the Peace Corps and an editor of the website Mondoweiss, which covers the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Here is our guest Phil Weiss unplugged!

 

 Interview with Philip Weiss [58:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Would former icons of the civil rights movement sell out their principles for foreign cash?

A February 13 New York Times article exposed the degree to which the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a group composed of African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives, used loopholes in political finance laws to raise $55 million in unregulated corporate money through a network of nonprofits from 2004 to 2008. The money in question is principally channeled through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and is ostensibly to be used for scholarships for disadvantaged African American students. However, the analysis of reporters Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtbau demonstrates that the majority of the funds have actually been used for junkets, parties, golf outings and boondoggles; as well as the retirement of the mortgage for a headquarters building on Embassy Row. In regards to the paid off headquarters building of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), Lipton and Lichtbau write:

…in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.

Curiously, the authors do not mention where exactly this little jazz celebration took place. One might assume it was held in the CBC’s own building, or in the Mississippi Casino Resort that is mentioned further down in the article. Luckily, the reader only has to go to the CBCF’s own website to find where the party took place in April, 2008:

CBCF celebrated the acquisition of its building at the historic residence of the Turkish Ambassador on Embassy Row.

To most casual observers, the Turkish Embassy would seem an odd place for a foundation run by a group of African American legislators to hold a celebration of such historic measure. It turns out, however, that there is some connection between the two communities. One famous Turkish-American, Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, had a great appreciation for jazz and helped to promote the growth of black music in the United States. However, reporting last year from Washington D.C., freelance reporter Joshua Kucera suggested something a little deeper might be going on between the Turkish lobbyists and CBC members than a simple shared love for soul music: Read more ?

With almost a decade under its belt, our multi-front war on a vaguely defined notion of terrorism targeting never-really-defined enemies across the world and here in the newly rephrased ‘homeland’ has come to define the state of our nation. Even the meager limitations on presidential powers of the last six decades have in effect been nullified and replaced with a newly declared and interpreted authority mirroring those of past emperors and kings, and of any classic authoritarian regimes’ rulers. One look at the last decade’s successfully won legal arguments on behalf of the executive, the presidency, is enough to establish the common theme that ‘the war on terror is global and indefinite in scope, and that it effectively removes all traditional limits of wartime authority to the times and places of imminent or actual battle.’

Whether it is illegal domestic eavesdropping or unlawful detention and torture, these newly claimed and boldly practiced presidential entitlements rely on one factor, and that is the extraordinary claims of presidential war-making power. Here is a perfect example of the new permanent wartime presidency in action; boldly, loudly, and unfortunately thus far successfully:

On occasion the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the authority of courts and Congress to impose boundaries on the power of the commander in chief, describing the president’s war-making powers in legal briefs as “plenary” — a term defined as “full,” “complete,” and “absolute.”

The current status of our nation’s president’s war-making powers is defined, recognized, and has been practiced as ‘plenary;’ complete and absolute. Now, let’s add to this the fact that our multi-fronted war on terror is global and indefinite, a war open-ended in time and with no national boundaries. What do we have with this equation? A permanent wartime presidency with absolute powers. The Constitution indeed granted the president the power to fight with any resources Congress makes available in wartime, and accordingly the executive is expected to do whatever it takes to protect the nation, even if it leaves some room for abuse of this power. But did our founders factor in the notion of indefinite, open-ended, perpetual wars, and with them, a permanent wartime presidency status? The Constitution gave presidents the freedom to defend the nation, but what about the nation’s need to protect itself against the abuses of this freedom, including the creation of perpetual wars accompanied with indefinite and absolute presidential powers?

The following excerpts are from the Devil’s Advocate, John Yoo:

Critics of presidential war powers exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war, and they also fail to examine the potential costs of congressional participation: delay, inflexibility, and lack of secrecy. Legislative deliberation may breed consensus in the best of cases, but it also may inhibit speed and decisiveness. In the post-Cold War era, the United States confronts several new threats to its national security: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the emergence of rogue nations, and the rise of international terrorism. Each of these threats may require pre-emptive action best undertaken by the president and approved by Congress only afterward.

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The Constitution creates a presidency that can respond forcefully and independently to pre-empt serious threats to our national security. Instead of demanding a legalistic process to begin war, the framers left war to politics. Presidents can take the initiative and Congress would use their funding power to check him. As we confront terrorism, rogue nations, and WMD proliferation, now is not the time to engage in a radical change in the way our government has waged war for decades.

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Mr. Yoo considers a thorough congressional review and authorization based on findings and careful review as tending to ‘exaggerate the benefits of declarations or authorizations of war.’ If put in an appropriate context, this exaggeration could probably have prevented a preemptive attack on Iraq based on false and made-up intelligence on nonexistent WMD, and we may have saved thousands of American soldiers’ lives, tens of billions of dollars of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and would have prevented the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians’ lives. Only in John Yoo’s book of ‘cost & benefits analysis’ would this make it to the ‘exaggerated cost column.’

