Current washes Keith Olbermann away 30 Mar 2012 When Al Gore and Joel Hyatt snapped up Keith Olbermann last year following his spectacular exit from MSNBC, they knew what they were getting... But as their relationship with him disintegrated rather publicly over the last six months – to the surprise of absolutely no one in the television business - it became clear that they were getting all of the drawbacks and none of the benefits. Those tense strands finally snapped Friday afternoon, when Gore and Hyatt announced that Current was firing Olbermann because of a lack of "respect" and "collegiality" and replacing him with a show hosted by former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Man whose WMD lies led to over 100,000 deaths confesses all 01 Apr 2012 A man [Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi] whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 1,000,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow. "Curveball", the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, smiles as he confirms how he made the whole thing up... When it is put to him "we went to war in Iraq on a lie. And that lie was your lie", he simply replies: "Yes." US officials "sexed up" Mr Janabi's drawings of mobile biological weapons labs to make them more presentable, admits Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's former chief of staff. "I brought the White House team in to do the graphics," he says, adding how "intelligence was being worked to fit around the policy".
U.S. Taxpayers to Equip and Pay 'Rebels' in Syria 02 Apr 2012 The United States and dozens of other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the Obama administration agreeing to send communications equipment to help rebels mercenaries organize and evade Syria's military, according to participants gathered here. Molham al-Drobi, a member of the Syrian National Council, said that the opposition had pledges of... $100 million in salaries over three months for the fighters inside Syria. Some money was already flowing to the fighters, he said, including $500,000 last week through "a mechanism that I cannot disclose now." [Oh, I thought there was a *deficit?* Too bad there's no money for single-payer healthcare, since the sociopaths running the US government would rather pay for Israel's weapons and hire terrorists to overthrow another Middle East country for Exxon Mobil.]
Confirmed: CIA secret prison in Poland 02 Apr 2012 Another CIA-run interrogation 'black site' has been exposed after the confessions of top-ranking Polish officials blew the lid on the dirtiest secret in Eastern Europe. The former head of Poland's intelligence service secret Zbigniew Siemiatkowski has been charged with taking part in establishing a secret prison for the CIA in a remote part of the country. Allegedly, foreign prisoners in the detention center were tortured in connection with America's global war on terror. Rumors about Poland hosting a CIA-run prison had circulated for years, though the country's authorities dismissed them as absurd.
US assassination drone raids kill 9 in Pakistan, Yemen 31 Mar 2012 The United States continues the use of its assassination drones abroad, killing at least 9 people in the latest raids by the unmanned aircraft in Yemen and Pakistan. A drone attack in Yemen targeted a car traveling in the country's southern province of Shabwa on Friday, killing the five people on board. Another drone attack in Yemen hit a vacant building, according to witnesses. In a separate incident early Friday, an airstrike by a US unmanned aerial vehicle in Pakistan killed four people and wounded three others.
Afghan Policeman Kills 9 Sleeping Fellow Officers 30 Mar 2012 An Afghan policeman killed nine of his fellow officers as they lay sleeping in a village in the eastern Paktika province on Friday, police said, blaming the attack on the Taliban. Provincial police chief Dawlat Khan Zadran said the incident took place in Yayakhil town of Yayakhil district. Bowal Khan, chief of Yayakhil district, identified the gunman as Asadullah, who goes by one name. He said the gunman was assigned to a small command post when he woke up at 3 a.m. for guard duty. He then used his assault rifle to kill the nine men sleeping inside the post, took their weapons and piled them in a pickup truck.
War critic who demands immediate Afghanistan withdrawal wins surprise return to UK Parliament 30 Mar 2012 An outspoken critic of the war in Afghanistan claimed Friday that public anger over the conflict propelled him to a surprise victory in a special election for a seat in Britain's House of Commons. George Galloway, a leftist political maverick, won the Bradford West seat in northern England - a district that includes a large Muslim community - with a majority of more than 10,000 votes, as support for the country's mainstream lawmakers crumbled. "They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars," Galloway said, as the result was announced.
