The vicious tornado that ripped across Moore, Oklahoma yesterday killed at least 24 people — with more bodies expected
to arrive at the Oklahoma state medical examiner’s office, Coroner
Amy Elliott said today. Roughly nine of the bodies are children.
Even for a city toughened by massive tornadoes, Moore has never seen this kind of devastation.
Despite the woeful news, rescue workers clung to the hope of finding more survivors and scoured mountains of rubble where houses and schools once stood.
Many killed were children, including seven from Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore — the site of a frantic search this morning. The school was in the direct path of the storm’s fury. About 75 students and staff members were hunkered down in Plaza Towers when the tornado struck.
At one point, an estimated 24 children were missing from the school, but some later turned up at nearby churches. It’s unclear how many may still be trapped in the wreckage, and how many are dead or alive.
Parents of survivors couldn’t wrap their minds around the tragedy. A father of a third-grader still missing sat quietly on a stool outside. Tears cascaded from his face as he waited for any news.
“I’m speechless. How did this happen? Why did this happen?” he asked. “How do we explain this to the kids? … In an instant, everything’s gone.”
Across town, Moore Medical Center also succumbed to the tornado. Some doctors had to jump into a freezer to survive.
“Our hospital has been devastated,” Mayor Glenn Lewis said. “We had a two-story hospital, now we have a one. And it’s not occupiable.” As a result, 145 of the injured were rushed to three other area hospitals.
That number includes 45 children taken to the children’s hospital at Oklahoma University Medical Center, Dr. Roxie Albrecht said. Injuries ranged from minor to severe, including impalement and crushing injuries.
The town of Moore is far too familiar with the extent of nature’s wrath. The Oklahoma City suburb recovered from a fierce 1999 twister that killed six people there and dozens in the area. When that tornado struck, it had the strongest wind speed in history, Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Tom Lamb said. Another tornado tore through Moore in 2003.
This time, the two-mile-wide twister stayed on the ground for a full 40 minutes, carving a 22-mile path where thousands of residents live. The devastation and swath of destruction is mind boggling. The death toll has far surpassed anything the city has seen from a tornado — and is expected to climb.
The tornado first touched down in Newcastle, Oklahoma, before ripping into neighboring Moore. An early estimate rated the tornado as an EF4, meaning it had winds between 166 and 200 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
After the ear-shattering howl subsided, survivors along the miles of destruction emerged from shelters to see an apocalyptic vision. Homes and other buildings were shredded to pieces. Remnants of mangled cars were piled on top of each other. What was once a parking lot now looked like a junkyard.
“People are wandering around like zombies,” reporter Scott Hines said. “It’s like they’re not realizing how to process what had just happened.”
Hines said rescuers found a 7-month-old baby and its mother hiding in a giant freezer. But they didn’t survive.
The tornado sucked up debris along its path and swirled it several miles into the sky, landing up to 250 miles away. Resident Lando Hite, shirtless and spattered in mud, described how the storm pummeled the Orr Family Farm in Moore, which had about 80 horses before the storm hit.
“It was just like the movie ‘Twister,’ ” Hite told reporters. “There were horses and stuff flying around everywhere.”
“The structures that were just demolished were picked up by the twister here and just jettisoned up into the atmosphere, 20,000 feet,” reporting meteorologist Ivan Cabrera said.
James Dickens, a gas-and-oil pipeline worker, grabbed a hard hat and joined rescuers at Plaza Towers Elementary School. “I felt it was my duty to come help,” he said Tuesday after a long night of searching. “As a father, it’s humbling. It’s heartbreaking to know that we’ve still got kids over there that’s possibly alive, but we don’t know,” he said.
But the storm system that spawned Monday’s tornado and several other twisters Sunday isn’t over yet.
Southwest Arkansas and northeast Texas, including Dallas, are under the gun for severe weather today. Those areas could see large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes. A broader swath of the United States, from Texas to Indiana and up to Michigan, could see severe thunderstorms.
“We could have a round 3 coming,” meteorologist Cabrera said.
Canadian astronaut and Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield just finished his five-month tour of duty aboard the International Space Stationship (ISS) this Monday.
During that time he sent out a flurry of songs, thousands of snapshots and tweets, and other social media beamed directly from outer space to Earth.
And this is also what he did: a rendition of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Since its posting this Sunday, it’s been viewed more than 14 million times. Even Bowie has been retweeting it.
This music video took months in the making: With Bowie’s approval, copyright permissions, and NASA signing off, the song’s lyrics were tweaked to reflect Hadfield’s return from the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz craft. His son, Evan, worked diligently on the production, too. From Earth.
“Lock your Soyuz hatch and put your helmet on,” Hadfield sings in the video. After showing scenes of Hadfield strumming on his guitar and gazing soulfully out the station’s windows in zero gravity, the video winds up with a Soyuz parachuting down to its landing– which is exactly how Hadfield returned four days ago.
Why did he do it? Commander Hadfield said he wanted to do a different kind of farewell video than others have done, and using social media as a platform. It was an emotional send off.
“Who’d have thought that five months away from the
planet would make you feel closer to people?” he asked.
“Not closer because I miss them, just closer because seeing an experience this way, and being able to share it through all the media we use, has allowed me to get a direct reflection immediately back from so many people,” Hadfield said.
“It makes me feel like I’m actually with people more– that we’re having a conversation. This experience isn’t individual; it’s shared and it’s worldwide,” he said.
It’s easy if you know where and when to lookfor it. The ISS is the third brightest object in the sky, after the sun and moon. You can’t miss it because it looks like an incredibly bright, fast-moving star.
Just remember there are people up there, an international crew of seven living for months at a time in a station, which, with its solar arrays out, is about the size of a football field.
Built in pieces and weighing in at over 4,000 tons, it has more livable room than a conventional five-bedroom house, with two bathrooms, a gymnasium, and a 360-degree bay window.
It’s been up there for 12 years now and has traveled more than 1.5 billion miles, or the equivalent of eight round trips to the Sun. It’s made 57,000 orbits around the Earth traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. That’s five miles per second.
110 years following the Wright Brother’s first flight, 204 individuals have visited the Space Station via rockets and shuttles, taking a total of 164 space walks outside the Earth’s atmosphere.
Kai, the ‘hatchet-wielding hitchhiker’ who became an Internet sensation earlier this year, has been arrested for the murder of a New Jersey man.
He was captured by Philadelphia police at the Greyhound Bus station in Philadelphia earlier today, Union County Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said.
“I believe that everyone is a little safer with this person off the streets,” the prosecutor said.
According to Glassboro Police Chief Alex Fanfarillo, he was taken into custody in Philadelphia shortly after his department was contacted about interviewing witnesses to Kai’s visit and discovering the drifter had stayed in the town of Glassboro, New Jersey.
Police were seeking the 24-year-old over the murder of attorney Joseph Galfy Jr, who was found dead in his Clark, NJ, home on Monday, May 13. An autopsy showed that he died as the result of blunt force trauma.
Romankow said Kai met up with 73-year-old New Jersey lawyer in New York’s Times Square on Saturday night, left, and then returned to Galfy’s home. Witnesses reported Kai was with Galfy over the course of two or more days. Authorities suspect Galfy was involved in some sort of sexual encounter before being beaten to death.
After the alleged murder, Kai’s movements included two trips to meet a fan in Asbury Park, a trip to Philadelphia and another to Glassboro in southern New Jersey, before he took a train bound for Philadelphia, authorities said.
Kai, whose real name is Caleb Lawrence McGillvary, became an overnight hero after a man he was getting a hitchhiking ride with proclaimed that he was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ and deliberately rammed his car into the back of a Pacific Gas and Electric worker. After a woman tried to help the worker, the driver got out of the car and started squeezing the woman.
Kai– or McGillvary, if you prefer– then intervened and smashed the man three times in the head with his hatchet.
Kai is a drifter and prefers to call himself “homefree” rather than homeless. He achieved semi-celebrity status after giving a colorful and profanity-laced F-bomb interview to a local news crew describing his Good Samaritan act that went viral. He also appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show and Stephen Colbert.
He was a frequent traveler to Humboldt County and the Arcata Plaza, last visiting in March.
A Facebook post from Kai last week thanked his many fans who let him visit, stay the night or share a meal in recent months:
“Hey id like to express my gratitude to all the gnarly awesome people whove invited me in, partied hardy with me, and brought me to such cool places to meet such cool people. ive met some of the greatest people in my life in these last three months and i wouldnt trade these experiences with you for all the money in hollywood.
“i was thinkin today about that whole thing and really the best thing in the world was getting to know all of you.”
But on Tuesday a far darker note emerged. It suggested he woke up and discovered he had been drugged and sexually assaulted.
He asked his fans:
“what would you do if you woke up with a groggy head, metallic taste in your mouth, in a strangers house… walked to the mirror and seen come dripping from the side of your face from your mouth, and started wretching, realizing that someone had drugged, raped, and blown their fuckin load in you? What would you do?”
One man calling himself Terry says he would beat the man with a hatchet. Kai responded: “i like your idea terry.”
Galfy was found bludgeoned to death around the same time. Police discovered his body while performing a welfare check after he failed to show up at work. He was found dead in his bed, clad only in underwear and socks.
Investigators say Kai cut his long hair and tried to disguise himself. He went on the run, staying with his Facebook fans after the murder before being caught and arrested in Philadelphia.
Kai’s carefree traveling days on the road may have come to an abrupt end.
Charged with murder, Romankow said the hatchet-wielding, homefree hitchhiker will be processed on his arrest warrant and sent back to New Jersey for arraignment and possible trial.
Department of Defense and DARPA’s Latest Pet Projects (VIDEOS)
Meet Mr. Domo DARPA Roboto– and His Little Friends
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Imagine this Mr. Roboto guyknocking at your door to conduct a police manhunt for a suspected terrorist. Stayin’ Alive takes on a whole new meaning. Say hello to the future. Say hello to our little friend(s).
Released on April 5, the PETMAN robot seen above was developed by Boston Dynamics with funding from the Department of Defense (DOD) CBD program.
PETMAN is used to test the performance of protective clothing designed for hazardous environments. The video shows initial testing in a chemical protection suit and gas mask.
PETMAN has sensors embedded in its skin that detect any chemicals leaking through the suit. The skin also maintains a micro-climate inside the clothing by sweating and regulating temperature.
We suspect Mr. Roboto will take on other military and combat applications for the battlefield soon. Partners in developing PETMAN were MRI Global, Measurement Technology Northwest, Smith Carter, SRD, CUH2A, and HHI.
DARPA’s Cheetah robot, above—already the fastest legged robot in history—just broke its own land speed record of 18 miles per hour.
In the process, Cheetah also surpassed another very fast mover: Olympic runner Usain Bolt. According to the International Association of Athletics Federations, Bolt set the world speed record for a human in 2009 when he reached a peak speed of 27.78 mph for a 20-meter split during the 100-meter sprint.
Cheetah was recently clocked at 29.3 mph for a 20-meter split. The Cheetah had a slight advantage over Bolt as it ran on a treadmill.
Cheetah is being developed and tested under DARPA’s (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Maximum Mobility and Manipulation program by Boston Dynamics. The increase in speed since results were last reported in March of 2012 and is due to improved control algorithms and a more powerful pump. The goal is to reach 50 mph.
DARPA’s intent with the Cheetah-bot and its other robotics programs is to attempt to understand and engineer robots having certain core capabilities that living organisms have refined over the course of evolution: efficient locomotion, manipulation of objects, and adaptability to environments.
By drawing inspiration from nature, DARPA gains technological building blocks that create possibilities for a whole range of robots suited to future Department of Defense military missions.
The Pentagon’s DARPA and others reveal their most sinister robots coming together into a cohesive whole in the above collage clip. The wickedly Star Wars-like project named the LS3 starts at minute 2:34. The new developments in insect drones start at 3:50.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, released video footage of these projects that have been long in the works and are now starting to take shape. These related projects could very well be all it takes to scare off any insurgents once they’re combat ready for the battlefield.
Produced in numbers, they may very well counter the largest standing army in the world: China, with 3.5 million available soldiers at the ready (though estimates of their size vary and kept secret by Chinese officials).
Better living– and an even quicker death– through science and technology in the 21st century.
Welcome to the future, our Brave New World, brought to you by DARPA, the Department of Defense, and your generous tax dollars.
“MR. ROBOTO” by Styx (from the album Killroy Was Here, 1983)
You’re wondering who I am, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) Machine or mannequin, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) With parts made in Japan, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) I am the modern man.
I’ve got a secret I’ve been hiding under my skin, My heart is human, my blood is boiling, my brain IBM, So if you see me acting strangely, don’t be surprised, I’m just a man who needed someone and somewhere to hide, To keep me alive, just keep me alive, Somewhere to hide to keep me alive.
I’m not a robot without emotions, I’m not what you see, I’ve come to help you with your problems so we can be free, I’m not a hero, I’m not a savior, forget what you know, I’m just a man who’s circumstances went beyond his control, Beyond my control, We all need control, I need control, We all need control.
I am the modern man, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) Who hides behind a mask, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) So no one else can see, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) My true identity,
Domo arigato, Mr, Roboto, Domo, Domo,
(Thank you very much, oh Mr. Roboto, For doing the jobs that nobody wants to) (And thank you very much oh Mr. Roboto, For helping me escape just when I needed to)
(Thank you thank you, thank you) Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto, (I wanna thank you) Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto, (Please thank you)
The problem’s plain to see, Too much technology, Machines to save our lives, Machines de-humanize,
The time has come at last, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) To throw away this mask, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) Now everyone can see, (Secret secret, I’ve got a secret) My true identity…
Have you ever said to yourself, “Marathons are too easy, and Triathlons are for sissies?”
Well, we haven’t either. Those races are hard. Really hard. Think about it. The first person to run a marathon actually died. Yes, he died! And we surmise he didn’t have fun along the way.
Welcome to a new kind of race: THE DIRTY DASH. It’s a perfect fit for Humboldt to do. Or shamelessly imitate. It’s independently zany, it’s crazy, and it’s wildly colorful. A racy race that would cause your Grandma to blush her bloomers.
This dirty race puts all other races to shame. The Dirty Dash is a mud run obstacle course where military boot camp meets your inner five-year-old fantasy. It converts boy to man, and then man to swine in a really dirty sort of way.
It’s also fun. And we mean Way Fun.
You’ll need endurance to trudge up mountains of sludge, courage to overcome uncompromising obstacles, a complete lack of shame to wallow in pits of mud, and then a smile to show how happy you are making it through to the end!
This mud-run obstacle course could become your new guilty pleasure and your Facebook wallpage photo. Going solo or with some of your dirtiest, filthiest, & uncouth friends, you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I am a Dirty Dasher and there’s no shame in my game!”
Then, and only then, can you proceed to clean yourself off like the cheeky monkey you are.
Eleven 3-5 mile charity races are run throughout the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest– from Oregon to New Mexico– from June through September. Some of the shorter races also sport a 3 ½ mile shortcut. Why not? Everyone loves a shortcut.
They don’t care much about timing the races, either. It doesn’t matter. They also run rain or shine, saying:
“Seriously? How can the weather be bad? Shame on you; your glass is clearly half-empty. If it rains, even better, more mud! The Dirty Dash is as dependable as (and far less subsidized than) the US Postal Service and goes on rain or shine, global warming or global cooling.
If it gets too hot, feel free to bask in the mud pit for longer and if it gets too cold, feel free to drop into the fetal position with your teammates and cuddle for warmth.
However, rule #1 is safety first, so if there is lightning, we’ll postpone waves and running until it blows over. In case anyone was wondering, rule #2 is complete and brutal honesty amongst group members, and rule #3 is everyone hooks up with a local.”
Because it’s a family race, there’s only one version to do. You Dirty Dash however you need to and however long it takes.
You can walk. Run. Crawl. Wallow. Skip. Clamber. Lollygag. Grovel. Just be yourself and just finish before sundown so the coyotes and mosquitoes don’t git ya. You can run in sublime running shorts or dress up in a flashy costume. Pets and kids are welcome, too, but not necessarily in that order. They’ll also take you as on as a volunteer and ease you into this dirty lifestyle nice and slow. Keep in mind there is an age limit. It’s 106.
You can run it by yourself or with a team of your favorite friends, enemies and friendemies. Whoever likes to get dirty or whoever needs to simply get down and dirty in the worst way. Teams may encourage each other, mock each other, or drag each other over obstacles. “Feel free to clasp hands, smack bottoms, or open mouth kiss,” the rules say.
Did your last personal record run have a 175-foot slop n’ slide in the middle of it? Probably not. And a final finale mud pit? Nope. Sprinklers and showers and water blasters? Heavens to Betsy, no. While we’re at it, let’s throw in a Pig Sty, a Hog Wash, and a Piglet Plunge. Now
that’s what we call a race.
