polymorpheous
CIA Resolved to Avenge Agents’ Deaths
Via ABC News:
The CIA, reeling from the assassination of seven of its operatives in Afghanistan earlier this week, said that its resolve to find and attack Taliban and al Qaeda leaders is “greater than ever.” CIA spokesman George Little would not discuss specifics of the Wednesday attack, the deadliest assault on the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the Beirut embassy. Little did suggest, however, that the loss would be avenged.
“There is much about the attack that isn’t yet known, but this much is clear: The CIA’s resolve to pursue aggressive counterterrorism operations is greater than ever,” Little told The Associated Press. The Association of Former Intelligence Officers said the deaths of the agents “should remind the public that the CIA is truly on the front lines in this war; one that remains officially unrecognized.”
Organization president Gene Poteat said he appreciated President Obama’s letter of condolences to agency staffers, but…
Soon After His Brother is Revealed to be a CIA Drug Runner, Look Who is Handed a Second Term
The AP via Yahoo News reports:
President Hamid Karzai was effectively handed a second five-year term Sunday when his only challenger dropped out of the race, and the Obama administration said it was prepared to work with the man it has previously criticized to combat corruption and confront the Taliban insurgency.
President Barack Obama has been waiting for a new government in Kabul to announce whether he will send tens of thousands of new troops to Afghanistan. The war has intensified and October was the deadliest month of the eight-year war for U.S. forces.
Former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah announced his decision to quit six days before the runoff election, after last-minute talks led by the U.S. and United Nations failed to produce a power-sharing agreement acceptable to Karzai, according to a Western diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
In an emotional speech, Abdullah told supporters that…
Video Shows Chicks Ground Up Alive at Egg Hatchery
DES MOINES, Iowa – An animal rights group publicized a video Tuesday showing unwanted chicks being tossed alive into a grinder at an Iowa plant and accused egg hatcheries of being “perhaps the cruelest industry” in the world. The undercover video was shot by Chicago-based Mercy for Animals at a hatchery in Spencer, Iowa, over a two-week period in May and June. The video was first obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
“We have to ask ourselves if these were puppies and kittens being dropped into grinders, would we find that acceptable?” asked Nathan Runkle, the group’s executive director, at a news conference in Des Moines. “I don’t think that most people would.” The group said that tossing male chicks, which have little value because they can’t lay eggs or be raised quickly enough to be raised profitably for meat, into grinders is common industry practice. United Egg Producers, a trade…
Official: US may create terror interrogation unit
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution, a government official said Saturday.
The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.
The official said the panel, which has not completed its work, has concluded that the unit of intelligence and law enforcement agencies should be created. The task force is unsure which agencies should have a role, though the CIA and FBI are expected to be important players, according to the official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the panel’s work and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said President Barack Obama has not reviewed the task force’s recommendations. The spokesman declined to discuss any findings. The recommendation about the…
Russia, China, Others Urge Diverse Monetary System
YEKATERINBURG, Russia – Brazil, Russia, India and China on Tuesday called for a more diversified international monetary system, but wrapped up their first full-fledged summit by avoiding any explicit criticism of the world’s dominant currency, the U.S. dollar.
The statement issued by the leaders from the so-called BRIC nations contained no reference to developing new reserve currencies to complement the dollar, which Russia had called for at a separate event earlier in the day. Instead, the cautious wording appeared to reflect China’s concerns that any anti-dollar statements could erode the value of its currency reserves.
“There is a strong need for a stable, predictable and more diversified international monetary system,” the final statement said.
A reformed financial and economic architecture should be based on “democratic and transparent decision-making and implementation process at the international financial organizations,” it said.
The BRIC nations urged the international community to keep the multilateral trading system stable, curb trade protectionism…
Passer-By Pushes Suicide Jumper in South China
Chen Fuchao, a man heavily in debt, had been contemplating suicide on a bridge in southern China for hours when a passer-by came up, shook his hand — and pushed him off the ledge.
Chen fell 26 feet (8 meters) onto a partially inflated emergency air cushion laid out by authorities and survived, suffering spine and elbow injuries, the official Xinhua News Agency said Saturday.
The passer-by, 66-year-old Lai Jiansheng, had been fed up with what he called Chen’s “selfish activity,” Xinhua said. Traffic around the Haizhu bridge in the city of Guangzhou had been backed up for five hours and police had cordoned off the area.
