Dear Mr. Limbaugh,
The Associated Press reports your new contract with Premiere Radio Networks will enrich you with at least $38 million a year over the next eight years. You are making this money on the public property of the American people for which you pay no rent.

You, Rush Limbaugh, are on welfare.

As you know, the public airwaves belong to the American people. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is supposed to be our trustee in managing this property. The people are the landlords and the radio and TV stations and affiliated companies are the tenants.

The problem is that since the Radio Act of 1927 these corporate tenants have been massively more powerful in Washington, DC than the tens of millions of listeners and viewers. The result has been no payment of rent by the stations for the value of their license to broadcast. You and your company are using the public’s valuable property for free. This freeloading on the backs of the American people is called corporate welfare.

It is way past due for the super-rich capitalist–Rush Limbaugh from Cape Girardeau, Missouri–to get himself off big time welfare. It is way past due for Rush Limbaugh as the Kingboy of corporatist radio to set a capitalist example for his peers and pay rent to the American people for the very lucrative use of their property.

You need not wait for the broadcast industry-indentured FCC and Congress to do the right thing. You can lead by paying a voluntary rent–determined by a reputable appraisal organization–for the time you use on the hundreds of stations that carry your words each weekday.
Payment of rent for the use of public airwaves owned by the American people is the conservative position. Real conservatives oppose corporate welfare. Real corporatists feed voraciously from hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate welfare gushing out of Washington, DC yearly.
Whose side are you on? Freeloading? Or paying rent for the public property you have been using free for many years?

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely yours,
Ralph Nader
PO Box 19312
Washington, DC 20036

A record number of active-duty soldiers killed themselves last year, top Army leaders reported Thursday, acknowledging that they are losing a battle to reverse a years-long rise in suicides, many of them by soldiers deployed to Afghanistan 0or Iraq.

The 128 confirmed suicides last year — with 15 others pending confirmation — mark a new high since the Army began tracking them in 1980. Soldier suicides have risen each year since they totaled 67 in 2004, the first full year of the Iraq war. At least 171 soldiers, including those in the Army Reserve and National Guard, have killed themselves while deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq from the start of the military operations there in 2001 and 2003, the Army reported.

On Thursday, Army Secretary Pete Geren and other top Army officials unveiled training programs and initiatives aimed at reaching soldiers on the brink. They noted that, for the first time, the Army suicide rate exceeded the adjusted national suicide rate of about 19.5 people per 100,000.

“This is not business as usual. We need to move quickly to do everything we can to reverse this very disturbing number of suicides,” said Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff. “We need to help our soldiers and their families understand that it’s OK to ask for help.”

Defense officials have not released overall suicide statistics in the military, but the numbers for Marines also reportedly rose in 2008. Army doctors said that troubles with intimate relationships, poor job performance, alcohol or drug abuse sparked some of the suicides. Stress from long deployments and multiple tours can play a role, often straining relationships at home; some soldiers have killed themselves after returning home and receiving new deployment orders, the Army confirmed.

However, officials also said that most of the suicides for deployed soldiers came during their initial deployments. Overall, the suicides were split about evenly among deaths in Afghanistan or Iraq, soldiers who had returned from deployment and those who never deployed.

“The numbers represent tragedies that have taken place across our Army,” Geren said. “As long as there is a single soldier out there struggling with this personal crisis, we are going to consider that a crisis of our Army family.”

In October, the Army announced it would embark on a $50 million study with the National Institute of Mental Health — the largest suicide study ever by the military. On Thursday it announced plans to step up its suicide training regimen, and ordered a “Stand Down” for suicide outreach beginning Feb. 15 that is designed to reach every soldier. However, the Army already has added hundreds of psychiatrists and psychologists and pushed videos and training through the ranks, with no sign of a turnaround. continued at Mercury News.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two men released from the US "war on terror" prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service reported.

One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP.

Three other men appear in the video, including Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, identified as an Al-Qaeda field commander. SITE later said he was prisoner No. 333.

A Pentagon spokesman, Commander Jeffrey Gordon, on Saturday declined to confirm the SITE information.

"We remain concerned about ex-Guantanamo detainees who have re-affiliated with terrorist organizations after their departure," said Gordon.

"We will continue to work with the international community to mitigate the threat they pose," he said.

On the video, al-Shihri is seen sitting with three other men before a flag of the Islamic State of Iraq, the front for Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for, and were imprisoned for," al-Shihri was quoted as saying.

Al-Shiri was transferred from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia in 2007, the US counter-terrorism official said.

The other men in the video are identified as Commander Abu Baseer al-Wahayshi and Abu Hureira Qasm al-Rimi (also known as Abu Hureira al-Sana’ani).

The Defense Department has said as many as 61 former Guantanamo detainees — about 11 percent of 520 detainees transferred from the detention center and released — are believed to have returned to the fight.

The latest case highlights the risk the new US administration faces as it moves to empty Guantanamo of its remaining 245 prisoners and close the controversial detention camp within a year. story from Yahoo News from AFP.

Dennis Kucinich – "50 Percent of the Population of Gaza Under 14 Years of Age!"

Hopefully Saturday’s ceasefire agreement will last…

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for the love of god, the truth sooner than later. I cringe as we involve ourselves with yet another war.

An awesome stop motion food fight sequence highlighting major wars.