Courtesy Alternet:

It was supposed to be day of great drama in our nation’s capital. Right-wing activists promised a captivating protest taken from a left-wing playbook, with Tea Party activists acting out the part of dying patients in the halls of Senate office buildings. And one of their stalwart leaders was to address a luncheon at the National Press Club — an event that would have heralded the arrival of the Tea Party movement into the mainstream. Neither event came off.

The Tea Party Patriots’ Senate event promised to be strangely reminiscent of Code Pink’s guerrilla-theater “die-ins.” The Tea Partiers even named their event “Code Red.” Alas, with limited enthusiasm for such artistic tactics among the anti-Obama crowd, the plug was pulled on the die-in, and the activists simply lobbied their senators.

Dick Armey, chairman of the lobbying group FreedomWorks, which has been instrumental in the ginning up of right-wing protests against health-care reform, planned to announce the formation of a new political action committee at a luncheon meeting at the National Press Club. But Armey’s speech to reporters was canceled for apparent lack of interest, allowing him time to get to address a Capitol Hill rally staged by Americans for Prosperity that looked small compared to last month’s protest on the eve of the House health-care vote.

The die-in was apparently dependent on the assemblage of some 1,000 protesters called for by TPP activist Mark Meckler — too tall an order for a morning call during the holiday season. More than 1,000 activists would later assemble on Capitol Hill for a rally, thanks to buses supplied by Americans For Prosperity, the other major astroturfing group that organizes protests against health-care reform. (Participants did have to pay a fee to ride.)

Yet, even in its attenuated state, the Tea Party activists’ day on Capitol Hill had its moments.

Next They’ll Put a Chip in Your Brain

-Article continues @ Source.

Listen live to the Coal River Mountain rally from Charleston, West Virginia, hosted by Head-On radio host Bob Kincaid! Join us in the chat room!

Audio:

 

 Robert Kennedy Jr [34:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Rev. Jim Lewis [6:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Stephanie from App Voices reading a note from Kathy Mattea [4:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Judy Bonds [3:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

YouTube Link

-Article with more Video, continued @ Source.

Courtesy The Guardian (UK):

 

Iranian riot police used batons and teargas today to break up defiant protests after prayers in Tehran, where Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the country’s most powerful clerics, warned that the regime was “in crisis” and urged a release of prisoners detained in post-election unrest.

Rafsanjani, a bitter rival of the supreme leader,Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke his month-long silence to issue a stark warning that the Islamic Republic had lost popular support. His carefully crafted address stopped short of directly attacking Khamenei or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose victory in June’s presidential poll has been widely denounced as a fraud. But its message was still strong.

“Today is a bitter day,” Rafsanjani declared from the pulpit at Tehran University’s sprawling prayer ground. “People have lost their faith in the regime and their trust is damaged. It’s necessary to regain people’s consent and restore their trust in the regime. Everyone has lost.”

-Article continues @ Source.

Here are some pictures Bob Kincaid passed along from today’s protest at Marsh Fork Elementary. For the full details on the events of the day, you can grab Bob’s archive for June 23, 2009 at The White Rose Society!

When Bob passed along the first picture, I became curious as to which existed first – the school or the mining operation. Bob replied: “School was there first. Then came the plant. Then came the law. The plant was “grandfathered in.” Then came the MTR job above.” Remember the ‘Country Roads’ Parody video, where in the lyrics Bob penned he stated “We lose more by law here, than if they used a gun”? This is what he was talking about.

Here’s the sniper on the school’s roof, as Bob noted.

The H.O.R.N.’s favorite intern, Ferg, protesting the destruction of his home.

H.O.R.N. intern Ferg taking video of the performers, who were no doubt singing about the evils of mountain removal.

H.O.R.N. den mother Agnes, and intern Ferg, take time to participate in an interview.

This is the one who shouted the whole time. (I can smell him from here. Oh — am I being an “Outside Agitator” Mr. Big Mouth? Tough!) That audio will be available as soon as it’s processed.

Here are the hogs the fiends of coal rode in on, and revved the entire time. In fact, a lot of their behavior can be related to barnyard animals.

Here’s one now – Moooooo! (Love ya! – The Outside Agitator)

Banjo player Morgan O’Kane (pictured below with singer/producer Jen Osha) is the fellow Bob told us about, that had an air horn blasted right in his ear by a fiend of coal. To check out or purchase the benefit CD they participated in to raise money for the fight against mountain removal, please visit http://www.auroralights.org/journey. You’ll be glad you did!

Dr. James Hansen, arrested today, tried to warn us years ago.

Reverend Jim Lewis had to shout a prayer over the sound of motorcycle engines being gunned.

This is Matt Sherman. You simply must listen to Bob’s archive to get all the details about his speech!

Awww, does someone need a hug? (Love ya! – The Outside Agitator)

Uncle Sam doesn’t like mountain removal. Apparently his stilts were a security threat.

Let’s not forget why people gathered here today. It’s to ensure the students at Marsh Fork Elementary School have a safe and clean environment to learn in. In a matter of weeks, children will be sent inside a building that is only yards away from BILLIONS of gallons of deadly coal sludge, that sit in a measly earthen dam. If that dam breaks, those children will be killed.

So, how clear is your conscience?

Warning! the Following Video purports to depict the Ultimate Sacrifice of an Iranian Woman in the cause of that Nation’s struggle for self determination.

YouTube Link

YouTube Link

Updates at Mountain Justice.

While most governments’ eyes are on the banking crisis, a much bigger issue – the environmental crisis – is passing them by, says Andrew Simms. In the Green Room this week, he argues that failure to organise a bailout for ecological debt will have dire consequences for humanity.

“Nature Doesn’t Do Bailouts!” said the banner strung across Bishopsgate in the City of London.

Civilisation’s biggest problem was outlined in five words over the entrance to the small, parallel reality of the peaceful climate camp. Their tents bloomed on the morning of 1 April faster than daisies in spring, and faster than the police could stop them.

Across the city, where the world’s most powerful people met simultaneously at the G20 summit, the same problem was almost completely ignored, meriting only a single, afterthought mention in a long communique.

World leaders dropped everything to tackle the financial debt crisis that spilled from collapsing banks.

Gripped by a panic so complete, there was no policy dogma too deeply engrained to be dug out and instantly discarded. We went from triumphant, finance-driven free market capitalism, to bank nationalisation and moving the decimal point on industry bailouts quicker than you can say sub-prime mortgage.

But the ecological debt crisis, which threatens much more than pension funds and car manufacturers, is left to languish.

It is like having a Commission on Household Renovation agonise over which expensive designer wallpaper to use for papering over plaster cracks whilst ignoring the fact that the walls themselves are collapsing on subsiding foundations.

Beyond our means

Each year, humanity’s ecological overdraft gets larger, and the day that the world as a whole goes into ecological debt – consuming more resources and producing more waste than the biosphere can provide and absorb – moves ever earlier in the year.

The same picture emerges for individual countries like the UK – which now starts living beyond its own environmental means in mid-April.

-Article  continued here, courtesy BBC News.

YouTube Link

-Article continued here, courtesy Rawstory.

Courtesy BBC News:

Venezuela has ordered the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador to Caracas in protest at Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.

A number of diplomatic staff have been expelled along with Shlomo Cohen.

President Hugo Chavez has strongly condemned Israel for its actions and called on Israelis to stand up against their government.

Venezuela is the first country to take such a diplomatic step in protest at the violence in Gaza.

-Article Continues @ Sourced Site.