Wherever they go, runners completely change the landscape to an ultra muddy hue, making for the most interesting and diverse course ever run. The course itself, as you can see in the video, is full of obstacles ranging from mud pits, water slides, tires, logs, hay bales, wood structures, to just plain mud, more mud, and even muddier mud everywhere. Uh, did we say mud?
Why do it? Exercise? Maybe. Camaraderie? Most likely. Fun? You bet your mud-balls. Good cause? Check. Besides benefitting your cardiovascular system, each muddy Dirty Dash benefits local charities through the registration fees, online donations, water balloon sales, and shoe donations.
In this viral video best viewed at full-screen resolution, cinematographer Devin Graham filmed a Dirty Dash race taking place in Soldier Hallow, Utah. The race, like most of them, completely sold out in record time. Let’s face it:
people love to get dirty when it’s socially acceptable. A good
Dirty Dash race beats a bad diaper rash case.
It’s a perfect fit for our area– and it would be a muddy hit for someone getting it together for the Humboldt peeps. Half of our towns would turn out to run and watch. We would, too. In two shakes of a kitten’s whiskers.
If you know of someone in our running community interested in putting on something similar, share this with them.
Six Rivers Running Club? HSU? Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence? The Kinetic Sculpture Race or the babelicious Rutabaga and Humboldt Roller Derby Queens? Justin Bieber? (Sorry, all you Beliebers). Send it along …and we’d thank you for it! We’d love to see them all get a bit dirty. Sarah Palin and Anderson Cooper, too. We’d pay for that.
After all folks, this isn’t Survivor. It’s more like Jackass mixed with Dirty Jobs mixed with America’s Got Talent. And we’d like to have more fun with like-minded Humboldt folks and friends and cheeky monkeys everywhere.
No time for nattering nabobs of negativism here! It’s time to smile– and run a muck.
If you’d like to know more, you can find out all about these mud races in this link:
WASHINGTON (CN) – The son of the president of Equatorial Guinea can keep his $38 million jet, a US federal judge ruled, finding no evidence that stolen money helped fuel the purchase.
The government’s forfeiture complaint against the aircraft owned by Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue gave a dizzying look at the pampered 45-year-old’s other extravagant expenditures, including “eight Ferraris, seven Rolls-Royces, five Bentleys, four Mercedes, a Porsche, two Lamborghinis and an Aston Martin,” as well as $275,000 for a glove once worn by Michael Jackson.
Nguema’s father, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, seized the presidency of Equatorial Guinea from his uncle in a 1979 coup.
The US government says Nguema has abused his position as minister of Forestry and Agriculture in his father’s administration to extort companies currying favor in the oil-rich nation.
US District Judge Rudolph Contreras found no evidence Friday, however, that such funds helped Nguema pay for the Gulfstream Aerospace model G-V aircraft.
“Although the government alleges that Nguema lives far beyond his means, the court cannot leap to the conclusion that his largesse is evidence of criminal activity,” Contreras wrote.
That Nguema lives beyond his means is an understatement to the government.
The Inner Circle: An Inside Position
The complaint said Nguema belongs to his father’s corrupt “Inner Circle: a small number of individuals who hold critical positions of political and economic power.”
“During President Obiang’s more than 30-year rule, members of the Inner Circle have amassed extraordinary wealth through a variety of corrupt schemes,” the complaint stated.
Nguema was well taken care of: “In 1991, at the age of 23, Nguema came to the United States to study English as a Second Language at Pepperdine University in Malibu,
California,” the complaint stated.
“He did not live on campus; instead, he shuttled between rooms at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and a house he rented in Malibu. After five months, he dropped out of the program. His tuition and living expenses (including his hotel bill and the rental of the house in Malibu) were paid by an American Oil company operating in Equatorial Guinea.”
Dropping out of college didn’t hurt him, though. His father gave him concessions to harvest 88,000 acres of rainforest – National Forests – and also made him minister of Forestry, and junior was on his way “to enrich himself through corrupt schemes in the timber industry,” according to the complaint.
Then President Obiang gave him control of the country’s infrastructure development, which allowed him to award his company multimillion-dollar government contracts for road construction, the government said.
The young heir apparent extorted millions from companies doing business in Equatorial Guinea, refusing to sign approvals for timber exports unless the exporter pays a “tax” for Nguema’s personal benefit, according to the complaint.
Lavish Wealth and Spending: Cars, Mansions, Boats, and a Glove
Uncle Sam said Nguema used his extorted wealth to buy millions of dollars worth of sports cars, mansions, celebrity memorabilia and sports boats, and spent $290,000 to design a $380 million yacht that he decided not to buy after all.
“In March 2001, Nguema bought a new 2001 Bentley automobile in Beverly Hills, California, paying for it with a personal check for $366,000, drawn on his Riggs Bank account,” the complaint stated. ”A few months later, he bought a second 2001 Bentley, from the same dealership in Beverly Hills, for which he paid $57,500 in cash and $228,000 by personal check drawn on the same account.”
But the luxury houses in Bel Air and Cape Town, South Africa; the luxury cars; and $130,000 in Gucci and Dolce and Gabbana designer clothes were just the start, according to the government’s complaint and Contreras’ ruling. Nguema also sunk $2 million on two high-performance racing boats, one of which literally sunk and cost him $400,000 to salvage.
He also bought “$3.2 million worth of Michael Jackson memorabilia,” including Jacko’s “Bad Tour” glove, which cost him $275,000.
Money Laundering Accusations in America
“When opening accounts at financial institutions in the United States, Nguema provided various explanations for his source of funds,” the government’s complaint stated. ”For example, in March 2007, when opening a bank account at Comerica Bank in California, Nguema claimed that he acquired money from a ‘family inheritance’ and from ‘trading expensive and custom automobiles.’ In September 2006, when opening a bank account at Pacific Mercantile Bank in California, Nguema claimed to be self-employed as an ‘investor’ in addition to serving
as Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. As a member
of the Inner Circle, Nguema derived his funds from a
variety of corrupt schemes.”
All this came to light due to a U.S. Senate investigation on money laundering and foreign corruption, “which focused in part on money brought to Riggs Bank in the United States from Equatorial Guinea that was suspected of being proceeds of foreign corruption in Equatorial Guinea, the government said.
Nguema bought his jet from Blue Sapphire Services, a British Virgin Islands company. He paid the company’s escrow agent, McAfee & Taft, a $15 million down payment, but the agent stopped the deal because “Nguema refused to comply with that company’s requirements, including a requirement that Nguema identify the source of the funds,” Uncle Sam said in the complaint.
Nguema then bought the jet through another escrow agent, IATS of Oklahoma City, according to the complaint.
Contreras noted that the complaint surely “paints a troubling picture of endemic corruption in Equatorial Guinea. But the government has done so with brushstrokes that are much too broad. The government cannot proceed by casting general allegations of lawlessness in the county in which the relevant transactions took place.”
Troubled by the scale of the alleged corruption, Contreras dismissed the complaint– but will give Uncle Sam a chance to amend its claims.
* * * * * * * * * *
And you thought greed and corruption on Wall Street was bad.
Given the opportunity and position to help his country and people, Nguema chose to line his own pockets by plundering Equatorial Guinea’s resources in exchange for some self-made lavish loot.
An oil-rich country, Equatorial Guinea is known for it’s blatant corruption, unequal wealth distribution, human rights abuses, forced labor and sex trafficking of women and children, restriction of the press and media, lack of drinking water for 50% of the population, and where 20% of its children die before the age of five.
The country is also known for its genocide. Before the ruling Obiang family came into power in a bloody 1975 coup, an estimated 80,000 citizens were killed out of a population of 600,000.
President Obiang Mangue, Nguema’s father, is an ally of the US. During a meeting on the sidelines of the recent United Nations General Assembly, Obiang urged the US to strengthen the cooperation and business between the United States and Africa. President Obama posed for an official photograph with President Obiang at a New York reception in 2009.
Greed either makes the world go round or takes it to hell in a handbasket depending upon which the side of the fence you happen to live on. Coming to America has been very very good to son Nguema and the Obiang clan.
The economic news in the last two weeks points to bad news for the economy and a reason for people to mobilize and demand change. We want to emphasize that as bad as the situation looks, there are solutions and ways to protect ourselves. The time to act is now.
Before we get to the impact of the Obama budget, let’s explode a critical myth: there is no recovery (at least for the 99%). Last month’s unemployment numbers revealed the fraud of the unemployment rate. Even though the country produced less than 90,000 new jobs, when over 120,000 are needed to keep up with growth, the unemployment rate declined. Why? Because hundreds of thousands are giving up on work each month and they don’t get counted.
The combination of poor federal economic policy – which is getting more off-track – and a corrupt economy is bringing on the next crash. In an article in Truthout last week, we point out the deep corruption of the finance system, which dominates the economy. Security fraud expert Bill Black told us that the evidence shows that fraud is “pervasive” among the “most elite financial institutions,” yet the Obama government policy was no prosecution. The Economic Collapse Blog points out there are 11 crashes going on right now: gold, silver, bitcoins, consumer confidence, 401(k) retirement accounts, casino gambling, Greek employment, European financial stocks, Spanish bankruptcies and energy demand; and predicts the bloated US stock market is next.
If either President Obama’s or Paul Ryan’s budget, or some of each, is enacted, and they will since these are what DC is considering, the economy will get even worse. The bipartisans have fully embraced austerity and are being cheered on by the corporate media and wealth-funded think tanks, as Margaret Flowers found when she debated two on the Marc Steiner Show, one from a “liberal” Democrat think tank, the other a conservative Republican – they agreed while Margaret had to correct their false statements.
These wins for industry are losses to the health and welfare of Americans. Congress does its job for big business well; research shows big payoffs for members who vote to deregulate the deeply corrupt finance industry. And, agribusiness food giant Monsanto was able to get the Monsanto Protection Act passed, which prevents regulation of GMO’s and even prevents courts from intervening.
It is now clear that Americans who deposited money in big banks could suffer the same result as the people of Cyprus, remember the lessons of the Depression, and have their deposits seized and turned into bank stock. Ellen Brown reports this is part of the “too big to fail” banks plan to withstand the next collapse. In fact, massive and risky derivatives investments, almost as large as the US economy, would receive more protection than depositors. It could happen here in a collapse, and it would be fast and furious, with the banks or the FDIC writing down deposits to save the banks at the expense of consumers. And, if you can’t pay your bills, be wary of debtor’s prison.
The political and economic mess of Washington and Wall Street, the foundering economy and threat of another collapse, are leading more and more people to question the viability of big finance capitalism; with criticism ranging beyond its traditional critics. More and more call for breaking up the big banks and tougher enforcement against banksters. But, others are calling for more structural changes. In an article that will be published in Truthout tomorrow, we discuss how to transform the Federal Reserve to make it transparent, democratic and responsive to the economy; the creation of public banks in every state and major cities as well ways to opt-out of the Wall Street economy.
The crisis of the US economy and government are upon us. The only way we will stop the cuts to necessary social services, the continued privatization of public services and government gifts to big business is to mobilize to stop business as usual in Washington, DC. Beyond that, it is important for all of us to envision and begin to create the new economy as the old one collapses. There is more information about the new economy and links to resources at ItsOurEconomy.us.
The future is ours to define. Now is the time to for action!
(Editor’s note: According to Common Dreams, a pair of explosions rocked an area near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, leaving at least three people, including one child, dead and more than 130 injured, many critically. Six of the seven Humboldt County residents attending the Boston Marathon are confirmed safe as of press time.)
Just hours after two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston marathon earlier today, telltale signs are already emerging that this incident, like so many others, fits a pattern we’ve seen many times before in suspected terrorist plots in America’s history.
At the time of writing this, reports vary on the number dead and injured, but one thing is certain — two explosions went off near the 26.2-mile marathon finish line, putting the nation under yet another post-9/11 security lockdown. Cellphone service was shutdown in Boston, and SB Nation cited AP that law enforcement shutdown cell service to Boston to “prevent any possible remote detonations in the future”:
AP reports circulated that Boston cellphone service was shutdown by law enforcement to prevent “remote detonations”.
As details trickle in and others get changed completely, the facts are still largely being sorted out.
Here’s what do we know.
“It was just a drill.”
University of Mobile coach Ali Stevenson told local NBC affiliate WPMI-TV 15 that not only did he feel something was ‘odd’ about the bomb-sniffing dogs posted at both the marathon’s start and finish, but just after he crossed the finish line, police were announcing a drill:
“They kept making announcements on the loud speaker that it was just a drill and there was nothing to worry about,” Coach Ali Stevenson told Local 15. “It seemed like there was some sort of threat, but they kept telling us it was just a drill.”
Adding to this compelling report is the fact that Boston police admittedly detonated a “controlled explosion” at the 600 block of Boylston Street near Copley Square near the location of the first two explosions, as confirmed by police scanner transmissions, raising questions about the origins of the other explosions. The Boston Globe tweeted, “Officials: There will be a controlled explosion opposite the library within one minute as part of bomb squad activities.”
The 26th mile of the marathon was dedicated to Newtown victims, and their families were VIP seated near the finish line.
MSNBC’s original headline shown in purple.
MSNBC first reported, “26th mile of Marathon was dedicated to Newtown victims,” but just 13 minutes ago at the time of writing, the establishment-friendly outlet has changed the page’s headline to, “‘You can’t go anywhere’: Newtown runner’s wife speaks“.
MSNBC’s newer headline, updated for maximum trauma impact.
The New York Post reports that Newtown victim families were stationed right near the blast zone:
Relatives of the victims of December’s school massacre in Newtown, Conn. were among those attending the race finish at a VIP area. It was not known of any of the relatives were among the casualties.
Since the mass shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook, our President, politicians and their puppet media have exploited the Newtown tragedy for every last ounce of momentum they could, pushing a greater nationwide gun control and disarmament agenda. At 6:10 EST tonight, President Obama addressed the nation, affirming the perpetrators would “feel the full weight of justice” and that the FBI would be leading the investigation into the Boston bombing.
It’s only time before the Newtown shooting is made synonymous with this bombing tragedy to further condition the public that A) we must give up our weapons because not only are they dangerous, but B) only the government can truly keep us safe.
Authorities are reporting a “Saudi Arabian National” is the leading suspect.
Multiple media outlets including the New York Post are reporting that a 20-year old Saudi man with shrapnel wounds is being detained as the lead suspect in the marathon bombing at a Boston-area hospital.
The idea that drills are used to cover for involvement by the intelligence community is not just speculation, it is admitted fact in countless cases where FBI informants set-up and controlled al Qaeda suspects or other would be terrorists. In 2011, RT profiled an FBI report admitting that nearly every attempted terrorist attack since 9/11 was actually goaded on by uncover informant who had infiltrated suspect groups, typically encouraging individuals to take action on concocted plots.
“The report reveals that the Washington DC Metro bombing plot, the New York City subway plot, the attempt to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and dozens more were all orchestrated by FBI agents. In fact, reads the report, only three of the more well-known terror plots of the last decade weren’t orchestrated by FBI-involved agents.”
In most of these high profile cases, the FBI “foils” the plot that they helped create, or the attacker is given a ‘dud’ explosive device. Then the media plays up the event as another near miss in the critical war on terror, while quietly admitting that no one was ever in any real danger, essentially acknowledging that the plot was theater for public consumption.
While the threat of terrorism is constantly emphasized, the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies have enabled and encouraged such plots is rarely mentioned on air and almost never focused on in media coverage.
In the case of the Boston Marathon bombing, CNN was already propagating within hours the idea that ‘right-wing extremists‘ were behind the bombing.
Like so many historical examples, the establishment is patently using the tragedy to further their own ends, and the creepy tie in to victims’ families of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting only further likens the chances that Americans rights will be curtailed by the national security response to disaster after disaster.
The 16-year-old kid has busted onto the string scene in a big way, and with some wicked tricks.
In four years the teen has accomplished more with a ‘return top’ than most do in a lifetime. From promising performances across regional and international contest stages– to most recently taking the coveted US National 1A YoYo title– Zach has now claimed his spot at the top of North American contest scene.
It’s a serious business. First invented in ancient Greece, yo-yos have spread in popularity since the 1920s. Regional and national championships are held in 15 countries of the US, Europe, and Asia.
Competitions usually consist of two parts: a set of compulsory tricks and a freestyle portion. Compulsory tricks have been chosen before the contest, and the competitor must successfully complete each trick. In the freestyle event, a player performs a routine to their choice of music with points awarded by judges based on the difficulty of the tricks, synchronization with the music, and the artistic performance.