Israeli theater must be removed from London festival, top U.K. cultural figures say --In open letter published in the Guardian, leading directors cite what they say is Habima's 'shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements.' 01 Apr 2012 In an open letter published over the weekend, dozens of prominent members of the U.K.'s theater and film industries protested the inclusion of Israel's national theater, Habima, in an upcoming Shakespeare festival, over what the signatories say was the theater's "shameful record of involvement with illegal Israeli settlements." The letter, which was published late last week in the British newspaper the Guardian, was signed by such leading cultural figures as film director Mike Leigh, actress Emma Thompson and actor-director Richard Wilson.
NORAD to Conduct Training Flights Over DC Area 27 Mar 2012 NORAD is planning a series of training flights over the Washington area this week. The North American Aerospace Defense Command says the flights will begin Wednesday night and continue into early Thursday morning. The exercise involves Civil Air Patrol aircraft, Air Force F-16s and a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter. [Gee, NORAD seemingly 'trains' every week! Let's hope they don't 'go live,' as they did on 9/11.]
Britain planning new Internet snooping laws 01 Apr 2012 The British government wants to expand its powers to monitor email exchanges and website visits, The Sunday Times newspaper reported. Internet companies would be instructed to install hardware to allow the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) -- Britain's electronic "listening" agency" -- to go through "on demand" every text message and email sent, websites accessed and phone calls made "in real time, the broadsheet said. The plans are expected to be unveiled next month.
Police Are Using Phone Tracking as a Routine Tool 01 Apr 2012 Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight, documents show. While many departments require warrants to use phone tracking in nonemergencies, others claim broad discretion to get the records on their own, according to 5,500 pages of internal records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union from 205 police departments nationwide. The internal documents, which were provided to The New York Times, open a window into a cloak-and-dagger practice that police officials are wary about discussing publicly.
With GPS Data Out, Feds Eye Warrantless Cell Phone Surveillance 31 Mar 2012 Prosecutors are shifting their focus to warrantless cell-tower locational tracking of suspects in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that law enforcement should acquire probable-cause warrants from judges to affix GPS devices to vehicles and monitor their every move, according to court records. The change of strategy comes in the case the justices decided in January, when it reversed the life sentence of a District of Columbia area drug dealer, Antoine Jones, who was the subject of 28 days of warrantless GPS surveillance via a device the FBI secretly attached to his vehicle without a warrant. In the wake of Jones' decision, the FBI has pulled the plug on 3,000 GPS tracking devices.
Attack on WikiLeaks mounts as cables are withheld 31 Mar 2012 The Australian government has renewed its attacks on WikiLeaks, condemning the transparency group for "reckless, irresponsible and potentially dangerous" disclosures of secret information. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has also delayed release, under freedom of information, of sensitive Australian diplomatic cables relating to Julian Assange until after a legal challenge to the WikiLeaks founder's extradition to Sweden has been decided. The delay follows expressions of concern by United States authorities about disclosure of US-Australian discussions about WikiLeaks.
Alleged hacker considered bright, resourceful 30 Mar 2012 Jeremy Hammond is notoriously well-remembered by classmates and teachers for helping to organize a walk-out his senior year, which led more than 200 from their desks, down the halls of Glenbard East High School, north on Main Street and onto trains that led them to downtown Chicago to join a larger protest of the Iraq War. On another occasion, he used his developed computer skills to hack into the school's server to make the school aware of its weaknesses. Hammond became the unofficial leader of a group that published a left-leaning, underground newsletter consisting of essays, mostly focusing on political theory. The creators called the publication "The Suburban Underground."
Michigan Militia Members Cleared of Conspiracy 28 Mar 2012 A federal judge on Tuesday gutted the government's case against seven members of a Michigan militia, dismissing the most serious charges in an extraordinary defeat for federal authorities who insisted they had captured homegrown rural extremists poised for war. U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts said the members' expressed hatred of law enforcement didn't amount to a conspiracy to rebel against the government. The FBI had secretly planted an informant and an FBI agent inside the Hutaree militia starting in 2008 to collect hours of anti-government audio and video that became the cornerstone of the case.
