Join us in a coordinated mass call-in to CNN on behalf of Leonard Peltier. Shut CNN down until they realize they have a story.

On Monday, July 11th, at 10 a.m. (Eastern Time), start calling with your statement. It is important that the calls to CNN start promptly at 10 a.m. Insist that they cover the injustice posed by the continuing imprisonment of Leonard Peltier. Advise them of Leonard’s current situation (see Leonard Peltier in the Hole), and tell CNN personnel that they should contact the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee at 701-235-2206 for information and referrals.

Then call back and ask for specific news anchors to cover/respond. Remember to be firm, but polite. Tell them freedom for Peltier is the only solution to this 35+-year injustice.

They may tell you that they get their stories from their affiliates (local) channels. While this is true, it is also true that they cover both whatever they wish and stories that demand coverage. We MUST demand coverage.

Call CNN at 404-827-1500 at 10 a.m., Monday, July 11, 2011.

"What's the point?" "We never win!" "Why bother trying?"
This time we won.
This is the point. Congressman Buck McKeon and Senator John McCain proposed to give Obama and all future presidents dramatically expanded powers to launch wars. They wanted to do so as part of the same "Defense Authorization Act" in which the House was restricting Obama's warmaking in Libya.

Activist groups like RootsAction pushed back. A great deal of support was generated for an amendment to strip the offending language out in the House, but the amendment failed. RootsAction, and other organizations, demanded that the Senate remove it:

At the same time, the House rejected amendments that would have limited or ended U.S. warfare in Afghanistan, and rejected an amendment that would have stripped Section 1034 from the bill. That section is perhaps the most fundamental change to the structure of our federal government that has ever appeared likely to pass through Congress, as it would effectively give the power to make war to all future presidents. We must demand that the Senate remove Section 1034.

Yes, that was I standing before the U.S. Embassy in Athens on the eve of the July Fourth weekend holding the American flag in the distress mode — upside down.

Indignities experienced by me and my co-guests on “The Audacity of Hope,” the American boat to Gaza, over the past ten days in Athens leave no doubt in my mind that Barack Obama’s administration has forfeited the right to claim any lineage to the brave Americans who declared independence from the king of England 235 years ago.

In the Declaration of Independence, they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to a new enterprise of freedom, democracy and the human spirit. The outcome was far from assured; likely as not, the hangman’s noose awaited them. They knew that all too well.

But they had a genuine audacity to hope that the majority of their countrymen and women, persuaded by Thomas Paine’s Common Sense and the elegant words of Thomas Jefferson, would conclude that the goal of liberty and freedom was worth the risk, that it was worth whatever the cost.

The Declaration of Independence is best remembered as a declaration of war, a war declared on the grounds that we wanted our own flag. The sheer stupidity and anachronism of the idea serves to discourage any thoughts about why Canada didn't need a bloody war, whether the U.S. war benefitted people outside the new aristocracy to whom power was transferred, what bothered Frederick Douglas so much about a day celebrating "independence," or what the Declaration of Independence actually said.

When you read the Declaration of Independence, it turns out to be an indictment of King George III for various abuses of power. And those abuses of power look fairly similar to abuses of power we happily permit U.S. presidents to engage in today, either as regards the people of this nation or the people of territories and nations that our military occupies today in a manner uncomfortably resembling Britain's rule over the 13 colonies.

Or perhaps I should say, a large portion of us take turns being happy or outraged depending on the political party with which the current president is identified.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Voters gave a strong mandate to elect Thailand's first female prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, on Sunday (July 3) so she can reverse a devastating 2006 coup by the U.S.-trained military and bring her toppled brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, home from self-exile.

To protect herself against a possible putsch, Mrs. Yingluck, as prime minister, may allow the generals who staged the coup to keep their current job promotions and continue to enjoy a free hand in demanding expensive weapons procurement contracts.

But hatred, distrust and betrayal have ravaged Thai society on all sides since the coup, making any deals difficult to believe or rely upon.

The military had supported Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva who took office in December 2008.

Oxford-educated Mr. Abhisit, 46, conceded defeat in a brief speech on Sunday night after the polls closed and congratulated Mrs. Yingluck, 44, who is Mr. Thaksin's youngest sister.