Elite players from around the world consider Zach to be one of the most influential and impressive players to pick up the toy in recent years. It appears he’s only just hitting his competitive stride, winning 12 competitive titles in four years. With the national title now under his belt, the World YoYo Championship in Orlando is the next stop and biggest gig to be crossed off of Zach’s list.
Many players can be quite one-dimensional and reclusive, yo-yo athletes profess, but Zach is surprisingly well rounded for his level of talent and ability. When he’s not blowing minds at contests, one can catch him enjoying the great outdoors, playing tennis, and taking incredible photographs. We also suspect he practices. A lot. Like a Zen master.
The St. Paul, Minnesota native lives in Colorado where he’s an industrious student. Reportedly a normal, well-adjusted and engaging person, friends describe him only as ‘a nice guy’– which is something we’d expect from someone out of Minnesota.
We don’t know if having the world on a yo-yo string will help him grab scholarships and get into college. But it will be interesting to see where things go for Zach as he accomplishes his goals using his own unique brand of string theory.
Whoever taught this kid to tie his shoes did an awesome job.
* * * * * * *
Things have come a long ways since we used to walk the dog, shoot the moon, and go to sleep. We didn’t know any of the stringing, sleeping, and looping tricks shown here. We also wonder what the above might have looked like had Zach used the Duncan glow-in-the-dark model which we thought were the coolest things as kids.
(This film was done by Devin Graham. Shot in high-def, it’s best viewed at full screen resolution. Or not.)
Skippy’s on vacation for awhile, folks. See you in a few…
MANHATTAN (CN) – The U.S. government will pay $1 million to settle claims over pre-dawn warrantless home raids by immigration agents, a federal judge ruled.
Nearly two dozen Latinos had filed the complaint in 2007, alleging widespread Fourth Amendment violations and seeking damages.
Lead plaintiff Adriana Aguilar, a U.S. citizen, claimed that she had been the victim of one such raid while sleeping at in the East Hampton, N.Y., home she shared with her parents, siblings and children, all of whom are also U.S. citizens.
She said agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pounded on the doors before they were allowed entry, then swept through home and terrorized her children.
The other plaintiffs allegedly experienced similar confrontations in 2006 and 2007 at their homes in Westchester and Long Island.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest signed a stipulation and order of dismissal and settlement on Friday.
The $1 million settlement will provide each plaintiff with $36,000, according to the order. Aguilar and the other plaintiffs were represented by Latino Justice and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
ICE must adopt policy changes for agents conducting warrantless home operations, according to the settlement. Another provision of the settlement terminates or defers the pending immigration proceedings against eight men and women who were arrested during the raids.
ICE must now “seek consent to enter or search a private residence in a language understood by the resident whenever feasible; must have Spanish-speaking officers available to seek such consent when the target is from a Spanish-speaking country; seek consent to enter the outside areas of homes where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy such as a backyard; and they must not conduct protective sweeps through the homes without an articulable suspicion of danger,” according to a statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
Aguilar said her family will never forget the raid of their home.
“My son, who was just four years old, was crying in fear of gunmen in his home at four in the morning,” she said in the CCR statement. ”We asked them to show a warrant or any other authority they had for being inside our home. They ignored us.”
Another plaintiff, Beatriz Velasquez, said she was just 12 years old when agents surrounded her home in September 2007, pounded on the doors and windows, and burst in after falsely telling her that “someone was dying upstairs.”
“That was the scariest day of my life,” Velasquez said through CCR. ”My little sister and I were terrified.”
“They wouldn’t explain to my mother what was going on, and they stormed through the house like an army.”
The statement notes that the raids caused the Nassau County Police Department to withdraw from participation and publicly denounce ICE for its use of racial profiling and its flagrant violation of the Fourth Amendment.
“In 2006, ICE officials in Washington created a policy called ‘Operation Return to Sender,’ under which teams of agents were ordered to increase their quota of arrests of so-called alien fugitives with outstanding deportation orders by 800 percent over the course of one year,” the CCR statement read.
“The teams were permitted to count toward that quota so-called ‘collaterals’ – aliens that ICE happened to encounter during raids. According to activists and attorneys, the increase in warrantless intrusions into immigrants’ homes followed directly from the policy,” CCR successfully argued.
* * * * * * *
Despite flying in the face of common sense, costliness, and the Constitution, it never ceases to amaze us how flagrant violations by those acting under the color of authority can still occur in this day and age.
We also weren’t aware of the warrantless searches of US citizens to pump up the stats, either. Homeland Security: Keeping the Homelands safe for everybody. As long as you fit in.
“The American Sky Will Become Dark with Drones” (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
A new industry has arrived at our doorstep and it’s poised to take off like a rocket.
Above is an interesting NYT video about unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, that are soon to become commercialized.
In Grand Forks, North Dakota, people are preparing for a coming boom in drone-related business. The area has become the ground zero for UAV schooling and training outside its more obvious and apparent military and border patrol applications.
The University of North Dakota is the first to offer a degree program in unmanned aviation, preparing for a brave new world in which cheap remote-controlled aircraft will be swarming civilian air space after the FAA lifts airspace restrictions in 2015. UAVs are expected to provide for certain tasks being done quicker, safer, and cheaper than through conventional means.
For example, the new and burgeoning industry expects to be searching for everything from the most wanted of criminals, detecting swarms of insects devouring a crop, examining the brake pads and ‘sniffing’ out any dangerous toxins leaking from a train’s cargo, inspecting pipelines and power lines, and other applications such search and rescue, spotting forest fires, and surveying and mapping.
The burst of activity in remotely operated planes stems from electronics and communications gear becoming dirt cheap and enabling the conversion of hobbyist radio-controlled planes into sophisticated platforms for surveillance.
NYT had this to say:
“The sky’s going to be dark with these things,” said Chris Anderson, the former editor of Wired, who started the hobbyist Web site DIY Drones and now runs a company, 3D Robotics, that sells unmanned aerial vehicles and equipment. He says it is selling about as many drones every calendar quarter — about 7,500 — as the United States military flies in total.
When it comes to drones and their future, the sky’s the limit. You’ll just have to get used to that annoying buzz all the time.
Why is the Department of Homeland Security Hoarding Ammo on a Massive Scale?
(VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Luke Rudkowski interviewed Congressman Timothy
Huelskamp (R-Kansas) on his decision to vote against the NDAA due to the unconstitutionality of the indefinite detention provision, and also discussed the large ammunition purchases made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in this recently uploaded video.
Huelskamp questioned why the DHS needs so much ammo.
“They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer that,” he told WeAreChange reporters earlier this week. “They refuse to let us know what is going on, so I don’t really have an answer for that. Multiple members of Congress are asking those questions.”
Huelskamp promised to keep asking– and even threatened to back a move to defund the agency if answers were not forthcoming.
The DHS’ most recent purchase request is for ten million rounds of hollow point bulletsfor a .40 caliber pistol– which are forbidden by international law for use in war—and another ten million 9 millimeter rounds, plus 1.6 million pistol cartridge9mm “ball” bullets. And that’s just for this year.
Last March, DHS bought 450 million bullets, and in September, another 200 million. That’s in addition to the 1.6 billion roundsthe government has recently ordered. Many rounds are specialized for sniper use.
Many believe the purchases are exacerbating bullet shortages across the country, leaving supplies for citizens already strained by record sales prompted as a result of Washington’s gun control agenda. Indeed, we’re told folks are having difficulty buying 9mm rounds and being put on a waiting list in Humboldt County.
Figure this: During the height of the Iraq War, US soldiers used about five and a half million rounds of ammunition every month. If you do the math here, that means Homeland Security has enough bullets to wage a full scale Homeland war for the next 30 years.
DHS says the bullets are needed for training and were bought in bulk at a discount, but former Marine Richard Mason is doubtful. Hollow point bullets (which make up the majority of the DHS purchases) are not used for training because they are more expensive than standard firing range rounds, Mason said.
”We never trained with hollow point bullets; we didn’t even see hollow points in my entire four and a half years in the Marine Corps. Why would they need all that ammo, why would they need all those ball rounds just for training?” he asked.
There’s more: DHS also has purchased 7,000 fully automatic assault rifles, and has overseen the retrofitting of more than 2,000 light tanks, which, of course, were originally designed to resist the mines and ambushes of the battlefield.
Things just don’t add up. We’re talking a stockpile of over 2 billion bullets for domestic security purposes. And… tanks?
Most of the media outlets are yawning over the development. We take an entirely different perspective. Stockpiling enough ammo to kill every man, woman, and child in the US six times over, and not giving Congress answers as to the reason why, warrants suspicion– and an explanation. Giving Congress some of the answers to the questions they’re asking of Secretary Janet Napolitano and the DHS would be a good place to start.
Perhaps we need to have a conversation with the American public of what’s happening here– and what Homeland Security is expecting.
In Face of Sequestration, It’s Time to Dismantle the Bloated Agency
(VIDEO)
Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel
Maybe sequestration isn’t a bad idea after all.
The Congressional Oversight Committee held their hearing ”Implementing Agency Watchdogs’ Recommendations Could Save Taxpayers Billions” that examined the excessive and wasteful spending by the Federal government in the face of sequestration.
The details are infuriating.
Representative John Mica (R-Fla.), the author of the legislation creating the massive agency and Chariman of the House Transportation Committee, squarely lays it down slamming the Transportation Security Administration (TSA): “We never intended Homeland Security to bloat out of control.”
Secretary Janet Napolitano gets busted, jobs are threatened, and Mica gets seriously pissed by the end. Call it a case of Severe Department of Homeland Security Regret Syndrome.
“The whole program has been hijacked by bureaucrats,” Mica said. “It mushroomed into an army. It’s gone from a couple-billion-dollar enterprise to close to $9 billion.”
“As for keeping the American public safe, they’ve failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years. It’s an agency that is always one step out of step. The whole thing is a complete fiasco,” Mica said, giving the agency– his creation, mind you– a grade of D-.
Some more examples of TSA waste? It cost $1 billion just to train workers, which now number more than 62,000, and “they actually trained more workers than they have on the job,” Mica said.
Or, there were those cost overruns due to recruiting sessions held at swanky hotels and plush resorts in St. Croix, the Virgin Islands, Florida and the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa in Telluride, Colo.
Charges in the hundreds of thousands of dollars were made for cash withdrawals, valet parking and beverages, plus a $5.4 million salary for one executive for nine months of work.
Other over-the-top expenditures included nearly $2,000 for 20 gallons of Starbucks Coffee, $8,000 for elevator operators at a Manhattan hotel, and $1,500 to rent more than a dozen extension cords for the Colorado recruiting fair.
Gotta love those fat cat bureaucrats providing the illusion of safety, delaying flights, and lapping up those hefty paychecks and budget overruns of 150%.
You can read more in the excellent article by Human Events here:
It would be the nation’s first sovereign depository for private gold.
Texas also hopes to pass a law that would protect the supply
from federal government seizure.
Will it work and could other states do the same?
Senior Director Jim Rickards of Tangent Capital says “it’s not a run on Fort Knox, it’s a run on the Fed.”
It’s also part of the slow and steady re-monetization of gold throughout the world. Foreign nations are bringing their stored gold back– Venezuela, Germany, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, and possibly the Netherlands where it’s being currently debated.
Rickards believes another economic depression is around the corner and Texas wants to hedge its bets.
Texas believes taking its gold back and securing in it its own ‘Fort Knox of Texas’ is all possible because of the 10th Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Legislation by Texas State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione would create the Texas Bullion Depository. “We don’t want just the certificates. We want our gold. And if you’re the state of Texas, you should be able to get your gold,” Capriglione said.
Capriglione said the bill is not about putting Texas on its own gold standard. Rather, a depository would give the state a reputation as being more financially secure in the event of a national or international financial crisis and economic meltdown.
The depository would be a secure state-based bank that would hold the gold bars owned by the University of Texas Investment Management. It’s no surprise that Ron Paul supports the plan, as he explains that the gold would be safer in the hands of
Texans.
“If you think gold is a hedge, or a protection, you always want it as close to the individual and the entity as possible,“ Ron Paul said. “Texas is better served if it knows exactly where its gold is rather than depending on the security of the Federal Reserve.”
Concluding arguments on marriage law, several Supreme Court justices indicated an interest in striking down a law that denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex
couples today, presenting the possibility of a major change
in gay marriage law in the next few months.
The law is the focus of a second day of oral arguments before the high court as it tackles the gay marriage issue. Five votes on the court would be needed to invalidate the law.
The 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) law passed by the House with a vote of 342 to 67 and signed by President Clinton denies married same-sex couples access to federal benefits by defining marriage solely as being between a man and a woman. A section of the law, in effect, bars federal agencies from recognizing same-sex marriages, even in the states where they are legal.
The oral argument came a day after the court previously signaled that it is unlikely to issue a sweeping ruling declaring that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The issue today was the application of the federal estate tax to a lesbian couple who had been married in Canada and lived in New York. As executor of Thea Spyer’s estate, Edie Windsor paid more than $360,000 in federal estate taxes. Windsor is seeking a refund on the ground that she is Spyer’s surviving spouse and under federal law, property that passes to a surviving spouse is generally free from estate taxes.
There are more than 1,000 federal laws and programs also having rules that depend in part on a person’s marital status.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, a potential swing vote, warned of the “risks” that infringes upon the traditional role of the states in defining marriage.
Kennedy referred to DOMA as “inconsistent” because it purports to give authority to the states to define marriage while limiting recognition of those determinations. He indicated that he had problems with law: whether Congress and the President had the right to say what marriage is, instead of leaving it to each state to make the legal definition.
Kennedy also seemed troubled by what he saw as the lack of narrow focus of the law. He said DOMA applies in the nine states that have decided to permit same-sex marriages as well as in the states that do not permit it.
On the liberal side of the bench, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Elena Kagan echoed some of Kennedy’s concerns about the states’ rights issue.
“What gives the federal government the right to be concerned at all about the definition of marriage?” Sotomayor said.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also raised concerns about the law, stressing how important federal recognition is to any person who is legally married. Justice Ruth Ginsburg said that because the federal rules which apply to married couples are so pervasive in the states that permit same-sex marriages, married same-sex couples could not get the federal benefits couples that heterosexual couples
get. They would, therefore, end up with “a skim milk marriage.”
“It affects every area of life,” Ginsburg said.
It is possible the court would not reach the wider issue of same-sex marriages in the case because of preliminary legal matters relating to whether the court can hear it or not.
On that issue, conservative justices criticized the decision by President Barack Obama to abandon the legal defense of DOMA, and called into question his willingness to defend other laws passed by Congress and challenged in court.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Antonin Scalia were the most critical of the approach the Obama administration has taken about the law. “That’s very troubling,” Justice Kennedy said.
While the criticisms may not affect how the justices eventually rule, it clearly showed their frustration with how Obama has walked a thin and difficult political line concerning gay marriage.
Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, said in February of 2011 that they would cease defending the DOMA law because they believed it is invalid under the Constitution. Don’t expect Republicans to embrace same-sex laws or marriage anytime soon, either. In the place of the Justice Department’s buckling, Republican lawmakers have stepped in to argue for the law and against same-sex marriage.
The court is expected to issue a ruling by the end of June.
Chris Hedges: “It’s Frightening How Hard Obama is Fighting Us” (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
On December 31, 2011, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2012
(NDAA).
The National Defense Authorization Act is a bill passed into law each year. It allows the government to continue funding national security interests and the military for the next fiscal year.
This year’s bill, however, was different: It contains a series of striking provisions which violate basic principles of American jurisprudence, of which many are thought to be highly unconstitutional.
The 2012 NDAA greatly expands the power of the federal government to fight the so-called War on Terror. Many– including some of the law’s sponsors– assert that the NDAA seeks to authorize the US military, for the first time in more than 200 years, to carry out domestic policing.
The language of this law is dangerously vague, but many– including several of its sponsors– believe that it grants what are essentially dictatorial powers to the federal government.
Section 1021 of the NDAA allow for the arrest of any American citizen (or anyone, anywhere) without warrant and to indefinitely detain them without any charge. Suspects can be shipped by the military to our offshore prisons and kept there until “the end of hostilities.” No proof, no habeas corpus, no warrant, no due process, no trial, and no legal counsel. No need to pack your bags and say goodbye, because off to the Gulag you will go.
“For the first time in American history, we have a law authorizing the worldwide and indefinite military detention of people captured far from any battlefield. The NDAA has no temporal or geographic limitations. It is completely at odds with our values, violates the Constitution, and corrodes our Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.”