USociopaths are trying to get a bird flu pandemic party started: Biosecurity advisory board reverses decision on 'engineered bird flu' papers --New surveillance shows that 'wild' H5N1 viruses circulating in chicken flocks overseas contain mutations similar to ones in the lab-engineered strains. 30 Mar 2012 Two scientific papers that describe experiments with a virulent and contagious bird flu virus should be published in uncensored form, a committee of scientists advising the federal government said Friday. That recommendation by the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity reverses one the committee made in January, when it asked two journals, Science and Nature, to hold off publishing studies about the lab-engineered strains of the H5N1 influenza virus.
Radiation affecting Japan's famous delicacies 01 Apr 2012 On Sunday, Japan reopened parts of the no-go zone around the Fukushima nuclear plant, but is still banning people from staying overnight. The government is also warning people to avoid hundreds of locally-produced foods that exceed safe radiation limits. CBS News reports that the ban is affecting one of the country's best-known foods. With Fukushima's forests heavily contaminated by radiation, the oak he needs to raise shiitake mushrooms is gone. Shiitake, which tend to absorb radioactive cesium now in the soil, are especially shunned.
U.S. Approves New Nuclear Reactors in South Carolina 30 Mar 2012 Federal regulators Wall Street wh*res approved power company Scana Corp.'s proposal to build two nuclear reactors with a partner in South Carolina at a cost of some $11 billion, the second such approval in two months after a drought that lasted more than 30 years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission voted 4-1 Friday to green-light construction over a dissent from Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who said the commission should have required compliance with any changes the agency adopts in light of Japan's 2011 [ongoing] nuclear accident... Two Southern Co. reactors in Georgia also received the NRC's blessing last month.
Gulf's dolphins pay heavy price for Deepwater oil spill --New studies show impact of BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster on dolphins and other marine wildlife may be far worse than feared 31 Mar 2012 A new study of dolphins living close to the site of North America's worst ever oil spill – the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe two years ago – has established serious health problems afflicting the marine mammals. The report, commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [NOAA], found that many of the 32 dolphins studied were underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.
Mega barf alert: Three GOP governors tour Neb. beef plant to eat 'pink slime' [For them, it was like looking in a mirror.] --The finished product contains only a trace of ammonia, meant to be an additional 'hurdle for the pathogens.' 29 Mar 2012 Republican governors of three states got up close with "pink slime" Thursday, touching and examining treated beef at a plant and eating hamburgers made with it in a bid to persuade grossed-out consumers and grocery stores the product is safe to consume. The politicians who toured the plant -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, Nebraska Lt. Gov. Rick Sheehy and South Dakota Lt. Gov. Matt Michels [as gross as their pimped product] -- all agree with the industry view that the beef has been unfairly maligned and mislabeled and issued a joint statement earlier saying the product is safe.
German police attack anti-capitalism protesters 31 Mar 2012 Clashes have broken out in Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt, between riot police and anti-capitalism protesters, who were calling for an end to the dictatorship of financial markets, Press TV reports. The clashes broke out when protesters, chanting anti-capitalism slogans, marched on the European Central Bank to call for an end to capitalism and the dominance of banks.
Goldman Sachs sells 16 per cent stake in website linked to sex trafficking 01 Apr 2012 A private equity fund run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc has agreed to sell its stake in a media company believed to be behind a sex trafficking forum connected to its management, a company spokesman said today. GS Capital Partners III on Friday signed a deal to sell its 16 per cent stake in Village Voice Media, which owns the website, called Backpage.com. The fund began negotiations with Village Voice Media in March, after deciding in 2010 that it had grown 'uncomfortable with the direction of the company,' and Goldman's inability to influence its operations, said Andrea Raphael, a Goldman Sachs spokesman.
Judge says groups can't shield campaign donors 31 Mar 2012 The Federal Election Commission overstepped its bounds in allowing groups that fund certain election ads to keep their financiers anonymous, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson's ruling Friday could pave the way to requiring groups that spend money on electioneering communications - ads that don't expressly advocate for or against a candidate running for federal office - to disclose their donors. The FEC ruled in 2007 that corporations and nonprofits did not have to reveal the identities of those who financed such ads.
