News Unreported By "The Most Trusted Name in News"

• Rick Jacobs (The Huffington Post): Blackwater West

  "...How long before we see Blackwater's trained killers turning up in metropolitan Los Angeles after an earthquake or fire, uninvited, soliciting work? On May 1, 2007, we saw what happens when a well-trained police force gets out of control. Imagine what will happen if a bunch of former special operations soldiers, who are trained to kill show up in an urban setting. And then, say no to Blackwater. We can't have them here. Not now. Not ever.

• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility:

  "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency increasingly relies upon corporate research joint ventures, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). These corporate partnerships are on the rise as EPA research funding is on the wane, magnifying the effects of diversions of resources away from public health priorities toward regulatory topics that serve commercial bottom lines...."

• NY Times: Concerns Raised on Wider Spying Under New Law

  "Broad new surveillance powers approved by Congress this month could allow the Bush administration to conduct spy operations that go well beyond wiretapping to include — without court approval — certain types of physical searches on American soil and the collection of Americans’ business records, Democratic Congressional officials and other experts said...."

• BBC NEWS | EU biofuel policy is a 'mistake':

  "The EU target of ensuring 10% of petrol and diesel comes from renewable sources by 2020 is not an effective way to curb carbon emissions, researchers say...."

• The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez | John Pilger:

  "Democracy and hope in Latin America have been revived by Venezuela's leader. But the forces allied against him are formidable.... "

• Chinese leader urges Iranian flexibility in nuke dispute

  "Bishkek - Chinese President Hu Jintao called Thursday on Iran to show flexibility in order to resolve peacefully the dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.
  
  [...]
  
  The Chinese leader said he understood Iran's concerns in the controversy, while Ahmedinejad promised Hu that his country would continue to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's watchdog on nuclear affairs.
  
  Ahmedinejad attended the SCO summit as an observer, amid Iran's wish to join the regional group which consists of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan...."

• US 'Surges', Soldiers die. Blame Iran.

  "When a top US commander in Iraq reported last week that attacks by Shi'ite militias with links to Iran had risen to 73% of all July attacks that had killed or wounded US forces in Baghdad, he claimed it was because of an effort by Iran to oust the United States from Iraq, referring to "intelligence reports" of a "surge" in Iranian assistance.
  
  But the obvious reason for the rise in Shi'ite-related US casualties - ignored in US media coverage of Lieutenant-General Raymond
  
  Odierno's charge - is that the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr was defending itself against a rising tempo of attacks by US forces at the same time attacks by al-Qaeda forces had fallen...."

• The Truth About Hugo Chavez:

  "Few governments in the world have been victims of devastating campaigns full of hatred. The Venezuelan government, led by President Hugo Chávez, is one of those victims. His enemies have tried everything: Coup d’État, oil strike, flow of capital, plots… After the attack against Fidel Castro, a similar situation has not ever happened in Latin America.
  
  The most miserable lies have been said about Chávez, all of them orchestrated by the new propaganda office called -National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House, financed by Bush Administration. With unlimited financial resources, this lying machine manipulates important media and organizations for the defense of Human Rights which are at the service of sinister plans.
  
  Likewise, part of the social-democrat left-branched party surrender before these groups of liars...."

• You Have No Rights:

  In a Truthdig interview by James Harris and Josh Scheer, "Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive and author of 'You Have No Rights,' explains how our president became a 'medieval king,' and why your civil liberties are in greater danger than ever...."

• Howard warns Maliki: act or face pullout | The Australian

  "JOHN Howard has demanded the Iraqi Government make faster progress towards resolving the country's political differences or face the prospect of a withdrawal of Australian troops and those of other Western nations...."

• U.S. backs Maliki, avoids talk of Iraq government collapse:

  "Talk about whether Iraq's government will survive is taboo among U.S. officials, but experts and diplomats say the hobbled coalition is in big trouble and the betting is it won't last...."

• No End in Sight :

  Robert Ebert writes: "Remember the scene in "A Clockwork Orange" where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see "No End in Sight," the story of how we were led into that war, and more than 3,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of other lives were destroyed...."

• American Bar Association Criticizes Bush Terror Policies:

  Mark Sherman of The Associated Press reports that the American Bar Association has criticized President Bush's terror policies, demanding that the president's "recent order on CIA interrogations of terror suspects be overturned because it still allows harsh treatment in violation of international treaties...."

• Yet again, the Democrats roll over:

  Longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas writes in her most recent syndicated Hearst Newspapers column that "President Bush has the Democrats' number on Capitol Hill. All he has to do is play the fear card and invoke the war on terror and they will cave...."

• Iraq Contractors Accused in Shootings:

  Deborah Hastings of The Associated Press reports that mercenaries in Iraq "operate with little or no supervision, accountable only to the firms employing them. And as the country has plummeted toward anarchy and civil war, this private army has been accused of indiscriminately firing at American and Iraqi troops, and of shooting to death an unknown number of Iraqi citizens who got too close to their heavily armed convoys...."

• How the Fight for Vast New Spying Powers Was Won:

  Joby Warrick and Walter Pincus report in Sunday's Washington Post about the jockeying between the Bush administration and Congress that led the White House to use the threat of a terrorist attack to resurrect Cold War-era wiretap powers over Democrat objections.

• Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq:

  "Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis..."

• U.S. Pays Millions In Cost Overruns For Security in Iraq:

  Steve Fainaru reports in Sunday's edition of The Washington Post that the US military "has paid $548 million over the past three years to two British security firms that protect the US Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects, more than $200 million over the original budget, according to previously undisclosed data that show how the cost of private security in Iraq has mushroomed...."

• Democrats Say Leaving Iraq May Take Years:

  "Even as they call for an end to the war, Democratic presidential candidates are setting out positions that could leave the U.S. engaged in Iraq for years...."

• World's Best Medical Care?:

  "Many Americans are under the delusion that we have “the best health care system in the world,” as President Bush sees it, or provide the “best medical care in the world,” as Rudolph Giuliani declared last week. That may be true at many top medical centers. But the disturbing truth is that this country lags well behind other advanced nations in delivering timely and effective care...."

• Venezuela Tries To Create Its Own Kind of Socialism:

  Juan Forero writes for The Washington Post: "Like the Venezuelan economy itself, the assembly line here is designed to put workers ahead of the bottom line and, in the process, serve as a building block in Chavez's dream of constructing what he calls 21st-century socialism. According to a 59-page economic blueprint for the next six years, free-market capitalism's influence will wane with the proliferation of state enterprises and mixed public-private firms called social production companies, the objective being to generate funding for community programs...."

• PAUL KRUGMAN: The Substance Thing

  "...All of the leading Democratic candidates are articulate and impressive. It’s easy to imagine any of them as president. But after what happened in 2000, it worries me that Mrs. Clinton is showing an almost Republican aversion to talking about substance."