In this outstanding WeAreChange.org interview above, award-winning author, columnist, journalist, and litigant-plaintiff Chris Hedges gives us an update of his lawsuit. Stricken by the lower Southern District Court of New York as being unconstitutional and with the Obama Administration ‘aggressively’ pursuing an appeal and emergency stay of action, Section 1021 of the NDAA may likely reach the Supreme Court for a decision.
Outside the hearing for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in the Hedges v Obama NDAA complaint, Hedges underscores the idea that the NDAA gives President Obama– or his designates– the frightening and unchecked power to indefinitely detain any American on any suspicion at any time for virtually any reason, anywhere.
What will you do when they come for you?
You can find out more and take action at StopNDAA.org.
By Moving In Across the Street and Painting a Rainbow-Colored Equality Home
(VIRAL VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Russell Brand gives us an introduction to Topeka’s Westboro
Baptist Church, the cultishly unorthodox church that loves to hate
everyone. And we do mean everyone.
If you think their message is as confounding, offensive, and outlandish as it’s members are, you’re not alone.
Now the church has some new neighbors in the hood who aren’t going to accept the Westboro message of hate, bullying, and intimidation. The following post by Nikolai fills us in on rest of the story and we’d like to share it with you here:
The Westboro Baptist Church is about to get a big surprise in the form of a new neighbor who plans to give the notoriously anti-gay group a taste of its own medicine.
Aaron Jackson, one of the founders of Planting Peace, a multi-pronged charity that has in the past concentrated on rainforest conservation, opening orphanages and deworming programs, bought a house that sits directly across from the church’s compound six months ago. On Tuesday, March 19, he and a team of volunteers are painting it to match the gay pride flag.
The project — which the nonprofit is calling the “Equality House” — is the first in a new campaign Planting Peace plans to wage against the group. Westboro is known for its intimidating tactics of protesting (or threatening to protest) what they refer to as America’s pro-gay, anti-God agenda, in close proximity to pride parades, soldier funerals and other events like the Sandy Hook memorial services.
“I read a story about Josef Miles, a 10-year-old kid who counter-protested the Westboro Baptist Church by holding the sign that says ‘God Hates No One,’” Jackson told The Huffington Post.
“I didn’t know anything about the church or where they were located, but that story kept popping up. And one night I wondered, ’Where is this church?’ And I saw a ‘For Sale’ sign sitting in the front yard of a house. Right away it hit me: ‘Oh my gosh, I could buy a house in front of the WBC!’ And immediately I thought: ‘And I’m going to paint that thing the color of the pride flag.’”
Jackson said he’s always wanted to get involved in gay activism, but hadn’t been sure of how to do it until this opportunity presented itself.
Planting Peace bought the house for roughly $83,000, and Jackson has been living in Topeka for just over a month. As he waited for the perfect time to transform the house into a very visible celebration of gay pride — and a direct challenge to what Westboro preaches — he encountered members of the group, including the Phelps family, which has run the church since it was established in 1956.
“They own the majority of the homes in the community, and I walk through the area every day, and I see them running in between each other’s houses,” he said.
“One day I was walking, and Shirley Phelps, one of Westboro’s main spokespeople and the daughter of the church’s leader, Fred Phelps, was on her four-wheeler. And I said, ‘Hey guys, how are you?’ And she and her husband responded, ‘Oh, we’re good. How are you?’ We had a short conversation, and she was extremely nice, and she made a joke and we all laughed.”
“It’s the craziest thing — and it really throws you off — because she’s the type of woman who calls you “hun” and “darling.” She’s very Southern,” he said. “It’s like, aren’t you the lady that’s supposed to be casting me into hell? It’s truly mind-boggling, but I can’t say anything personally bad about her because she was kind to me and she made me laugh. She’d probably be fun to hang out with.”
But pleasantries aside, Jackson said he’s confident that the church is already wary of his presence and may be expecting some sort of action from him.
“They’re extremely smart, and I would be willing to guess that when I moved into this community that they looked up property records, especially considering that I drive a Prius and I have an original reelect Jimmy Carter sticker on the back of it — I’m a screaming
liberal,” he said.
Jackson said he’s also witnessed members of the church taking photos of the house and the industrial flagpole he installed, which stands in opposition and flies the pride flag and the American flag upside-down in front of the Westboro Baptist Church.
“It looks like the United Nations is having a stand off with flags. These flag poles are huge. They know that we’ve forked out big money for this,” Jackson said.
Jackson said he’s seen people who he thinks are members of the church, including high-ranking member Steve Drain, taking photos of the house.
By the end of Tuesday, the Westboro Baptist Church will no longer be wondering what is going on at Jackson’s home. But beyond painting the Equality House the colors of the rainbow flag and flying the flag from the newly installed flagpole, Jackson is already working on the next steps in his new fight for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality.
“We want this house to be a message that where there’s hate, there’s also love. But we also want to raise awareness and capital, and we want to put all that money into creating and sustaining anti-bullying programs, along with supporting programs that already exist,” he said. While Jackson understands that Westboro feeds off of the attention that it receives from the media and others, he said he believes that it’s still critical to address their hate.
“The media has already given them such a huge platform, and I don’t see that stopping,” he said. “We’re taking the energy that’s being poured into them and turning it into something positive. This is how we plan on playing it: Use their energy and let’s turn it into something incredibly positive for the LGBT community.”
Jackson said he also sees the Equality House as one more step toward bringing about the demise of the organization.
In recent months, the group has faced a backlash both from former members — like Lauren Drain, who released a book about her life in the church and who recently suggested that Westboro’s leader, Fred Phelps, may himself be gay – and city governments, which have passed legislation aimed at limiting the group’s ability to picket.
“I think the future for the Westboro Baptist Church is very bleak,” he said. “These poor kids will hopefully continue to leave that church. They have a lot of kids over there, but unfortunately they’re not in a place where they can make decisions for themselves.”
Jackson is confident that Westboro’s loss of power and relevance
is just one sign of the good things still to come for the LGBT community.
“I love seeing all of these Republicans and all these people who have been anti-gay all this time jumping ship because they know they’re on the wrong side of history. It’s an amazing thing to see,” he said. “I know we have a long way to go in fighting bigotry, but we all know the gays are going to win. It’s going to happen.”
Ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what we need. I’m not saying that I, personally, am opposed to slapping the bigot out of WBC Members, but the politically-correct approach is better.
Let’s be honest, it’s civil rights that we’re talking about here. It’s not a “Gay Rights” issue, it’s a “Civil Rights” issue. Until all other options are exhausted, the peaceful but firm stance that this gesture represents is perfectly adequate.
Talk about leaving a legacy for your children and grandchildren. This is the dirty little elephant in the middle of
the room that no one talks about. Even John McCain had it all
wrong, looking through rose-colored glasses of who was going
to pay for it all.
On the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, the Associated Press’ Mike Baker brings us the financial costs of war in his article today, “Costs of US Wars Linger over 100 years.”
He reports the US Government has spent over $270 billion in payments to disabled veterans, wartime veterans, and their survivors since 1970.
Baker writes:
If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat…
At the 10 year anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, more than $40 billion a year are going to compensate veterans and survivors from the Spanish-American War from 1898, World War I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two Iraq campaigns and the Afghanistan conflict. And those costs are rising rapidly…
An Associated Press analysis of federal payment records found that the government is still making monthly payments to relatives of Civil War veterans – 148 years after the conflict ended.
With greater numbers of troops surviving combat injuries because of improvements in battlefield medicine and technology, the costs of disability payments are set to rise much higher.
So far, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the first Persian Gulf conflict in the early 1990s are costing about $12 billion a year to compensate those who have left military service or family members of those who have died.
Those post-service compensation costs have totaled more than $50 billion since 2003, not including expenses of medical care and other benefits provided to veterans, and are poised to grow for many years to come.
The new veterans are filing for disabilities at historic rates, with about 45 percent of those from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking compensation for injuries. Many are seeking compensation for a variety of ailments at once…
Despite what John McCain and others told us, there are real and significant costs to war future generations will pay for. War is an expensively bloody business. Especially unnecessary ones.
U.S. Senator Patty Murray said these expenses should remind us about war’s long-lasting financial toll. “When we decide to go to war, we have to consciously be also thinking about the cost,” she said.
And it’s no secret. The billions we have poured out for foreign aid and rally ’round the flag propaganda, and the trillions we’ve spent on wars, weapons, and military support of our foreign policy, are half-canceled by the damages and costs done to the U.S. as well as undermining our ability to effectively deal with the more pressing
problems happening here at home.
What, we and much of the world should ask, is the point of being the richest and most powerful nation on the planet if we can’t handle such problems better? What is the point of war? Of capitalism? Or even democracy?
Congress waited six years to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution after it opened the bloody floodgates for the Vietnam War in August 1964.
If that seems slow, consider the continuing failure of Congress to repeal the “war on terror” resolution — the Authorization for Use of Military Force — that sailed through, with just one dissenting vote, three days after 9/11.
Prior to casting the only “no” vote, Congresswoman Barbara Lee spoke on the House floor. “As we act,” she said, “let us not become the evil that we deplore.”
We have. That’s why, more than 11 years later, Lee’s prophetic one-minute speech is so painful to watch. The “war on terror” has inflicted carnage in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen and elsewhere as a matter of routine. Targets change, but the assumed prerogative to kill with impunity remains.
Now, Rep. Lee has introduced H.R. 198, a measure to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force. (This week, several thousand people have already used a RootsAction.orgspecial webpage to email their Senators and House members about repealing that “authorization” for endless war.)
Opposed to repeal, the Obama administration is pleased to keep claiming that the 137-month-old resolution justifies everything from on-the-ground troops in combat to drone strikes and kill lists to flagrant abrogation of civil liberties.
A steep uphill incline faces efforts to repeal the resolution that issued a blank political check for war in the early fall of 2001. Struggling to revoke it is a valuable undertaking. Yet even repeal would be unlikely to end the “war on terror.”
At the start of 1971, President Nixon felt compelled to sign a bill that included repeal of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. By then, he had shifted his ostensible authority for continuing the war on Vietnam — asserting his prerogative as commander in chief. Leaders of the warfare state never lack for rationales when they want to keep making war.
In retrospect, the U.S. “war on terror” has turned out to be even more tenacious than the U.S. war that took several million lives in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Some key similarities resonate with current circumstances. Year after year, in Congress, support for the Vietnam War was bipartisan. Presidents Johnson and Nixon preached against unauthorized violence in America’s cities while inflicting massive violence in Southeast Asia. Both presidents were fond
of proclaiming fervent wishes for peace.
But unlike the horrific war in Southeast Asia, the ongoing and open-ended “war on terror” is not confined by geography or, apparently, by calendar. The search for enemies to smite (and create) is availing itself of a bottomless pit, while bottom-feeding military contractors keep making a killing.
Beyond the worthy goal of repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force is a need for Congress to cut off appropriations for the “war on terror.” A prerequisite: repudiating the lethal mythology of righteous war unbounded by national borders or conceivable duration.
What may be even more difficult to rescind is the chronic
disconnect between lofty oratory and policies digging the
country deeper into endless war.
“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war,” President Obama said in his 2013 inaugural address, after four years of doing more than any other president in U.S. history to normalize perpetual war as a bipartisan enterprise.
Repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force will be very hard. Revoking the power to combine lovely rhetoric with pernicious militarism will be even more difficult.
______________________________
Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction.org and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. His books include “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” He writes the Political Culture 2013 column.
Stunning Admission by US Attorney General Eric Holder Has Congress Fuming
Skippy Massey
Humboldt Sentinel
Some banks really are too big to jail, Congress was told.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) vented her mind and feelings Thursday before the bipartisan Senate Banking Committee and demanded answers from top banking regulators questioning as to why the shuttering of financial firms that flout federal anti-money laundering laws or violate international trade sanctions isn’t being considered as an option.
Referring to the penalties leveled against HSBC bank after the company was caught funneling billions in drug money, the Massachusetts Democrat questioned regulators about why they didn’t consider forcing the British bank to
shut down its doors on U.S. soil.
“What does it take?” Warren said. “How many billions of dollars do you have to launder for drug lords?”
Warren questioned why no criminal prosecutions were aimed at HSBC or its employees. Regulators fined the company $1.9 billion– but no bank officials went to jail nor was the institution penalized beyond the record-breaking fine. HSBC laundered money for sanctioned countries such as Syria, Cuba, and Iran, Al Qaida and other terrorist networks, drug cartels, and narcotic traffickers for over a decade.
Warren said the scofflaw bank wasn’t being held to the same standard as common Americans.
“If you’re caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you go to jail. If you’re caught repeatedly, you can go to jail for life,” Warren told regulators during the Committee hearing.
“Incidentally, if you launder nearly a billion dollars in drug money, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night,” she added.
Officials from the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency hesitated to weigh in on when it was appropriate to shut down financial firms. They said the decision of whether or not to shutter a bank would follow prosecutions by the Department of Justice.
“I’m not going to get into some theoretical line-drawing exercise,” David Cohen, the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told Warren.
Federal Reserve Bank Governor Jerome Powell got to the point directly: “I’ll tell you exactly when it’s appropriate to consider pulling a bank’s license,” he said. ”When there’s a criminal conviction.”
Warren’s attack comes at a sensitive time for the
Obama administration following Attorney General Eric Holder’s admission Wednesday that the size of the biggest banks complicates efforts to hit them with criminal prosecutions.
“I am concerned that the size of these institutions has become so large that it’s difficult for us to prosecute them. If we do prosecute — if we do bring a criminal charge — it will have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the
world economy,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary
panel Wednesday.
Holder’s stunning line of thinking poses a direct contradiction to the Democrats’ Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law. Dodd-Frank is intended to ensure that the collapse of a single firm does not threaten the economy. The implication of ‘too big too jail’ could also lead to sidestepping criminal charges and prosecution of Wall Street wrongdoings in the future, as well.
The tensions over “too big to jail” hypothesis were further exacerbated during the meeting when Cohen conceded that federal prosecutors had consulted with the Treasury over the potential economic consequences of going after HSBC.
Cohen told the panel that his department declined to provide a summary of the economic impacts because they were impossible to forecast with any certainty.
But the fact that the Justice Department even asked the question left lawmakers fuming, as they wondered whether it revealed that major banks are too big to jail.
Warren’s line of inquiry became a bipartisan chorus between Republicans and Democrats alike. Several members of her panel took up the line-of-questioning grilling when her time ran out.
Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) asked regulators how they would explain to the American people why no HSBC officials faced criminal charges– and whether they had played any role in the Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute the bank or its officials.
Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) was scathing in his critique of the bank regulators. He mockingly proposed to Warren that they collaborate on a bank that dealt solely with money from drug cartels and terrorists.
“We’d have nothing to fear from the U.S. government,” Kirk sarcastically suggested.
* * * * * * * *
You can read the Sentinel’s previous coverage on HSBC and Senator Elizabeth Warren here and here.
High Court Hears Challenge to Key Provision of 1965 Landmark Law
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Once again, race is front and center at the U.S. Supreme Court. And once again, the bull’s eye is the 1965 Voting
Rights Act, widely viewed as the most effective and successful
civil rights legislation in American history. Upheld five times
by the court, the law now appears to be on life support.
The Supreme Court heard arguments today in what could be a landmark Supreme Court ruling regarding the state of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act, first signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, was a major piece of civil rights legislation aiming to reverse a practice that long disenfranchised black Americans.
A key provision of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Section 5, is being challenged. In 2006, the federal government and Congress extended the Section 5 provision for twenty more years. The provision applies only to specific parts of the country where discriminatory voting procedures were
once rampant. It covers all of nine states, mainly in the South,
plus parts of seven other states. To head off discriminatory
voting procedures before they happen, the law requires
covered areas to get approval from federal officials before
changes can take place.
So, for example, if an Alabama town wants to change polling places, change from an elected board to an appointed board, annex another part of the county, or require photo identification, it has to first get permission from the Justice Department or a federal court in Washington, D.C.
Congress came up with the formula in 1965 to cover areas of the country that had a history of blatant, even violent discrimination in voting; but the formula has not been changed since 1975, and it still relies on election data from 1972. That’s the crux of the issue
before the court now: whether times have changed so
much that Congress, in reauthorizing the law in 2006
without updating the formula, violated the Constitution.
In an argument against Section 5 appearing before the Supreme Court, Shelby County, Alabama makes the case that the South no longer discriminates and therefore doesn’t need to seek such oversight when amending their voting laws.
The Supreme Court appears poised to determine Section 5 is no longer necessary, believing it unfairly targets Southern states for past systemic racial bias that no longer exists. It could rule as early as Monday whether it will consider ending the Voting Rights Act’s advance approval requirement that has been held up as the cornerstone of the civil rights era.
Justices in the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts and Antonin Scalia, have expressed reservations that the nine Southern states covered by the law still require the same degree of federal oversight that they did 60 years ago.