National 'Hoodie Day' group seeks more action 30 Mar 2012 (MA) Kids in Swampscott will be wearing hoodies to high school in the wake of the shooting of the teenager killed in Florida, Trayvon Martin. Lawmakers have been wearing the jackets to Statehouses across the country. Citizens for Legitimate Government wants to make Friday National Hoodie Day. Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D., the founder of Citizens for Legitimate Government, recently joined us via Skype with more.
Florida protesters demand arrest in black teen's death 01 Apr 2012 Thousands of protesters marched on Saturday in the Florida city where unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin was shot dead a month ago to demand that police arrest the neighborhood watch volunteer who says he was acting in self-defense when he pulled the trigger. "We want arrests, shot in the chest," the protesters chanted at the demonstration in Sanford. Demonstrators called for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the 28-year-old neighborhood [self-appointed] watch captain who admitted shooting the 17-year-old Martin in the chest with a semiautomatic handgun on February 26.
Trayvon lawyers want U.S. to review prosecutor's role 01 Apr 2012 Attorneys for the family of slain black teenager Trayvon Martin are asking the U.S. Justice Department to review reports that prosecutors undermined a police investigation of shooter George Zimmerman by overruling a detective who wanted to charge him. The Justice Department's civil rights division had already agreed to review the local Florida investigation into the racially charged case. Lawyers for Martin's family are preparing a formal request that the federal government also investigate the specific report that state attorney prosecutors interfered with a homicide detective who wanted to charge Zimmerman with manslaughter.
Attorneys could argue Zimmerman was 'arrested,' and start ticking clock to discharge case By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org 31 Mar 2012 George Zimmerman was handcuffed the night of the killing of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman's attorneys could argue that since Zimmerman was handcuffed, he was technically 'arrested.' (MSNBC live) Therefore, under Florida law, the 'clock would start ticking' on Zimmerman's right to a speedy trial under the 6th Amendment. Florida law states, 'If a felony trial does not begin within 175 days from the date of a defendants arrest, a motion can be filed to discharge the case.
Trayvon Martin shooting: It's not George Zimmerman crying for help on 911 recording, 2 experts say 31 Mar 2012 Who was heard crying for help on a 911 call in the moments before Trayvon Martin was shot? A leading expert in the field of forensic voice identification sought to answer that question by analyzing the recordings for the Orlando Sentinel. His result: It was not George Zimmerman who called for help. Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion.
Trayvon Martin case 911 call: Screams not George Zimmerman's, 2 experts say 01 Apr 2012 The voice heard crying for help on a 911 call just before Trayvon Martin was shot to death was not that of George Zimmerman, according to two forensic voice identification experts, one of whom told MSNBC on Sunday that he believes the evidence is strong enough to use in court. "The tests concluded that it's not the voice of Mr. Zimmerman," Tom Owen, of Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, told MSNBC. Asked if he thought such tests would be admissible in court, Owen said "yes" and noted he had recently used similar testing in testimony at a Connecticut murder case that involved 911 call.
Texas lawyers offer $10,000 for George Zimmerman's legal defense 30 Mar 2012 The National Association for Legal Gun Defense wants to contribute $10,000 toward George Zimmerman's legal expenses, a member said today. The group represents gun owners involved in self-defense shooting cases, said attorney Blue Rannefeld of Fort Worth, Texas. Rannefeld said he has not been able to contact Zimmerman, 28, and is trying to reach Zimmerman's attorney, Craig Sonner, to make the group's offer of assistance.
Trayvon Martin's body showed no signs of struggle: funeral director --Kurtz: George Zimmerman's story of a vicious fight just didn't 'add up' 30 Mar 2012 Trayvon Martin's body showed no signs of a violent fight when it arrived at a Miami funeral home, the funeral director said Thursday. Richard Kurtz told CBS News that when he was preparing the teen's body for the funeral, it was clear of bruises, cuts and scrapes or any other signs of a fight that he would have covered up for the teen's wake. Those assertions directly contradict George Zimmerman's story that he was attacked by Martin and struggled with him for minutes before he shot the unarmed teen in self-defense.
Indigenous Cultures Institute has published two new books, Nine Seasons: Beyond 2012 by Carlos Aceves and volume 1 and 2 of the Institute's online journal Nakum.
