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What Business Wanted from Welfare Reform by Stephen Pimpare: How Democrats and Corporate Think Tanks Dismantled Welfare; Poverty and Hunger Up, Federal Aid to Poor Down; The Objective: Cheapening the Cost of Labor; A Report from a Black Organizer in South Carolina by Kevin Alexander Gray: ABB versus Movement Building; Why the Nazis Banned Fractura by Alexander Cockburn. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

October 30 / 31, 2004

Winslow T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells

October 29, 2004

Harry Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County Clare

October 28, 2004

Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's Ghosts of October

Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion in the Ranks

Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits

Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy in Red Sox Nation

Alexander Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War

 

October 27, 2004

Jules Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics

Dave Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue

Katherine Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties Ignore Working Parents

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil

 

October 26, 2004

Brian Cloughley
Three Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan

William Blum
Fear Factors

Lenni Brenner
The 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004

Ben Tripp
The Chicken Salad Election

Fidel Castro
After the Fall

Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus

Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan

Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo

Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories

Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry

Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush

Kathleen Christison
Why I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't

 

October 25, 2004

Ralph Nader
Letter from a Minnesota Highway

Werther
West Texas Wahabbism

Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License

Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah

William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story

John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency

Uri Avnery
On the Road to Civil War

 

October 22 / 24, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
You Can't Blame Nader for This

Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions

Willliam A. Cook
Killing for Christ

Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?

Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest

Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means

William S. Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War

Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry

Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"

Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?

Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military

Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion

M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America

David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry

David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs

Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story

Website of the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling

 

October 21, 2004

Ben Tripp
The Undecided Voter Examined

Joshua Frank
Kerry and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green

Stan Cox
What the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses

Bill Martinez
State Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply

Mark Engler
The War and Globalization

Lina Britto and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia: a Year After the October Insurrection

Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth

 

October 20, 2004

Yitzhak Laor
"Did You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian Child

Jason Leopold
Sinclair Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception

Jesse Sharkey
A Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School Students

Col. Dan Smith
Choking Free Speech About the Draft

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion

David Vest
If Bush Wins, Blame Me

Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny

Ron Jacobs
Time to Kick It Up a Notch

James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?

Christopher Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest

Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...

Website of the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue

 

October 19, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Party Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe

Jeff Taylor
Confessions of a Swing State Voter

Matt Vidal
American Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"

Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For": Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum

William Loren Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around

Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims

CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?

 

 

October 18, 2004

Saul Landau
Facts and Lies; Slogans and Truth

Dave Lindorff
Bulletin on the Bush Bulge

Diane Christian
Sheep and Goats: On the Language of Goodness

Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency

Uri Avnery
Ariel Sharon's Philosophy

Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank

Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post

Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11

 

October 16 / 17, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern

Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the True Measure of Bush's Character

Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World

Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was the President Just Glad to be There?

Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices

Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire

M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!

Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain

Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It

Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11

Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results

David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?

Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism

Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable

Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador

Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence Thomas on the Million Worker March

Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the South"

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert

Website of the Weekend
No More Bush Girls

 

October 15, 2004

Paul Craig Roberts
Where Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting of America

Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon

Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers

Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?

Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear Hugo Chavez?

Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears

Leah Caldwell
From Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse

Website of the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism

 

 

October 14, 2004

Darcy Richardson
The Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown

Willliam A. Cook
Turning Myths into Truth

Laura Santina
Water, Women and War

Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug Importation

Alan Farago
Lessons from Nature

Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti

Nicole Colson
Maimed for Oil and Empire

 

 

 

October 13, 2004

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti

Sharon Smith
Barak O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran

Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration

Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case

Paul de Rooij
Amnesty International: a False Beacon?

Website of the Day
Operation Truth

 

 

October 12, 2004

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian Country"

Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters in Swing States

Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader

Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from UN Oil-for-Food Program

Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course

Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake

Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Israel as Sideshow

Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters

 

October 11, 2004

Robert Fisk
Iraq: Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises

Kevin Pina
The Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti

Patrick Gavin
Rethinking Columbus Day

Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan

Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most Dangerous Nuclear Plant

Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and 40% of All Americans

Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink

Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with Sharon's Lawyer

Paul Craig Roberts
The Debates and the Big Lie

Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?