“Voter turnout and registration rates between blacks and whites now approach parity,” Roberts wrote in a decision in 2009. ”Blatantly discriminatory evasions of federal decrees are rare. And minority candidates hold office at unprecedented levels,” he said.
Justice Scalia took it one step further. During the Court’s oral arguments, he surprisingly called Congress’ 2006 reauthorization of Section 5, the “perpetuation of racial entitlement.”
Supporters of the Civil Rights Act points out racial discrimination and voting abuses still exist to this day and Section 5 is still revelant to curb abuses.
If Section 5 is struck down, they say, these abuses and racial biases– and consequent vote-rigging and fraud– would profoundly increase in the Southern states. If Roberts and Scalia, and at least three other justices, decide to strike down the provision, civil rights advocates will have few places to go and little enforcement to rely upon in challenging unfair voter laws.
The bull’s eye of the 1965 Civil Rights Voting Act is precariously hanging in the balance of the coming Supreme Court’s ruling. It may very well be a landmark decision.
Claims Rating Agency Mislead Consumers and CalPERS
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
California State Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has filed a lawsuit against one of the nation’s major credit
rating companies for allegedly inflating its ratings of structured
finance investments, which caused California’s public pension
funds and other investors to lose billions of dollars.
The Complaint
The complaint, filed on February 5 in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and Standard and Poor’s Financial Services violated the False Claims Act and other state laws by using a ratings process based on what senior executives described as “magic numbers” and “guesses.”
“For years, S&P placed its priority on maintaining its market share, instead of the investors who trusted in its supposedly objective ratings,” said Attorney General Harris.
“When the housing bubble burst, S&P’s house of cards collapsed and California paid the price— in billions. S&P must be held accountable for its conduct that contributed to one of our country’s worst financial crises,” Harris said.
Investors relied on Standard and Poor’s and its competitors to rate these securities because they had access to only general descriptions of the assets backing their investments, which often included mortgages. California’s public pension funds also relied on S&P because they are often required to buy securities that received a coveted “AAA” rating, signaling that the investment was top-tier and bore minimal risk, Harris’ office said.
Misrepresenting Investors
The complaint alleges that, from 2004 to 2007, S&P systematically misrepresented to the public, and to CalPERS and CalSTRS, that its ratings of structured finance securities were based on an independent, objective and reliable analysis, and not influenced by S&P’s economic interests.
In doing so, S&P lowered its standards for rating securities to gain market share and increase profits, and violated the False Claims Act by making false statements about the nature and risk of investments
to investors.
The complaint also describes the company’s efforts to suppress the development of new and more accurate ratings models.
In mid-2007, the housing bubble burst. After securities that S&P had deemed the least risky began defaulting, S&P downgraded many residential mortgage-backed securities investments. The market collapsed; of those securities issued in 2007, more than 90 percent were downgraded to junk status.
$1 Billion Dollars: Times Three
The California Public Employees Retirement System (PERS) and the California State Teachers Retirement System (STRS) – two of the nation’s largest institutional investors – lost approximately $1 billion.
Attorney General Harris today joined the U.S. Department of Justice and 12 other states and the District of Columbia in announcing lawsuits in Washington, D.C. The other lawsuits allege violations of the federal Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act and State Unfair Competition Laws.
However, California’s suit is unique because its being filed not only under California’s unfair competition laws but also under the state’s False Claims Act. This suit includes a claim for triple damages – because when the state makes a purchase based on a false statement, the defendant is responsible for three times the amount.
20-Month Investigation into Misconduct
The lawsuit arises from a 20-month investigation into the issuance and rating of mortgage-backed securities by Attorney General Harris’s California Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, which she formed in May 2011 to comprehensively investigate misconduct in the mortgage industry.
The Attorney General’s additional efforts to investigate the mortgage crisis include securing an estimated $18 billion for California in the National Mortgage Settlement and sponsoring the California Homeowner Bill of Rights, a package of laws instituting
permanent mortgage-related reforms.
Standard and Poor’s replied with a press releasethe same day the lawsuit was filed, claiming the DOJ lawsuits in California and other states are “Untrue, unjustified, and without merit” and that the ratings the company used were based on available market information at the time.
Senator Elizabeth Warren Stymies Regulators With a Simple Question (VIRAL VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Wall Street wishes it never happened.
The above clip of Massachusetts freshman Sen. Elizabeth Warren posing a simple question to bank regulators this past week has been viewed more than 1 million times, putting it on track to become the consumer advocate’s most-viral video hit to-date.
It was Warren’s first foray on the Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
The question that flummoxed the bank regulators: When was the last time you took a Wall Street bank to trial?
Heartbreaking and hilarious side-stepping ensued:
“We do not have to bring people to trial,” Thomas Curry, head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, assured Warren, declaring that his agency had secured a large number of settlements.
“I appreciate that you say you don’t have to bring them to trial. My question is, when did you bring them to trial?” she responded.
“We have not had to do it as a practical matter to achieve our supervisory goals,” Curry offered.
Warren turned to Elisse Walter, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the agency weighs how much it can extract from a bank without taking it to court against the cost of going to trial.
“I appreciate that. That’s what everybody does,” said Warren, a former Harvard law professor. “Can you identify the last time when you took the Wall Street banks to trial?”
“I will have to get back to you with specific information,” Walter said as the audience tittered.
Warren asked if any of the other regulators, representing the alphabet soup of the FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFTC, the Fed, the Treasury and the newly minted Consumer Financial Protection Board, could answer the very simple question.
None could. In fact, no one even tried.
“There are district attorneys and United States attorneys out there every day squeezing ordinary citizens on sometimes very thin grounds and taking them to trial in order to make an example, ” Warren said. I’m really concerned that ‘too big to fail’ has become ‘too big for trial,’” she added.
Wall Street responded angrily to Warren’s questioning– denouncing the senator and suggesting that she would lose “credibility” if she continued interrogating regulators in such a way.
Wall Street and its Fed regulators certainly got more than they bargained for.
Warren would have been on the panel herself
representing the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau, instead of a sitting senator, if her nomination to head the agency hadn’t been thwarted in 2011.
The financial regulators can blame those very same angry Wall Street lobbyists, along with outgoing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and
Senate Republicans for their embarrassing turn at the hearing– with the event going viral for all to see.
We don’t necessarily advocate the use of marijuana. But if you haven’t noticed, it’s a big deal industry in the Emerald Triangle. We’re posting this only to keep Humboldt informed
and those in the business aware of the industry curve.
And we don’t think stronger pot is necessarily better, either. Seriously: how high can it go? Humboldt and Mendocino breeders have been as busy as pollinating bees developing new, novel, and potent cannabis strains over the past decade for consumers eager to buy.
This video was released a couple of days ago. It dubiously claims the marijuana strains were “grown in secret CIA labs by Harvard Professors and are the 10 strongest strains of weed on the planet.”
Well, as much as we’d like to believe in conspiracy theories, the latter part of the sentence is the only claim we’ll put any stock into.
The #1 strain shown supposedly pulls in a 33% THC content. To put that into perspective, most strains today run on either side of 15%. Maybe. That Mexican dime bag of Panama Red riddled with those annoying seeds that you scored in 1975? That was around 4% THC– if you were lucky.
It’s a whole new world of cannabinoids out there. Cannabinoids, as if you didn’t already know, are a group of marijuana chemical compounds referred to as terpenophenolic compounds. One specific cannabinoid compound found in cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol, more commonly known as THC. That’s the sweet sticky crystalline stuff giving marijuana bud its fragrant aroma and psychoactive kick.
And while we’re at it, this brings us to another subject we were curious about: Why does the Federal Government hold a patent for medical marijuana?
The United States Federal Government, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) have all consistently denied marijuana has any medical benefits. Yet, on the other hand, the government actually holds patents for the medical use of the plant.
US Patent 6630507is titled “Cannabinoids as Antioxidants and Neuroprotectants” and assigned to The United States of America under the Department of Health and Human Services. It was obtained in October of 2003.
The US patent states that:
“Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties unrelated to the NMDA receptor antagonism.
This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.
The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and HIV dementia.”
So, we’re curious why the US government holds this patent yet it doesn’t stop their officials from consistently denying the benefits of medical marijuana.
An FDA spokesperson, for instance, has claimed that “smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment.”
While seated in safety thousands of miles away from the front-lines of war, someone can literally watch a video console, click a button, and boom: receive a
medal for their efforts.
Military drone operators, wielding the joysticks that operate those infamous drones killing “terrorists” all over the world, can now receive a “Distinguished Warfare” Medal for their efforts, as well as those individuals fighting in the cyberwar trenches.
This would be a first. The Distinguished Warfare Medal, a nearly two-inch-tall brass pendant below a ribbon with blue, red and white stripes, will be handed out to people judged to have racked up “extraordinary achievement” directly tied to a combat operation– but far removed from the actual battlefield, according to the Associated Press which first reported the news.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the creation of a brand new medal yesterday. It would be bestowed upon operators who control US drones in other countries of the world targeting and killing people, many of whom may be civilians as well as combatants.
“Our military reserves its highest decorations obviously for those who display gallantry and valor in actions where their lives are on the line, and we will continue to do so,” Panetta told a Pentagon news conference today. “But we should also have the ability to honor the extraordinary actions that make a true difference in combat operations.”
Panetta said operators of unmanned, robotic aircraft and cyberweapons “contribute to the success of combat operations, particularly when they remove the enemy from the field of battle, even if those actions are physically removed from the fight.”
The medal reflects a new age of warfare emerging over the past decade featuring robotic weapons and digital combat.
The Defense Department gave this statement in regards to the new honor:
“The most immediate example is the work of an unmanned aerial vehicle operator who could be operating a system over Afghanistan while based at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada. The unmanned aerial vehicle would directly affect operations on the ground.
Another example might be that of a soldier at Maryland’s Fort Meade, who detects and thwarts a cyberattack on a Department of Defense computer system.”
This is the first new combat-related award since the 1944 creation of the Bronze Star. The new medal will be ranked higher than the Bronze Star, the fourth highest combat decoration, but lower than the Silver Star, officials said.
In taking this step, the Pentagon is explicitly recognizing the increasing importance of cyberwar and drone activities to the nation’s defense complex.
The U.S. Air Force is on record predicting that by 2023 one-third of its attack and fighter planes will
be drones.
* * * * * * * *
Along with the new award, a new breed of Terminator machines are coming.
Technology is changing the world– and the war game landscape as we’d like to see it. For example, take theseremote-controlled helicopters being used in combat zones to ferry heavy equipment and supplies.
This article is one of a continuing series about drones by the Humboldt Sentinel.
Exclusive CBS Footage of Dorner Shootout with Law Enforcement
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
From CBS News:
The sweeping manhunt for a fugitive ex-cop wanted in a
deadly rampage appears to be over.
Overnight, sheriff’s deputies said charred remains were found inside a burned-out cabin near Big Bear Lake, Calif., east of Los Angeles. It’s not yet confirmed if the remains are those of Christopher Dorner.
The cabin went up in flames after an intense shootout. Only CBS News captured the gunfight while it was happening. CBS News correspondent Carter Evans was in the middle of it all.
As he barricaded himself in an empty cabin, the man believed to be Dorner fired a .50-caliber sniper rifle, shooting two deputies, killing one of them.
Following tactical teams, CBS News’ crew was caught in the middle of a second firefight.
Asked how CBS News’ Carter Evans was able to get so close to the firefight, he said he and his crew received a tip on where to find some police teams searching for Dorner and then heard the carjacking reports.
“At that point we started following those search teams, and they jumped out of their cars with their rifles drawn and started firing, and only then did we really realize what we rolled up on,” Evans said.
At one point, the man believed to be Dorner tried to escape by throwing a smoke grenade at officers. Police also
deployed smoke grenades, setting up a screen so the wounded
could be evacuated.
The resort town of Big Bear had been the focus of the manhunt since last Thursday, when a burned-out truck belonging to Dorner was found in the area, along with weapons, survival gear and a gas mask. As the media descended on the town and SWAT teams searched door to door, police now believe Dorner was hiding in plain sight in an unoccupied condo just across the road from their command post.
Above, watch Carter Evans’ video report on the police standoff with the suspected gunman and the raging gun battle that ensued. Sorry, but we can’t do anything about the commercial that comes along with it. You can also read the full CBS article here.
Iraq War Contractor Fined for Late Reports of 30 Casualties
“System is in Shambles”
by T. Christian Miller ProPublica, Feb. 7, 2013
The U.S. Department of Labor has fined a private security contractor $75,000 for failing to file timely reports on the casualties of workers in Iraq as required by law. The Sandi Group, based in Washington D.C., delayed telling the Labor department that 30 of its employees had been killed while working for the company between 2003 and 2005, according to the department.
The Sandi Group, a privately held company known for employing large numbers of Iraqis as security guards, did not return requests for comment. Since 2005 the company has won U.S. government contracts worth at least $80.9 million, according to a federal contracting database.
The fine, believed to be the largest ever levied against a single company for failing to report war zone casualties in a timely manner, is part of an enforcement crackdown that began after a ProPublica series highlighted problems with a government program designed to provide health benefits to civilian contractors working in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Timely reporting of work-related injuries, illnesses and fatalities are vitally important to protect the interests of injured workers and their families,” Gary A. Steinberg, acting director of the Department of Labor office which negotiated the settlement amount with the company, said in a prepared statement.
The Labor Department is responsible for administering an obscure government program called the Defense Base Act. The act requires that contractors working overseas for the U.S. government take out specialized insurance, similar to workers compensation, to provide medical treatment for injuries sustained on the job, or to pay death benefits in the event of work-related fatalities.
The ProPublica series found the system in shambles.
Insurance companies routinely delayed payments
and medical treatment to injured American workers, while charging taxpayers hundreds of millions of
dollars for the policies.
The Labor Departmentfailed to bring enforcement actions against companies that flouted the law, even when federal administrative judges urged the agency to act. Foreign workers, such as Iraqi and Afghan translators who helped U.S. troops, frequently at risk to their own lives, often received no benefits at all.
After the series ran, the department began publishing
information on contractor deaths and injuries and posted report cards showing how quickly insurance companies reported casualties. They also vowed more aggressive enforcement.
Injured workers, however, say that problems remain.
Marcie Hascall Clark has battled for years to receive medical treatment and lost wage payments for her husband, who was injured in Iraq. She says she hasn’t seen any improvement in a process she contends still moves too slowly.
“The Labor Department is worse than ever,” said Clark, who runs a website for injured contractors.
As of December, 3,258 civilian contract workers had been killed or died in Iraq– and another 90,000 had reported injuries.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and 2011, ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Based in Manhattan with a newsroom of 34 working journalists, the organization is dedicated to investigative reporting on stories with “moral force” and a significant potential for major impact.
More ProPublica stories carried by the Humboldt Sentinelcan be found here.
Images by the Humboldt Sentinel
Posted by Skippy Massey
HSBC: The Preferred Bank Of Drug Cartels & Money Launderers (VIDEO)
Why No Criminal Charges?
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Humboldt’s drug dealers and pot growers stand to lose everything they have and go to prison under the Department of Justice’s US Attorney Melinda Haag– while the big players like HSBC bank go free.
As bank slogans go, they don’t come worse than this: “HSBC: The preferred financial institution of drug cartels and money launderers.”
That’s a quote in a U.S. Department of Justice report about HSBC Holdings, one of the largest banks in the world. To avoid criminal prosecution, HSBC admitted in December that it laundered more than $800 million for Mexican drug cartels, and covered up much more in illegal transactions for Hamas, Al-Qaeda, Burma, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Libya over the course of 10 years.
The British bank will pay $1.9 billion to the US government. While it’s the largest such fine in history, it’s about 4 weeks of the banking behemoth’s earnings. It’s barely a slap on the wrist handed out by
the DOJ and Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer in a back room
deal.
It’s a case that has everything — everything except an arrest. Nobody at HSBC will face criminal charges.
That struck some as odd, because in 80 pages of court documents, the bank admits to almost going out of its way to act as a financial clearing house for international pariahs and drug dealers.
Notre Dame Professor Jimmy Gurgle, who investigated money-laundering cases for the Treasury Department, said: “We’re not talking about mere negligence. We’re talking about a criminal scheme that was adopted as a policy of HSBC that involved looking the other way in regard to suspicious transactions involving money laundering.”
Investigative journalist Matt Taibbi wrote “even people on Wall Street were blown away by the result,” the lack of prosecution and disposition being the equivalent of a parking ticket handed out
by the Department of Justice:
“The decision to not prosecute in this instance belies everything that the government has ever done with regard to drug prosecutions everywhere.
