CBS reports that Tennessee agrees to stop arresting protesters. They are just admitting reality as a Tennessee judge has already ruled that the executive order they were using for the arrests wasn’t legal. Federal District Judge Aleta Trauger told the attorneys for Tennessee that what they had done was a “clear prior restraint on free speech rights”.

I guess we are going to need to haul city after city into a Federal court at great cost to taxpayers in order to convince politicians that the Bill of Rights isn’t a suggestion.

The US further isolates itself in support of the Likud: U.S. cuts UNESCO funding after Palestinian vote

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON – The Obama administration on Monday cut off funding for the U.N. cultural agency, after its member countries defied an American warning and approved a Palestinian bid for full membership in the body.

The lopsided vote to admit Palestine as a member of UNESCO, which only the United States and 13 other countries opposed, triggered a long-standing congressional ban on U.S. funding to U.N. bodies that recognize Palestine as a state before an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is reached. The State Department said a $60 million payment to UNESCO scheduled for November would not be made as a result, and U.S. officials warned of a “cascade” effect at other U.N. bodies that might follow UNESCO’s lead.

If you don’t pay your dues, you don’t get to vote. The Likud wing of the US Congress made it a law that the US can’t support organizations that formally recognize the existence of Palestine, so we will lose our membership in organization after organization.

I’m still waiting to hear what benefit the US derives from the support of the failed policies of the Israeli government.

Merkel and Sarkozy are in crisis mode and ‘casinos’ around the world are having the vapors after the vicious, underhanded action by the Greek prime minister. The BBC has the gruesome details: Greece’s Papandreou in crisis talks over bailout revolt

Greece’s government is holding an emergency meeting following a day of turmoil triggered by PM George Papandreou’s announcement of a referendum on the proposed EU bailout.

One MP from the governing Pasok party has resigned, cutting Mr Papandreou’s parliament majority to two.

Six other leading party members have called on him to resign.

US and European markets, calmed by last week’s EU bailout plan, have fallen sharply since the announcement.

The Greek government also faces a crucial confidence vote in parliament on Friday.

Apparently asking the people in a democratic country what they think of living in enforced poverty to prevent the greedy bankers from suffering the fate of losers is beyond the pale for the Euro zone.

The banks are panicked by having to actually state their real assets, rather than the ‘creative’ numbers that currently appear on their balance sheets. Their real concern is that this will lead to the Iceland procedure of sending bankers to jail and making the gamblers absorb their own losses.

Papandreou knows that implementing the latest ‘fix’ will just make matters worse, and there are already violent clashes in the streets and a series of strikes. Without the explicit agreement of the Greek people, the current plan won’t work.