 

 

October 9 / 10, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
"There Are No Innocents"

Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry Adams

M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times

Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court

Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap

Paul Craig Roberts
Faith-Based Economics

Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?

Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left

Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement

Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium

William A. Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell

Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later

Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford

Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes

 

October 8, 2004

Jennifer Loewenstein
The Israeli Invasion of Gaza

Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities

David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition to Iraq War

Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!

Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery

William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up

Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine

Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan

 

 

October 7, 2004

Dave Lindorff
All Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air

Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar

Christopher Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay

Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?

Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida

Meredith Kolodner
Where is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge

 

 

October 6, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
"Please, Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah

Ron Jacobs
Going Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives

Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?

Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates

Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood

Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs

John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia

Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"

Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target

Patrick Cockburn
Elections Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq

Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?

October 5, 2004

Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"

Mark Clinton and Tony Udell
The Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran

Greg Bates
Trading Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman

Dave Lindorff
What's the Frequency, Karl?

Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers

Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children

Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government

Gary Leupp
What Edwards Should Ask Cheney

Website of the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate

 

October 4, 2004

Diane Christian
The Gates of Hell

Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb

Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?

John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump

Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage

Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM

Sean Donahue
Outsourcing Terror: Kerry and Special Forces

Website of the Day
Mapping Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks

 

October 2 / 3. 2004

Paul Wright
John Kerry on Criminal Justice

Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris

Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill

Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia

Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"

Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia

Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock

William S. Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces

Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC

Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate

Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway

Zoe Moskovitz & Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti

Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned Cuban Academics

Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades

Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?

Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years

Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries

Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert

 

October 1, 2004

Steve Breyman
Kerry's Missed Opportunities

Rose Gentle
My Son Died for a Lie

Lee Sustar
Iran in the Crosshairs

Ralph Nader
What We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?

Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever

Mike Whitney
Pandora's Government

Mickey Z.
Debate This

Saul Landau
The Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con!

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The Death Train of the WTO

Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens as Model Apostate

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Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians

Steve J.B.
Prison Bitch

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War

Wendell Berry
Small Destructions Add Up

CounterPunch Wire
WMD: Who Said What When

Cindy Corrie
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The Erosion of the American Dream

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Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

Click Here for More Stories.

 

 

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Weekend Edition
October 30 / 31, 2004

Eight Years in Existence
By VANESSA JONES

I forgot to say that
the election held a couple of weeks ago
In Australia
Was won by the Howard conservative coalition.
How could I forget to send in something?
It's a funny thing when your oldest child is 8
And this government
Who got re-elected
Was voted in
When this child was in my womb.
Some things are beyond comprehension.

*

It looks like this child will spend all his childhood under Howard's leadership.
It seems a long time- a whole childhood.
(The dismantling of a nation's social infrastructure).
And teenage years?
Is it worth Australians worrying so much about their "low" interest rates increasing?
Somehow believing Howard delivered
(and will continue to deliver) this suburban pacifier-
Forgetting to compare interest rates with other nations.
And, remember,
it was Howard who astutely designed the "first home owner's grant"
and socially engineered this interest rate dependant national electorate.
Get the maximum amount of people paying a mortage,
and have them stressed out about any interest rate increases.
A puppeteer pulling the nation's strings.
Are our "low" interest rates and booming house prices worth more than
Our vanishing universal healthcare system
And increasingly inaccessible university system,
Our lack of French or Danish style government funded childcare systems,
Our environment?

Why can't we have dental care on par with Cuba?
And I won't mention Iraq- that wasn't an election issue-
who cares-
perhaps it isn't happening.
Just as real on TV as any soapie.
Or perhaps it was an election issue.
Australians silently approved of blowing up innocent people.

*

Perhaps Australia gets what it deserves,
And votes in its own greed-
And it is only when Medicare
And accessible university systems are abolished
(And Industrial Relations "reforms" are put in place
And media ownership tidied up)
And Australians feel in their own lives what policies say on paper
That Australians will
Get their eyes off their own bank balance
And wonder
What the heck is going on.