I mean, when you think about the way they behave toward ordinary people who get caught up in drug cases, where they seize all your property and they use absolutely the maximum sentences they can possibly avail themselves of, and in this case they catch a bank that launders billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels for years on end, and they can’t find something to charge these people with?”
“If the law doesn’t apply equally to everybody, then you don’t really have a system of law. And so you have a built-in defense for everybody in every drug case forever. I mean, if you get caught with a stem of marijuana, how do you not stand up and say, ‘You’re going to send me to jail for this where a guy who laundered a billion dollars for a bunch of murderers gets nothing?’”
As far as the Department of Justice is concerned, the scales of justice aren’t a standard to be doled out equally.
Too big to fail? Some folks are above the law– and simply too big to jail.
Proposed New Mexico Law Would Now Prosecute Abortion Providers Instead of Rape Victims
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Santa Fe, New Mexico– A Republican state lawmaker in
New Mexico proposed a law last week that would send a
woman to prison for three years on a felony if she had an
abortion after being raped– for “tampering with evidence.”
“Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”
The physician and health care professionals who perform the abortion could be charged criminally as well with a felony.
Brown says it’s all a misunderstanding. She said her intent was not to go after rape and incest victims, but to prosecute rapists and incest perpetrators who coerce women into having abortions. She said the mistake occurred during the drafting of the bill, and she’s working on a substitute to make it clear the proposal wouldn’t apply to the victims.
Brown is a Carlsbad lawyer serving her second term in the New Mexico House since 2010. She’s a past GOP chairwoman and has been on the board of Right to Life of Carlsbad, an outspoken
anti-abortion group.
Controversy and Outcry
Nine New Mexico House Republicans, all women, signed on as co-sponsors. The bill quickly caught the eye of ABC News, The Huffington Post, Slate, Courthouse News, and Salon.com.
New Mexico’s state Democratic Party, the American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and House Democrats all blasted the bill.
The first to publicize Brown’s bill was the liberal PAC Progress Now New Mexico. “In addition to being blatantly unconstitutional, the bill turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state,” said Pat Davis, the group’s executive director.
Democratic Party Chairman Javier Gonzales called the legislation “atrocious” and demanded, “The war on women in America has to stop. No woman should ever be forced to carry a child for evidence, plain and simple.”
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, moved to distance herself from HB 206. Responding to a request for a comment, her spokesperson said Martinez, as a career prosecutor, “would never support a bill that re-victimized rape survivors.”
On the national level, Democrats have decried a GOP “war on women” and cited outlandish statements about rape by Republican candidates to bolster that claim. Some Republicans have said that such missteps by Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin and Indiana Senate contender Richard Mourdock cost the party U.S. Senate seats in those states.
Revising a Poorly Written Bill
In an interview last Thursday, Brown explained her intention, saying, “I’ve been talking to my constituents in Carlsbad and with law enforcement people, and they say we’re not doing enough to protect women and children.”
Her intent, she said, is to “go after perpetrators of incest and criminal sexual penetration who cover up their crime by forcing girls and women to get abortions.” Prosecuting rape or incest victims was never the goal of the bill, Brown stressed, adding, “It’s the guy who does the sex crime.”
Brown revised her original bill Friday to specify that victims can’t be charged.
Brown posted the new version of the bill on her personal website. In the new version of her bill, she added a sentence saying “In no circumstance shall the mother of the fetus be charged under this subsection.” The original version of the bill, however, is still posted on the Legislature’s website.
The executive director of the state Democratic Party said Friday that the ‘new’ Brown bill still has problems.
“The bill still makes it a crime to ‘facilitate’ an abortion for a woman who wants one …,” said Scott Forrester in a news release. “That means doctors, nurses, or anyone else who works at a health care clinic where this is one of the services provided would still be guilty of a felony.”
In another twist, Brown on Friday explained to a news reporter how the poorly written bill came about. She had asked a bill drafter with the Legislative Council Service whether she should include a sentence about not charging the mother. But, she said, the drafter told her that it wouldn’t be necessary– and prosecutors would understand that.
Brown has said part of the problem was that the original drafter quit his job before finishing the bill, so it went to another drafter.
Asked about what had happened with drafting Brown’s bill and for permission to look at the file, John Yaeger of the Legislative Council Service said, “… we’re prohibited by law from disclosing the nature or contents of any request from a legislator, which includes any conversations, communications and the file.”
Critics of the proposed bill are questioning whether Cathrynn Brown and the New Mexico Legislature are going too far, overreaching for evidence from rape victims that would normally be obtained in other ways while criminalizing
abortion health care providers.
The key to the new conservative “Constitutionalism” is that they love, love, love every single word of the Constitution… except for the parts that they hate. And those parts therefore don’t count and have to be changed.
The truth is that “Constitutionalist” has become code for “far-right Teabagger” just like “southern preacher” has become code for “closeted homosexual.”
As much as these people say they adore the Constitution, they’re a little choosey about what they do and don’t like about it:
Second Amendment? Love it. Tenth Amendment, which gives un-delegated power to the states? Gotta have it. But the “no establishment of religion” part of the First Amendment? A little wobbly on that one.
The 17th Amendment, which allowed for direct election of senators (by the people; as opposed to legislative appointment), is on their chopping block. In fact, John Yoo wrote about it a few years ago in the National Review Online, saying that the 17th “undermined federalism.” John Yoo, of course, earned his Constitutional stripes by shitting all over the 8th Amendment while making room for torture.
The “no unreasonable searches and seizures” in the Fourth Amendment? They kind of like it, but only for white people.
The 16th Amendment, which allows income tax, well, obviously that’s gotta go as well. What were we thinking? The Founding Fathers obviously wanted us to fund our modern military with rainbows and candy.
The 14th Amendment is right there in the Constitution too, but it allows the evil spawn of Mexicans to be citizens, so it clearly needs some tweaking.
And of course there’s all the stuff that’s not in the Constitution that needs to be.
If only our Founding Fathers had the wisdom to foresee the invention of fire and cloth, we wouldn’t need a flag-burning amendment. But we do. And somehow James Madison must have left the “no gay marriage” amendment in his other pants the day he introduced the Bill of Rights, so we’ll have to fix that, too.
If they really loved the Constitution so much, wouldn’t they have more respect for it than that?
The reality is that Conservatives love their Constitution the exact same way they love their Bible — as something to thump, not something to read.
* * * * * * *
This article by Bill Maher, “Cafeteria Constitutionalists,” and others, can be found here.
FBI Using Warrantless GPS To Track US Citizens (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Mind if we track you?
Local activists may want to check under their car: Big Brother
may be following you.
GPS vehicle trackers, based on technology first used by the
military for navigation, have become a popular law-enforcement
tool for tracking people.
Cruder than other forms of surveillance, they report only where a suspect’s car goes and are frequently used for supplementary surveillance. That’s because in most jurisdictions, investigators don’t need court approval or a warrant to slap a tracking device on a driver’s car.
They’re also very effective. The devices provide a stealthier and more cost-effective approach to surveillance than a team of cops trailing a suspect around the clock. They have become one of the top choices for surveillance by government agencies like the FBI to use.
Wired magazine’s Kim Zetter reported:
The use of GPS tracking devices is poised to become one of the most contentious privacy issues before the Supreme Court, if it agrees to hear an appeal filed by the Obama administration last month. The administration is seeking to overturn a ruling by a lower court that law enforcement officials must obtain a warrant before using a tracker.
The constitutional matter until now has been left to district courts around the country to decide, resulting in a patchwork of conflicting rulings.
The tracking devices have become one of the most divisive Fourth Amendment issues facing courts around the country. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled last year that using a GPS tracker was no different than physically trailing a suspect in public, and that such surveillance was not protected by the Fourth Amendment, even if agents placed the device on a suspect’s car while it was parked in his driveway.
But Judge Alex Kosinski, in the dissenting opinion, called the use of GPS trackers without a court order “straight out of George Orwell’s novel 1984” and said they give government “the power to track the movements of every one of us, every day of our lives.”
Just ask Kathy Thomas. She found one of the tracking devices
underneath her car, placed there by the FBI.
Thomas, an environmental activist, doesn’t know if the FBI obtained a warrant to place the tracker on her car. But she said authorities never charged her with any crime. They did ask for their tracker back, though. She refused.
Her FBI file, which she obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, makes it clear the surveillance was part of a nationwide investigation of activists connected to Earth First!, the Earth Liberation Front, and the Animal Liberation Front — groups the FBI considered “left-wing anarchists” and whose members sometimes advocated criminal activity to further their aims.
Thomas says she organized activities with Earth First! and participated in animal rights activities, but she never belonged to the two other groups. Instead, she was a member of Food Not Bombs.
In other words: Warrant? We don’t need no stinkin’ warrant.
Despite Bahrain’s bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, the U.S. has continued to provide weapons and maintenance to the small Mideast nation.
Defense Department documents released to ProPublica
give the fullest picture yet of the arms sales: The list includes
ammunition, combat vehicle parts, communications
equipment, Blackhawk helicopters, and an unidentified
missile system. (Read the documents.)
The documents, which were provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request and cover a yearlong period ending in February 2012, still leave many questions unanswered. It’s not clear whether in each case the arms listed have been delivered. And some entries that only cite the names of weapons may in fact refer to maintenance or spare parts.
Defense Department spokesman Paul Ebner declined to offer any more detail. “We won’t get into specifics in any of these because of the security of Bahrain,” said Ebner.
While the U.S. has maintained it is selling Bahrain arms only for external defense, human rights advocates say
the documents raise questions about items that could
be used against civilian protesters.
“The U.S. government should not be providing additional military equipment that could make matters worse,” said Sunjeev Bery, Middle East advocacy director for Amnesty International USA.
There have beenreports that Bahrain used American-made helicopters to fire on protesters in the most intense period of the crackdown. Time magazine reported in mid-March 2011 that Cobra helicopters had conducted “live ammunition air strikes” on protesters.
The new Defense Department list of arms sales has two entries related to “AH-1F Cobra Helicopters” in March and April 2011. Neither the exact equipment or services being sold nor the delivery timetable are specified.
The U.S. is also playing a training role: In April 2012, for example, the Army News Service reported that an American team specializing in training foreign militaries to use equipment purchased from the U.S. was in Bahrain to help with Blackhawk helicopters.
Bahrain’s ambassador to the U.S., Houda Nonoo, said the country’s military has not targeted protestors. Bahrain’s military “exists to combat external threats,” Nonoo told ProPublica. ”The potential for U.S. foreign arms sales to be used against protestors in the future is remote.”
The Obama administration has stood by Bahrain’s ruling family, who are Sunni, during nearly two years of protests by the country’s majority Shia population. Bahrain is a longtime ally and the home to a large American naval base, which is
considered particularly important amid the current tensions with
nearby Iran.
The itemized arms sales list does not include dollar values but a separate document says military equipment worth $51 million was delivered to Bahrain in the year starting in October 2010. (That period includes several months before the protests began.)
The U.S. has long sold weapons to Bahrain, totaling $1.4 billion since 2000, according to the State Department. The sales didn’t come under scrutiny until security forces killed at least 19 people in the early months of the crackdown in 2011. Dozens have died since then.
The administration put a hold on one proposed sale of
Humvees and missiles in Fall 2011 following congressional
criticism. But Foreign Policy reported that other unspecified equipment was still being sold without any public notification.
The new documents offer more details on what was sold during that period u2014 including entries related to a “Blackhawk helicopter armament” in November 2011 and a missile system in January 2012.
In May 2012, the administration announced it wasreleasing some unspecified items to Bahrain’s military that “are not used for crowd control” while maintaining a hold
on the Humvees and TOW missiles.
State Department spokesman Noel Clay told ProPublica, “We continue to withhold the export of lethal and crowd-control items intended predominately for internal security purposes, and have resumed on a case-by-case basis items related exclusively to external defense, counter-terrorism, and the protection of U.S. forces.”
The U.S. has also sold Bahrain a helicopter fit for the royal family.
In September, Missouri-based aviation services firm Sabreliner reported that, as part of an official government arms sale, it delivered to Bahrain a fully customized UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter for “a variety of missions including transporting heads of state.” The aircraft was outfitted with a “clam shell door” for ease of entry, a “new VIP interior,” and a “custom Royal Bahraini” paint job.
In other recent developments in Bahrain, the country’s highest court this month upheldlengthy prison sentences for 13 high-profile activists accused of plotting to overthrow the government.
In a rare occurrence in November, a series of homemade bombs were set off in the capital of Manama, killing two and leading some observers to argue that the opposition is growing more militant.
Also in November, an Amnesty International report found that despite government promises, “the reform process has been
shelved and repression unleashed.”
The Growing Debt Divide: Obama Advances While GOP Buckles Under Pressure (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
This story just hit the wires today from Washington’s The Hill:
House Republicans are discussing a short-term debt ceiling increase to buy time for broader deficit reduction negotiations with Democrats, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters Thursday.
“We’re discussing the possible virtue of a short-term debt limit extension so that we have a better chance of getting the Senate and the White House involved in discussions in March,” Ryan told reporters gathered at the pricey Kingsmill resort in Williamsburg, where the House GOP is holding its annual retreat.
“All of those things are the kinds of things we’re discussing,” said Ryan, the party’s budget chief and 2012 vice presidential candidate.
A small hike in the $16.4 trillion debt ceiling would give the government more time to make payments on its responsibilities as lawmakers and the White House haggle over federal spending. A GOP leadership aide said there was no consensus on the size of a debt limit hike, and that it would have to be coupled with entitlement reforms or spending cuts.
Ryan did not specify how long a short-term increase would be or even whether it would include spending cuts, which Boehner has consistently demanded in conjunction with approving new borrowing authority.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has told Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) that the nation hit its borrowing limit at the end of 2012 and will run out of ways to avoid a first-ever default sometime between mid-February and early March. $85 billion in across-the-board 2013 cuts to defense and domestic spending are set to begin taking effect in March, and the government will run out of funding a month later…
Let’s toss out some numbers: the US Government is borrowing $6 billion dollars a day, or $4 million every minute. That’s $50,000 for every man, woman and child, or $140,000 per US household.
This year the national debt will fly through $17 trillion, get a peek at $18 trillion, and mark a 2015 date with $20 trillion. The numbers could rise higher as interest rates move upward in the future.
To note, the national debt has grown by $6 trillion since President Obama took office, and four more $1 trillion deficits are on the way before he leaves Washington in 2016.
It gets worse. Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher calculated that the government’s unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare alone comes to a staggering $99.2 trillion, or $330,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.
It’s an impossible figure, but still on the low side compared to this estimate of $222 trillion published at Bloomberg news.
If we keep kicking the can down the road and don’t balance the national pocketbook soon before it’s too late, bad things will happen. We’ll be at the the point of no return: unable to repay debts and further borrow, lenders not willing to lend anymore, treasury and bond markets defaulting, and the ‘full faith and credit’ of the US dollar crashing.
Think it won’t happen? We’ll find out. We’re getting closer. if it should happen, we’ll be Lost in Space forever.
President Barack Obama proposed a ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, but some still worry about the pressure for police presence in public schools.
The proposed legislation comes about a month after a gunman massacred 20 grade school children, his mother, and six teachers and administrators in Newtown, Connecticut.
In response, Obama unveiled nearly 23 executive actions, including orders to facilitate police background checks, launch safety campaigns, review existing standards, mandate further research and increase access to mental health services.
Another order established hiring grants for community-oriented policing services, or COPS, which funds the assignment of officers to monitor public schools, an apparent concession to the National Rifle Association.
NRA executive director Wayne LaPierre proposed a similar “Secure Our Schools” initiative shortly after the Newtown tragedy of Dec. 14, 2012.
Laura Murphy, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington, decried police surveillance of schoolchildren.
“We have several concerns about the administration incentivizing police departments and school districts to put more police officers in schools,” Murphy said in a statement. “We fear that neutral sounding safety policies, such as putting more cops in school will lead to the over-incarceration of school-age children, especially students of color and students with disabilities, who are disproportionately arrested and prosecuted for issues that would normally be handled by school administrators when law enforcement is introduced into schools.”
The ACLU has previously described this phenomenon as the school-to-prison pipeline.
Meanwhile, the NRA described Obama’s other gun-control measures a “power grab,” and the White House launched a counteroffensive calling the NRA’s campaign “cowardly.”
Neither side acknowledged similarity between the “Secure Our Schools” and the “COPS Hiring Grants” programs in their official statements.
To note, the fellow in these highly popular YouTube videos isn’t Russian whatsoever– he’s an American named Kyle Myers from Georgia who fakes the foreign accent. Mr. Myers claims to either own or have borrowed these very real weapons, adding they are sold to governments, militaries, and to civilians, noting they are “100% legal for him and others to possess in the US– as long as you have the right paperwork.”
