CounterPunch.org | With President Obama poised to announce our "new" strategy in Afghanistan next Monday, the courtiers and pundits in Versailles on the Potomac seemed to have reached a consensus that he will opt for an escalation in Afghanistan of 35,000 troops.

NY Times | With food stamp use at record highs and climbing every month, a program once scorned as a failed welfare scheme now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

Politico | Is libertarian rock star and Texas Republican Ron Paul going mainstream? He’s got everyone from South Carolina Republican Sen. Jim DeMint to Minnesota moderate Democrat Collin Peterson to California liberal Barbara Boxer on his side in his audit-the-Fed crusade. He’s drawing liberal support in his push to rein in the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Senate candidates like Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes of New Hampshire are finding Dr. No’s populist economic anger to be useful in the campaign, echoing Paul’s criticism of the Federal Reserve.

PropagandaMatrix.com | Appearing on The Alex Jones Show yesterday, Lord Christopher Monckton went further than ever before in his vehement opposition to the elitists running the climate change scam, calling for the UN to be shut down and for fraudulent peddlers of global warming propaganda like Al Gore to be arrested and criminally prosecuted.

wsws.org | Dubai’s announcement on Wednesday that it would be delaying by “at least” six months the maturity date of $59 billion in bonds issued by the city-state’s largest state-owned company, Dubai World, has sent global shares tumbling. The market reaction to Dubai’s massive debt default is partly explained by the exposure of European and Asian banks to DP World and its tourism subsidiary, Nakheel.

Infowars.com | Ben Bernanke, Federal Reserve mob boss, is running scared. He is deathly afraid an audit of his criminal organization.

Pilotsfor911truth.org | Newly decoded data provided by an independent researcher and computer programmer from Australia exposes alarming evidence that the reported hijacking aboard American Airlines Flight 77 was impossible to have existed. A data parameter labeled "FLT DECK DOOR", cross checks with previously decoded data obtained by Pilots For 9/11 Truth from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) through the Freedom Of Information Act.

PBS | In other news today, An ongoing inquiry into Britain's decision to go to war in Iraq revealed, the U.S. focused on Iraq just hours after the 9/11 attacks. The former British Ambassador to the U.S. Sir Christopher Meyer, testified that he spoke with then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about it on September 11.

AP | Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

Glossynews.com | The Conseil d’Etat, France’s highest court, has ruled that U.S. agrogarchy bully-corp Monsanto has been lying through its proverbial teeth concerning the safety record of the best-selling weed-killer, Phuck_Up.

IPS | The U.S. military has announced the opening of a new prison on Bagram Air Base. The prison, costing 60 million dollars, will hold up to 1,100 prisoners at any one time. U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, a U.S. Army lawyer who undertook an examination this year of Afghan and American prisons, said that the prison would be handed over to the Afghan government, though it is unclear when that handover will take place.

Infowars.com | “Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States” — Sen. Barry Goldwater (Rep. AR)

Washington's Blog | Many officials and experts have warned of violence stemming from the economic crash. The head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is now warning that there might be a revolution if some countries if governments hand out another round of bailouts to the financial sector:

NPR | There's an experiment going on in the redwood forests of northern California: people are trying to turn trees into "carbon banks." The idea is to manage forests so they absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and slow down global warming. Carbon banking will be a hot topic at next month's big climate conference in Copenhagen, especially if negotiators can't agree on how to get industrialized countries to lower their own emissions. Carbon banking could be a way to cut those emissions by paying poor countries to save their forests and manage them better.

The Denver Post | The Denver Police Department arrested 32 men and juvenile boys after a months-long undercover investigation into what police said were racially motivated assaults and robberies in downtown Denver, including the LoDo entertainment district.