Vanessa Jones lives in Australia. She contributed an essay on the photographers Olive Cotton and Max Dupain for CounterPunch's new book book Serpents in the Garden. She can be contacted at: post4@bigpond.com.au

 

The Wolf of Baghdad
By RAY LAYMON

Based on a photograph of Paul Wolfowitz in Iraq after the US invasion.

The wolf stalks atop
the piles
of loose rubble, and
he smiles
his lupinelike smile.

With large yellow eyes
and big ears
he can now see
and too, hears
the death below.

The old mangy dog
sharpens his canines;
ever-ready,
opportune, parasitic,
steady, steady.

And as his given right
to make claim,
he eats the flesh
of young and old
the same.

He devours his fallen
prey to the pith,
and the knotty membranes
of his humanity
are lost, forthwith.

Ray Laymon may be reached at: ralaymon@earthlink.net

 

If You're Happy and You Know It, Vote for Bush
By CAROL NORRIS

If you love to go Code Orange, vote for Bush.
If you love to bully allies, vote for Bush.
If you love preemptive striking, and war is to your liking,
And you wish you were a Viking, Vote for Bush!

If your civil rights don't matter, vote for Bush.
If you hate the right to choose, then vote for Bush.
Rightwing judges make you blissful. You want weapons by the fistful.
And for fairness you're not wistful. Vote for Bush!

If worker's rights don't matter, vote for Bush;
Just earnings for the boss, then vote for Bush.
With the payroll you're displeased; replace your workers overseas.
Outsourcing jobs is such a breeze, just Vote for Bush!

If BigPharm needs more money, vote for Bush.
If healthcare's for the wealthy, vote for Bush.
Granny really needs her meds. But Bush and BigPharm share a bed;
So Granny pays for lights instead. Go Vote for Bush!

If you fancy toxic waste, then vote for Bush.
If clean water's not in issue, vote for Bush.
So, your kids are feelin' queasy? So, pollution makes 'em wheezy?
Screw their future! It's so easy: Vote for Bush!

If you love to be told lies, then vote for Bush.
Lies and lies and lies and lies, then vote for Bush.
If you want to hear some more and kick the truth right out the door
With all the facts that he'll ignore, just vote for Bush!

If justice doesn't matter, vote for Bush.
If it's profits over people, vote for Bush.
Safety laws he is relaxing, corporations he ain't taxing,
Social programs he is axing, Vote for Bush!

If you're happy and you know it, vote for Bush.
Truly happy and you know it, vote for Bush.
If the secrecy and lying and the prying and the dying
Don't make you feel like crying,

(spoken) Then go ahead, Vote for Bush.

Carol Norris is a freelance writer and an organizer with CodePink:Women for Peace.

 

What's This Rapture
By FRANK B. FORD

shit? You mean we're in the middle of
an exigency even more ball-wrenching
than most & a whole raft of these

duplicitous bastards goes a-wingin
off to heaven? Can they, God,

retain their graft? Silly question:
arrangements being already made.

Frank B. Ford dodges hurricanes and voter fraud in Florida. His work is online.

 

To Be or Not To Be
By STEW ALBERT

Bushies hinted he was dead
but Bin laden lives
in one piece
with a great new script writer
who must be watching Michael Moore movies.
BL made fun of Bush
getting a girl's goat
and claims he didn't get
the Tower terrorizing technique
from a Tarot reading
but by being in Beirut
when Israel blew up its sky scrapers.
Why has an official arch villain
of much murder
asserted himself in this election?

Probably missed seeing his name in lights
and darkness.

Stew Albert runs the Yippie Reading Room. His memoir, Who the Hell is Stew Albert?, is just out from Red Hen Press. He can be reached at: stewa@aol.com


Weekend Edition Features for October 22 / 14, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
You Can't Blame Nader for This

Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions

Willliam A. Cook
Killing for Christ

Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?

Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest

Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means

William S. Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War

Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry

Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"

Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?

Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military

Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion

M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America

David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry

David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs

Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story

Website of the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling

Google
WWW http://www.counterpunch.org

 

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