(Video clip and images by the Humboldt Sentinel. Posted by Skippy Massey)
Company Promises to Move Veterans and the Economy With New Corporate Strategy (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Wal-Mart intends to hire veterans—an army of them. It also
intends to move quickly where government can’t: private industry.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer and the biggest private employer in the U.S. with 1.4 million workers, said it’s rolling out a three-part plan to help grease the wheels of a sluggish U.S. economy today.
Pledge to Hiring Vets
The company’s plan includes hiring more than 100,000 veterans over the next five years, spending $50 billion to buy more American-made merchandise in the next 10 years, and helping part-time workers move into full-time positions sooner.
The surprise move comes as Wal-Mart attempts to bolster a tarnished reputation having been hit in the past year by an alleged bribery scandal in Mexico and a deadly fire at a Bangladesh clothing factory.
Wal-Mart is criticized for its low-paying jobs and buying habits in the U.S. It said its new company strategy intends to highlight career opportunities in the retail industry which supports one in four jobs in the US and with $444 billion in annual revenue.
“We’ve developed a national paralysis that’s driven by all of us waiting for someone else to do something,” Bill Simon, president and CEO of Wal-Mart’s U.S. business, said. “The beauty of the private sector is that we don’t have to win an election, convince Congress or pass a bill to do what we think is right. We can simply move forward, doing what we know is right,” Simon said.
At the epicenter of Wal-Mart’s plan is a pledge to hire veterans, many of who have come home from Afghanistan and Iraq and are having a particularly hard time finding jobs. The unemployment rate for veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan stood at 10.8 percent in December, compared with the overall unemployment rate of 7.8 percent.
The program, which will start on Memorial Day, will include jobs mostly in Wal-Mart’s stores or in its Sam’s Club locations. Some will be at its headquarters, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, or the company’s distribution centers.
Wal-Mart said it promises to hire every veteran who wants a job and has been honorably discharged in the first 12 months of active duty.
Simon, who served in the Navy, said that veterans have ‘a record of performance under pressure’. “They’re quick learners, and they’re team players. These are leaders with discipline, training, and a passion for service. There is a seriousness and sense of purpose that the military instills, and we need it today more than ever,” he said.
Wal-Mart said First Lady Michelle Obama, who spearheaded a White House drive to encourage businesses to hire veterans, has expressed an interest through her team in working with Wal-Mart and with the rest of the business community on this initiative.
In the next several weeks, Simon said the White House will meet with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense and major U.S. employers to encourage businesses to make commitments to train and employ American’s returning veterans.
The First Lady called Wal-Mart’s announcement ‘historic.’ “We all believe that no one who serves our country should have to fight for a job once they return home. Wal-Mart is setting a groundbreaking example for the private sector to follow,” Ms. Obama said in a statement today.
$50 Billion in US Goods Manufacturing
In addition to hiring veterans, Wal-Mart said that it will spend $50 billion to buy more products made in the U.S. over the next 10 years. According to data from Wal-Mart’s suppliers, items that are made, sourced or grown in the U.S. account for about two-thirds of the company’s spending on products for its U.S. business.
Wal-Mart said that it plans to focus on buying more in areas such as sporting goods, fashion basics, storage products, games and paper products. The commitment comes as economics are changing for making goods overseas.
Labor costs are rising in Asia, while oil and transportation
costs are high and increasingly uncertain.
Moving Up
The final piece of Wal-Mart’s plan is to help part-time Wal-Mart workers transition into full-time employment if they so wish. Simon said that about 75 percent of its store management start as hourly associates and their average management pay is $50,000 to $170,000 a year.
“There are some fundamental misunderstandings out there about retail jobs, and we need to do better at explaining the many opportunities we offer,” Simon said.
* * * * * * * *
Let’s be clear: the new corporate strategy is both a sincerely gracious decision and a masterful public relations stroke.
Wal-Mart and the media failed to note that some of the jobs for returning veterans will be for part-time positions. There’s also another bottom line fiscal consideration not being mentioned– the up to $9,600 tax credit offered to employers for hiring returning vets.
You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign
against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia — a
centerpiece of the Obama administration’s national security
approach– remain shrouded in secrecy.
Here’s our guide to what we know– and what we don’t know.
Where is the drone war? Who carries it out?
Drones have been the Obama administration’s tool of choice for taking out militants outside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Drones aren’t the exclusive weapon– traditional airstrikes and other attacks have also been reported.
But by one estimate, 95 percent of targeted killings since 9/11 have been conducted by drones. Among the benefits of drones: they don’t put American troops in harm’s way.
The CIA isn’t alone in conducting drone strikes. The military has acknowledged “direct action” in Yemen and Somalia. Strikes in those countries are reportedly carried out by the secretive, elite Joint Special Operations Command. Since 9/11, JSOC has grown more than tenfold, taking on intelligence-gathering as well as combat roles. For example, JSOC was responsible for the operation that killed Osama Bin Laden.
The drone war is carried out remotely, from the U.S. and a network of secret bases around the world.
The Washington Postgot a glimpse– through examining construction contracts and showing up uninvited– at the base in the tiny African nation of Djibouti from which many of the strikes on Yemen and Somalia are carried out. Earlier this year, Wiredpieced together an account of the war against Somalia’s al-Shabaab militant group and the U.S.’s expanded military presence throughout Africa.
The number of strikes in Pakistan has ebbed in recent years, from a peak of more than 100 in 2008, to an estimated 46 last year. Meanwhile, the
pace in Yemen picked up, with more than 40 last year.
But there have been seven strikes in Pakistan in the first
ten days of 2013.
How are targets chosen?
A seriesofarticles based largely on anonymous comments from administration officials have given partial picture of how the U.S. picks targets and carries out strikes. Two recent reports from researchers at Columbia Law School and from the Council on Foreign Relations also give detailed overviews of what’s known about the process.
The CIA and the military have reportedly long maintained overlapping “kill lists.” According to news reports last spring, the military’s list was hashed out in Pentagon-run interagency meetings with the White House approving proposed targets.
Obama would authorize particularly sensitive missions
himself.
This year, the processreportedly changed, to concentrate the review of individuals and targeting criteria in the White House. According to the Washington Post, the reviews now happen at regular interagency meetings at the National Counterterrorism Center. Recommendations are sent to a panel of National Security Council officials. Final revisions go through White House counterterror adviser John Brennan to the president. Several profileshave highlighted Brennan’s powerful and controversial role in shaping the trajectory of the targeted killing program.
This week, Obama nominated Brennan to head
the CIA.
At least some CIA strikes don’t have to get White House signoff. The director of the CIA can reportedly green-light strikes in Pakistan. In a 2011 interview, John Rizzo, previously the CIA’s top lawyer, said agency attorneys did an exhaustive review of each target.
Doesn’t the U.S. sometimes target people whose names they don’t know?
Yes. While administration officials often have frequently framed drone strikes as going after “high-level al Qaeda leaders who are planning attacks” against the U.S., many strikes go after apparent militants whose identities the U.S. doesn’t know. The so-called “signature strikes” began under Bush in early 2008 and were expanded by Obama. Exactly what portion of strikes are signature strikes isn’t clear.
At various points the CIA’s use of signature strikes in Pakistan in particular have causedtensions with the White House and State Department. One official told the New York Times about a joke that for the CIA, “three guys doing jumping jacks” was a
terrorist training camp.
In Yemen and Somalia, there is debate about whether the militants targeted by the U.S. are in fact plotting against the U.S. or instead fighting against their own country. Micah Zenko, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who has been critical of the drone program, toldProPublica that the U.S. is essentially running “a counterinsurgency air force” for allied countries. At times, strikes have relied on local intelligence that later proves faulty. The Los Angeles Timesrecently examined the case of a Yemeni man killed by a U.S. drone and the complex web of allegiances and politics surrounding his death.
The London Bureau of Investigative Journalism covers Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan,
as well as statistics from drone strikes carried out in Afghanistan.
How many of those killed are have been civilians?
It’s impossible to know.
There has been considerable back-and-forth about the tally of civilian casualties. For instance, the New America Foundation estimates between 261 and 305 civilians have been killed in Pakistan; The Bureau of Investigative Journalismgives a range of 475 – 891. All of the counts are much higher than the very low numbers of deaths the administration claims. We’ve detailedinconsistencies even within those low estimates. Some analyses show that civilian deaths have dropped proportionally in recent years.
The estimates are largely compiled by interpreting news reports relying on anonymous officials or accounts from local media, whose credibility may vary. For example, the Washington Postreported last month that the Yemeni government often tries to conceal the U.S.’ role in airstrikes that kill civilians.
The controversy has been compounded by the fact that the U.S. reportedly counts any military-age male killed in a drone strike as a militant. An administration official told ProPublica, “If a group of fighting age males are in a home where we know they are constructing explosives or plotting an attack, it’s assumed that all of them are in on that effort.” It’s not clear what if any investigation occurs after the fact.
Columbia Law School conducted an in-depth analysis of what we know about the U.S.’s efforts to mitigate and calculate civilian casualties. It concluded that the drone war’s covert nature hampered accountability measures taken in traditional military actions. Another report from Stanford and NYU documented “anxiety and psychological trauma” among Pakistani villagers.
This fall, the U.N. announced an investigation into the civilian impact– in particular, allegations of “double-tap” strikes, in which a second strike targets rescuers.
This fall, the Washington Postdescribed something called the “disposition matrix”– a process that has
contingency plans for what to do with terrorists depending where they are. The Atlanticmapped out how that decision-making might happen in the case of a U.S. citizen, based on known examples. But of course, the details of the disposition matrix, like the “kill lists” it reportedly supplants, aren’t known.
What’s the legal rationale for all this?
Obama administration officials have given a series of speeches broadly outlining the legal underpinning for strikes, but they never talk about specific cases. In fact, they don’t officially acknowledge the drone war at all.
The White House argues that Congress’ 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force as well as international law on nations’ right to self-defense provides sound legal basis for targeting individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda or “associated forces,” even outside Afghanistan. That can include U.S. citizens.
“Due process,” said Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech last March, “takes into account the realities of combat.”
What form that “due process” takes hasn’t been detailed. And, as we’vereported, the government frequently clams up when it comes to specific questions like civilian casualties, or the reasons specific individuals were killed.
Just last week, a federal judge ruled that the government did not have to release a secret legal memo making the case for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen. The judge also ruled the government did not have to respond to other requests seeking more information about targeted killing in general. In making the ruling, the judge acknowledged a “Catch-22,” saying that the government claimed “as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”
The administration has reportedly discussed scaling back the drone war, but by other accounts, it is formalizing the targeted killing program for the long haul. The U.S. estimates there Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has a “few thousand” members; but officials have also said the U.S. cannot “capture of kill every last terrorist who claims an affiliation with al Qaeda.”
The State Department’s legal counsel, Jeh Johnson, who just stepped down as general counsel for the Pentagon, gave a speech last month gave a speech last month entitled, “The Conflict Against Al Qaeda and its Affiliates: How Will It End?” He didn’t give a date.
John Brennan has reportedly said the CIA should return to its focus on intelligence-gathering. But Brennan’s key role in running the drone war from the White House has ledto debate about how much he would actually curtail the agency’s involvement if he is confirmed as CIA chief.
What about backlash abroad?
There appears to be plenty of it. Drone strikes are deeply unpopular in the countries where they occur, sparking frequent protests. Despite that, Brennan said last August that the U.S. saw,”little evidence that these actions are generating widespread anti-American sentiment or recruits.”
General Stanley McChrystal, who led the military in Afghanistan, recently contradicted that, saying, “The resentment created by American use of unmanned strikes … is much greater than the average American appreciates. They are hated
on a visceral level, even by people who’ve never seen one or seen the effects of one.” The New York Times recently reported that Pakistani militants have carried out a campaign of brutal reprisals against locals, accusing them of spying for the U.S.
As for international governments: Top U.S. allies have mostly kept silent. A 2010 U.N. report raised concerns about the precedent of a covert, boundary-less war. The President of Yemen, Abdu Hadi, supports the U.S. campaign, while Pakistan maintains an uneasy combination of public protest and apparent acquiescence.
Who to Follow
For reporting and commentary on the drone war on Twitter:
@drones collects op-eds and news on well, drones. (Run by members of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, which has been outspoken about privacy concerns in the use of domestic drones, but it also covers national security.)
@Dangerroom from Wired covers national security and technology, including a lot on drones.
* * * * * * *
To note: We are carrying out drone strikes in non-war zone areas. 36 civilians are killed for every militant targeted; 178 children have been killed by US drones in Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. These casualty statistics are rarely, if ever, reported.
Eight California counties and public entities sued UBS Bank, Barclays Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and other banks alleging they defrauded
and lost millions of dollars because the financial institutions
manipulated, fixed, and lied about the benchmark LIBOR rate.
Complaints were filed today in federal court in Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego on behalf of the counties of San Diego and San Mateo, the city of Riverside, the city of Richmond, and four other entities against 22 current and former banks that set LIBOR rates, law firm Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP said in a statement.
The lawsuits filed today allege violations of antitrust laws, negligence and unjust enrichment and seek to recover losses and triple damages. The plaintiffs claim they were cheated out of higher interest payments on investments such as interest-rate swaps and corporate bonds tied to LIBOR.
LIBOR, or the “London Interbank Offered Rate,” is the world’s benchmark interest rate used for setting short-term interest rates on a wide range of financial instruments – from simple car loans, mortgages, student loans, and credit cards to complex municipal derivative investments by public entities.
LIBOR-based investments are in the trillions of dollars every year. About 90 percent of US commercial and mortgage loans are linked to the index
LIBOR is based on a self-reporting British Bankers’ Association daily survey that asks lenders to estimate
and average how much it would cost to borrow money from each other for various periods in 10 different currencies. It is accepted by the global financial system as the true cost of borrowing between financial institutions because it was believed to represent the true interest rate at which borrowers are able to borrow money.
John C. Beiers, County Counsel for San Mateo County, said in the statement Wednesday, “LIBOR was manipulated on a global scale, and it’s a sad fact that the rigging of LIBOR is just another outrageous example of how self-regulated financial markets take advantage of average hardworking people and Main Street public entities.”
San Mateo County Supervisor Don Horsley added, “It’s the local taxpayers and those that need services such as healthcare that suffer when these global institutions think only about their bottom line, and nothing about who they might harm. We are going to aggressively pursue this lawsuit and others to ensure that these faceless and heartless
institutions do not benefit at the expense of those in need.”
Banks already face 30 lawsuits by U.S. homeowners and other plaintiffs seeking to hold them responsible for alleged manipulation of the rate used as a borrowing-cost benchmark. A class-action lawsuit filed in Manhattan in October by homeowners alleges a conspiracy among financial institutions drove up the cost of mortgage loans.
Barclays Bank last year settled criminal allegations of fixing LIBOR rates, leading to multiple lawsuits and investigations of major banks on at least two continents.
Between 2005 and 2007, Barclays, UBS and other banks systematically conspired and inflated their borrowing cost estimates to the LIBOR board in order to drive up the LIBOR rate and increase their profits on derivatives linked to it. After 2007, when the global financial crisis intensified, the banks lowballed their submissions to LIBOR in order to mask their financial weaknesses and lower their borrowing costs.
By manipulating the rate upward, the banks robbed countless millions of people of billions of dollars in inflated loan costs. By manipulating the rate downward, they deprived states, cities, pension funds and retirees with fixed investments of untold billions in revenues from bond holdings.
* * * * * * * *
If you haven’t heard of LIBOR– or the LIBOR scandal yet– you will. It’s a very, very big deal. Knowledgeable insiders are begging the question as to whether US interest rates have been equally and similarly fixed.
There has been so much crime, collusion, and corruption lately between banks and Wall Street it’s been hard to keep up, friends. Greed and gluttony have no boundaries, few regulations, and even fewer still have gone to jail.
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, but the former invariably endangers the morals of entire institutions.
Census Dot Map Documents 341 Million North Americans
Geographic Time Lapse Map Documents Unemployment
Staff Report Humboldt Sentinel
If you ever wondered what a dot map of the U.S. and Canada would look like, with every census-recorded person represented by a black pinpoint, this is it.
341,897,095 pinpoint dots to be exact. That’s a helluva lot of dots. And you’re one of them.
From a distance it may look like smudges. To truly appreciate the painstaking work he did, zoom in way close down to the neighborhood level to find the individual dots and folks folks residing there. It help to press the upper box in the right hand corner entitled ‘Show Labels’ to give some orientation of places and street names.