As for ‘Congress would use their funding power to check him,’ his pretend innocence would not get a pass from even the most naïve or ignorant. Considering where the real funding of the inhabitants of our congress comes from, taking into consideration the old adage ‘thou shall not bite the hand that feeds you,’ and understanding the power of ‘bacon sent home,’ who is Mr. Yoo kidding here; really? Read more ?

I couldn’t resist posting this article. I know it’s nothing new to  our readers and commenters here at Boiling Frogs, but I thought maybe, just maybe, a few Obama backers who still hold on to their ‘Man of Supposed Changes’ will end up here and get to read it. You know who I’m talking about; right? The blinded ignorant Obama groupies who’ve been vehemently defending his booboos. Those who in the beginning whined about giving the man a chance since he had been in office for only 10 days, then 20 days, then 50 days, then 100 days… Those who later made lame excuses such as ‘what do you expect, he inherited this mess from Bush-Cheney and is trying hard to clean it up.’ The ones who are still busy bashing the long-gone Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal, rather than facing their own ‘man.’ Let’s rub their noses hard in the following article, and demand that they add their man’s picture to the same Bush-Cheney-Rove cabal…

Former US vice-president Dick Cheney, who normally is a fierce critic of Barack Obama, has given his full backing to the president and his administration on Afghanistan. “I’m a complete supporter of what they are doing in Afghanistan. I think the president made the right decision to send troops in. I’m not a critic, in terms of how they’re dealing with that situation,” Cheney told ABC’s This Week program.

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This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

And, I am back! After two flight cancellations and missing two major snow storms I arrived home late Thursday. As I had mentioned in my previous weekly round up, I had no direct access to high-speed internet connections, and as I promised I did my best and posted  Part VI of my Police State Series, our interview with Coleen Rowley, and Mike Mejia’s great piece on the drowning and doomed Democratic Party. Other than that, I was totally and blissfully cut off from all news and never-ending scandals. What does this mean for this round up? I don’t have much to report, and I’ve got lots to catch up with.

Before I list the very few noteworthy links for this round up, I’ll give you a glimpse of my report card from the last 11 days:

So, you see ‘someone’ could not care less about not having high-speed internet connections or two last minute flight cancellations

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Noteworthy Links

Israel is accused of waging covert war across the Middle East
Sheera Frenkel, Times Online

Israel is waging a covert assassination campaign across the Middle East in an effort to stop its key enemies co-ordinating their activities.

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They are also suspected of recent killings in Dubai, Damascus and Beirut. While Israel’s Mossad spy agency has been suspected of staging assassinations across the world since the 1970s, it does not officially acknowledge or admit its activities.

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AIPAC Officials Duplicated Classified Policy Documents Before Returning to US Government
Business Wire

Top officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee duplicated a stolen classifiedUS government policy document before returning it under order of the US Trade Representative.

The newly released FBI form FD-302 is available for download at http://IRmep.org/ila/economy/FD302.pdf .

Testimony about AIPAC’s executive director and top lobbyist reveals AIPAC duplicated the classified report “Probable Economic Effect of Providing Duty Free Treatment for U.S. Imports from Israel” after covertly receiving it from Israeli Minister of Economics Dan Halpern: “REDACTED immediately called REDACTED at the USTR to make arrangements to return the document. The report was subsequently returned to the USTR by a member of the AIPAC office staff. Prior to returning this document, REDACTED asked to have a duplicate copy made so that the staff of the AIPAC could further examine the report…

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Angry U.S. warns there will be a price for Britain to pay after judges reveal MI5 DID collude in abuse of terror suspects
James Slack & Jason Groves, Daily Mail

The U.S. has warned its relationship with Britain has been harmed by the court ruling that revealed Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed was tortured at the behest of American authorities.

The White House expressed dismay after the Government lost its bid to suppress the documents which showed MI5 knew about the treatment of Mohamed.

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By ‘the White House’ they mean Obama’s White House; just so that you know. You know, the man who sold tons of blah blah on how terrible the Bush Administration practices were, especially on torture and secrecy. Remember?

Okay, let’s read further: Read more ?

Dr. Julien Mercille discusses the trail of Afghanistan’s drug money, the false impression given by the latest UN report on the effects of Afghanistan’s drug production, and the role of other nations and institutions including western banks. He talks about the predominant view of the US and NATO held by the majority in Afghanistan today, his interview with Malalai Joya, Afghanistan’s youngest Member of Parliament, who is well known for openly challenging the US, NATO, warlords and the Taliban, the current state of progressive movements in Afghanistan, and more.

Julien Mercille is a lecturer in US foreign policy at University College Dublin, where he moved after obtaining his PhD from UCLA. He teaches on US history and foreign policy and has published academic articles on Iran, Iraq and the Cold War, and is now researching the “War on Drugs” and Afghanistan. He has also written for various websites and magazines on those topics and others.

Here is our guest Julien Mercille unplugged!

 

 Interview with Julien Mercille [62:44m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.