We found our hinterland neighbors from SoHum to Kneeland to Weitchpec. We also found millions more concentrated and confined to the urban jungles of the south and east. It’s a little less invasive than Google’s street view, but no less awesome being the first of its kind. No one has ever done it before. Mr. Martin-Anderson will have print maps of his dots available for sale soon.
And while we’re on the subject of maps, here’s another unique one– a time lapse– of the “Geography of a Recession.” According to the 2011 U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were more than 28 million people currently unemployed — including those involuntarily working part-time and those who want a job, but have given up on trying to find one.
In the face of the worst economic upheaval since the Great Depression, millions of Americans are hurting. “The Decline: The Geography of a Recession,” was created by labor writer LaToya Egwuekwe and serves as a vivid representation of just how much economic ground we lost.
You can graphically watch the deteriorating transformation of the U.S. economy from January 2007, approximately one year before the start of the recession, to the unemployment data available in 2011– seen in 43 seconds.
Then there’s Texas. More than a state, Texas is a unique state of mind. It’s just best not to mess with it.
Noted Journalist Chris Hedges Delivers the Real State of the Nation for 2013 (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
In only 10 minutes, author-activist-journalist and scholar Chris Hedges sums up nicely the true state of the nation for 2013.
During the panel discussion entitled “The Occupy Movement and Economic Inequality: Occupy the Future“ at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and carried nationally on C-Span on December 6, 2012, he discusses how problems with the current political system sparked the Occupy movement and the current assault happening on civil liberties, the economy, the environment, and the rise of corporate and judicial power over individuals.
His views and opinion are something the mainstream media won’t report on nor tell you about. Hear him out. Having an excellent command of history and facts, he may rock your world as to what’s really going on. You may not hear it anywhere else.
Who is Chris Hedges? That’s a good question.
He spent two decades as a foreign war correspondent and bureau chief in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans and has reported from more than 50 countries.
He’s worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. He was also captured and held prisoner by the Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a news correspondent.
Mr. Hedges was part of the team of reporters at The New York Times awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism. He received the Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002.
A senior fellow at The Nation Institute in New York City and having taught at Columbia University, New York University and Princeton University, he currently teaches inmates at a correctional facility in New Jersey.
Mr. Hedges began his career reporting the war in El Salvador. Following six years in Latin America, he took time off to study Arabic and then went to Jerusalem and later Cairo. He spent seven years in the Middle East, most of them as bureau chief for The New York Times. He left the Middle East in 1995 for Sarajevo to cover the war in Bosnia and later reported the war in Kosovo. Afterward, he joined the Times’ investigative team and was based in Paris to cover al-Qaida. He left the Times after being issued a formal reprimand for denouncing the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.
He has written twelve books, including “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “I Don’t Believe in Atheists” (2008) and the best-selling “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” (2008). His book “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2003) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Hedges holds a B.A. in English literature from Colgate University and a Master of Divinity degree from Harvard University. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the
Ministry in Berkeley, Calif.
Mr. Hedges is fluent in Arabic, French, Spanish, ancient Greek and Latin. In addition to writing a weekly original column for Truthdig, he has written for Harper’s Magazine, The New Statesman, The New York Review of Books, Adbusters, Granta, Foreign Affairs and other publications.
Digital Vigilantism and Cyber-Justice Play Incendiary Role in Ohio Teen Rape Case (VIDEOS)
–The Leaked Videos and Links Below–
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Two Steubenville, Ohio, high school students are set to go on trial on charges they raped a 16-year-old girl while she was passed out during a party in August, 2012.
Few witnesses have stepped forward to talk about the multiple parties where the underage girl, who was from a neighboring town, was allegedly transported to, assaulted, and photographed by athletes from local Steubenville High.
The New York Times documented the Twitter posts, videos, and photographs from a nightlong set of parties that suggested the unconscious girl was sexually assaulted over the course of hours and may have even been sodomized and urinated on. In one photograph, the girl is shown looking unresponsive as two boys carry her by her wrists and ankles.
Steubenville, a city of about 18,000 on the Ohio River, dotes on its Big Red high school sports teams and athletes. Many have wondered why more students at the party weren’t charged participating in the assault.
Steubenville’s city government, Police Department, and school district have been embroiled in allegations of nepotism after a local judge and the county prosecutor had to recuse themselves because of their
involvement with the popular football team.
The football coach refused to bench players attending the drinking parties and bragging about the rape through social media. He also threatened a reporter asking about it.
The county sheriff said investigators interviewed 59 people and decided that only the two boys were responsible. But the scandal has entangled more than those two football stars and ignited the issue onto the national stage.
After a video was released online in which another unidentified teen appeared to be joking and making admissions about the incident, public interest in the case has spiked. The video was purportedly leaked by hacker-activists associating under the Anonymous and KnightSec labels, who allege that more people were involved and should be held accountable.
Anonymous and KnightSec took over the Steubenville High School football team’s website, posting the video and a message demanding an apology from those involved in the alleged rape involving players of the football team.
If no one stepped forward and publicly apologized to the victim and her family by Jan. 1, the hackers said they would release personal information such as addresses, social security numbers, and phone numbers of those people involved in the case.
No apology was issued by the hackers’ deadline of Jan. 1. That day, an unverified but credible 12-minute video was leaked of a teenage boy — a former Steubenville High baseball team member — cruelly joking about the sexual assault. The incendiary video has since been turned over to prosecutors in the case.
Controversy has also erupted on the role of hacktivists participating in ”digital vigilantism” and for bringing attention to the matter on behalf of the rape victim who’s being named Jane Doe. Over a 1500 protesters descended upon Steubenville this weekend demanding justice in this case.
Officials said the trial for the two boys, expected to be held in juvenile court, is scheduled to begin Feb. 13.
The girl’s mother said her daughter has been ostracized since the attack and cries at night.
* * * * * * * * *
The above CBS news clip gives a brief overview of the Steubenville situation and the peaceful protests occurring this weekend on behalf of sexual assault victims.
Mainstream media sources aren’t showing the related video clips of the Anonymous/KnightSec release or the leaked 12-minute video mocking the rape victim by others.
The 12-minute leaked video turned over to prosecutors is here (We’ll warn you though: this contains crude footage of drunk Steubenville High School athletes speaking derogatively about the alleged rape victim. It is particularly ugly and insensitive in nature).
And we weren’t exactly sure where this inflammatory little gem of damning character assasination leaked by the Anonymous group and posted under the name of The Steubenville Files-LocalLeaks belongs.
US Credit Rating Placed on Negative Watch List (VIDEO)
Skippy Massey Humboldt Sentinel
Trapped in a flying illusion of safety, we meet Tyler Durden:
soap maker, connoisseur of explosives, and a great judge
of briefcases. Mr. Durden cuts to the chase:
“Oxygen gets you high. In a catastrophic emergency, you’re taking giant panicked breaths. Suddenly you become euphoric, docile. You accept your fate. It’s all right here. Emergency water landing – 600 miles an hour. Blank faces, calm as Hindu cows.”
And so does the average American see the economy: Quantitative Easing, the dollar, and the tacking of our debts onto the national credit card. It’s just like breathing pure oxygen.
Not everyone feels that way. Take our lenders, for example.
Chinese rating agency Dagong Global Credit Rating Co., founded in 1994 and one of the largest and most respected firms in China, announced on Christmas Day that it has put the local and foreign currency sovereign credit ratings of the U.S. on a negative watch list.
China is the largest foregin owner of US debt with holdings of $1.2 trillion dollars in US Treasury securities.
“The squabbling between the two political parties on raising the US debt ceiling reflected an irreversible trend on the United States’ declining ability to repay its debts,” Dagong Chairman Guan Jianzhong said.
“The two parties acted in a very irresponsible way and their actions greatly exposed the negative impact of the US political system on its economic fundamentals,” he said.
“In regards to the US debt crisis, each political party is insisting on a proposition that is favorable for its own interests,” the Dagong company said in a statement on its website. “Therefore, it will be difficult to form a long-term consensus on solving the debt problem,” it said.
The debt burden of the US federal government increased 9.1 percent year in 2011 and 11.7 percent in 2012, far exceeding the country’s nominal GDP growth rate of 3.9 percent in 2011 and 3.4 percent in 2012, Dagong said.
Dagong said it expects the outstanding debt of the United States to rise to 104.8 percent of its GDP– and 608.7 percent of its fiscal revenues by the end of 2012– indicating that our solvency is experiencing a descending trend.
“Due to the pending fiscal problems, the US economy is likely to fall into recession in 2013 and stay weak in the long-term which will further weaken the material basis for the government to repay debt,” their statement said.
Dagong downgraded both the local and foreign currency sovereign credit ratings of the US from A+ to A, each with a negative outlook. The credit rating is identical to that of Spain’s.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has refused to recognize Dagong’s ratings because of the commission’s inability to supervise the Beijing-based agency. To note, Dagong translates into English as meaning ’impartial and without prejudice’.
In its report, Dagong noted:
The partisan political conflict and lack of national debt management have pushed the creditworthiness of the federal government to the brink. The decline of political decision-making will lead to weakened solvency.
With no fundamental plan and measures for solvency in place, the US government is lacking the willingness of debt repayment and the depreciation of outstanding debt, indicating a trend towards implicit default. Quantitative Easing
is leading to continuous credit expansion and maintaining consumption through borrowing, and taking advantage of the status of the US dollar without touching on the ultimate issue of willingness to repay. Creditors have been suffering real losses from the consequent and persistent devaluation of the outstanding debt.
The deterioration of factors impacting the federal government’s solvency has further widened the degree of deviation between debt repayment sources and real wealth creation capability.
The US economy will probably fall into recession in 2013 and stay weak in the long term which will further weaken the material basis for the government to repay debt. The US is facing an unprecedented crisis of excessive credit. The inevitability and chronicity in the credit bubble burst will directly lead to the continued slump in total social consumption, triggering a chain reaction of long-term economic downturn.
Debt limit lifting and debt monetization are becoming the long-term policy of the United States, and real solvency of the government will continue declining. In order to avoid suffering an economic recession resulting from the unabated long-standing and excessive credit expansion, the US government has adopted an even greater unconventional credit expansion by dragging the country into a cycle of continuously lifting the debt limit to stimulate the economy by excessive issuance of the dollar. As the resulting risks of dollar depreciation keep accumulating, the decline
in real government solvency becomes persistent, and the vulnerable
credit relationships bear increasing risk of breaking due to the occurence
of emergencies and the debt limit.
Dagong concluded:
In summary, Dagong views that as the negative effects from key factors affecting U.S. federal government solvency– such as the debt repayment environment and wealth creation capability, debt repayment has been increasing. Emergencies such as the fiscal cliff and the debt limit will further increase the vulnerability of government solvency.
Therefore, Dagong has put the U.S. federal government credit ratings on the negative watch list. Dagong will adjust the credit ratings according to the real circumstance to reflect the soundness of the U.S. federal government debt.
Partisan bickering and Quantitative Easing aside, we still have an ace in the hole for strengthening the dollar, paying our debts, and remaining calm.
Our military strength and the ability to use it.
With the United States as the largest manufacturer and distributor of arms throughout the planet– our number one domestic export product– there are new global territories to explore and expand into militarily and domestically.
We don’t call it colonialism or imperialism anymore. It’s just a new way of doing business, a New World Order, as George H. Bush plainly said following the invasion and defeat of the Iraqi forces in Kuwait during the 1990 Gulf War. His son George W. finished the job by beating Iraq down to its wobbly knees in the second Gulf War, taking out an evil dictator, and crippling a country while stabilizing the region’s oil producing capability for allied businesses.
As the dust settles on the Middle East we’re now setting our lofty sights elsewhere: Africa.
That should help strengthen the dollar’s depreciating position, relinquish a portion of our debts, and satisfy China and the Republican neocons while maintaining our strategic dominance– all the while remaining as calm as Hindu cows.
Sam Smith - There has been a lot of talk - here and elsewhere - about various Obama violations of the Constitution and, of course, the lawyers are having a field day about it all. But here's something that gets missed. People who support and practice constitutional principles don't need lawyers to argue their case. You just know it. Virtue has a c […]
Legacy - HOLCOMB, Robert (Bob) Died a couple of days ago which wasn't exactly unexpected as he had been in poopy health for years. While he never complained much, those that knew him were aware that he suffered several heart attacks and had quadruple bypass open heart surgery before age 40, and it kinda went downhill from there. ... In addition to his […]
For an IRS official to put herself in the same category as Oliver North - prominent government officials who took the Fifth - places this whole story in a new political environment. Especially, as some one noted, the average citizen doesn't get to take the Fifth when dealing with an IRS agent. This is not good for the Obamadmin. Buzzfeed - The IRS offi […]
NY Post - Mayor Bloomberg went on a spitting-mad rant against a city cab-fleet boss who won a court victory over Hizzoner’s planned “Taxi of Tomorrow” — vowing to “destroy your f--king industry” when he leaves office, The Post has learned.A fuming Bloomberg made the threat against Taxi Club Management CEO Gene Freidman at Madison Square Garden’s private 1879 […]
Guardian, UK - Ban Ki-moon has warned the world is on course to run out of freshwater unless greater efforts are made to improve water security.Speaking on the UN's International Day of Biological Diversity, [the UN Secretary General] said there was a "mutually reinforcing" relationship between biodiversity and water that should be harnessed. […]
Buzzfeed- As news outlets and press advocates pile on the Obama administration for the Justice Department’s long-term spying operations against the Associated Press and Fox News, one group has remained conspicuously absent from the debate: the White House Correspondents Association.The WHCA, considered the primary organization representing reporters and news […]
Only 27 percent of college grads have a job related to their major GOP senators from Oklahoma have repeatedly voted against federal disaster aid A tornado chaser explains what he does and why he does it Quotes Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody. -- Jane Jacobs Pocket par […]
Another in our series on Rebuilding AmericaSam Smith - From the American revolution to the underground railroad, to the organizing of labor, to the drive for universal suffrage, to the civil rights, women's, peace and environmental movements, every significant political and social change in this country has been propelled by large numbers of highly auto […]
BEN SMITH, NY DAILY NEWS, 2006 - Despite her apparent opposition to torture, Hillary Clinton said in a Daily News editorial board meeting yesterday that the practice is acceptable in some circumstances. . At yesterday's Daily News editorial board meeting, it emerged that she's not actually against torture in all instances, and that her dispute with […]
From the National Wildlife Federation Children are spending half as much time outdoors as they did 20 years ago. Today, kids 8-18 years old devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes using entertainment media in a typical day (more than 53 hours a week). In a typical week, only 6% of children ages 9-13 play outside on their own. Children who play outside ar […]
Progressive Magazine - Thousands of documents obtained by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy show how Homeland Security and local law enforcement were obsessed with the Occupy movement and other activists.They treated Occupy activists as potential terrorists.They infiltrated Occupy meetings.They tracked Occupy activists online.They kept an eye […]
New York Post - Wealthy New Yorkers are shunning their parental duties — choosing instead to send nannies to their children’s private schools to take part in everything from “safety patrol” to accompanying the kids on their entrance interviews.“They’re sending nannies for bake sales, book clubs, for the ice-skating group,” Amanda Uhry of Manhattan Private S […]
Glenn Greenwald, Guardian, UK - Under US law, it is not illegal to publish classified information. That fact, along with the First Amendment's guarantee of press freedoms, is what has prevented the US government from ever prosecuting journalists for reporting on what the US government does in secret. This new found theory of the Obama DOJ - that a journ […]
Wall Street Journal - Employers are increasingly recognizing they may be able to avoid certain penalties under the federal health law by offering very limited plans that can lack key benefits such as hospital coverage.Benefits advisers and insurance brokers—bucking a commonly held expectation that the law would broadly enrich benefits—are pitching these low- […]
Alternet - Stephen Fincher, a Republican congressman from Tennessee, is very angry that the federal government is committed to preventing poor people from starving to death:Republican Congressman Stephen Fincher of Tennessee, who supports cuts to the program, had his own Bible verse from the Book of Thessalonians: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not […]
Many killed were children, including seven from Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore — the site of a frantic search this morning. The school was in the direct path of the storm’s fury. About 75 students and staff members were hunkered down in Plaza Towers when the tornado struck.
“Our hospital has been devastated,” Mayor Glenn Lewis said. “We had a two-story hospital, now we have a one. And it’s not occupiable.” As a result, 145 of the injured were rushed to three other area hospitals.
After the ear-shattering howl subsided, survivors along the miles of destruction emerged from shelters to see an apocalyptic vision. Homes and other buildings were shredded to pieces. Remnants of mangled cars were piled on top of each other. What was once a parking lot now looked like a junkyard.
But the storm system that spawned Monday’s tornado and several other twisters Sunday isn’t over yet.
Recent Comments