“I pushed him off because jumpers like Chen are very selfish. Their action violates a lot of public interest,” Lai was quoted as saying by Xinhua. “They do not really dare to kill themselves. Instead, they just want to raise the relevant government authorities’ attention to…
Tons of Released Drugs Taint U.S. Water
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water — contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don’t know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them — as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water,…
UK ‘Kettling’ Tactic Sparks Anger
“Kettling” — a tactic being used by British police to fence-in and tire-out protesters at the London G20 summit — is sparking its own wave of protest. The method is aimed at defusing tension and thereby [in theory] reducing the potential for demonstrations to become violent, police sources argue.
I was among the many journalists kept inside this police ring, established and eventually tightened as the afternoon wore on. Our press cards gave us the freedom to leave, but that would have meant we couldn’t return to continue reporting on the event. For the protesters, the police strategy meant that they were being held against their will.
The vast majority of those demonstrating on Wednesday were peaceful. Indeed, for most of the day the mood was festive, rather than furious. People were playing music and dancing, while others were juggling.
Kettling is a well-known tactic, which has been used in the past. London…
Five Held Over Suspected Plot to Disrupt G20 Summit with Explosives Stunt
Suspected plot to disrupt G20 summit follows warnings by police that protesters are planning to bring London to standstill.
Five people have been arrested in connection with a suspected plot to use explosives made from fireworks to disrupt the G20 summit.
The three men, aged 25, 19 and 16, and two women, both 20, all live in Plymouth and the surrounding area. They are political activists unaffiliated to any terrorist organisation, and were arrested at addresses in Plymouth. They are being held under terrorism legislation. The explosive devices were made from simple fireworks, police said.
Paul Netherton, Devon and Cornwall assistant chief constable, said imitation handguns and an imitation Kalashnikov, as well as devices made from fireworks, had been seized. The deactivated weapons were “not major” and “probably not even lethal”.
Officers said they were investigating the possibility the group planned to attend the G20 summit, which they described as an “obvious line of…
Geithner Remarks on IMF Currency Roil Foreign-Exchange Market
Bloomberg: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner sent the dollar tumbling with comments about China’s ideas for overhauling the global monetary system, only to drive it back up by affirming that it should remain the world’s reserve currency.
Geithner was asked at a Council on Foreign Relations event in New York yesterday about People’s Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan’s call for a new international reserve currency. He said while he had not read Zhou’s proposal, he understood it as a plan “designed to increase the use of the IMF’s special drawing rights. And we’re actually quite open to that.”
The dollar slid as much as 1.3 percent against the euro within 10 minutes of news accounts of Geithner’s remarks. It recouped much of the loss about 15 minutes later, when Geithner then predicted no change in the U.S. currency’s role. The dollar was down 0.22 percent at $1.3553 per euro as of 12:13…
UW-Milwaukee Study Could Realign Climate Change Theory
Scientists Claim Earth Is Undergoing Natural Climate Shift
The bitter cold and record snowfalls from two wicked winters are causing people to ask if the global climate is truly changing. The climate is known to be variable and, in recent years, more scientific thought and research has been focused on the global temperature and how humanity might be influencing it.
However, a new study by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee could turn the climate change world upside down. Scientists at the university used a math application known as synchronized chaos and applied it to climate data taken over the past 100 years.
“Imagine that you have four synchronized swimmers and they are not holding hands and they do their program and everything is fine; now, if they begin to hold hands and hold hands tightly, most likely a slight error will destroy the synchronization. Well, we applied the same analogy to climate,” researcher…
Politico: Bilderbergers Excite Conspiracists
The highest levels of the Obama administration are infested with members of a shadowy, elitist cabal intent on installing a one-world government that subverts the will of the American people.
It sounds crazy, but that’s what a group of very persistent conspiracy theorists insists, and they point to President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as the latest piece of evidence supporting their claims.
It turns out that Sebelius – like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross – is a Bilderberger. That is, she is someone who has participated in the annual invitation-only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group.
The group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954, exists solely to bring together between 100 and 150…
Politico giving Alex Jones some props?!
Bilderbergers excite conspiracists
By: Kenneth P. Vogel
The highest levels of the Obama administration are infested with members of a shadowy, elitist cabal intent on installing a one-world government that subverts the will of the American people.
It sounds crazy, but that’s what a group of very persistent conspiracy theorists insists, and they point to President Obama’s nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, as the latest piece of evidence supporting their claims.
It turns out that Sebelius – like top administration economists Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Paul Volcker, as well as leading Obama diplomats Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross – is a Bilderberger. That is, she is someone who has participated in the annual invitation-only conference held by an elite international organization known as the Bilderberg group.
The group, which takes its name from the Dutch hotel where it held its first meeting in 1954, exists solely to bring…
Obama Administration to Make Veterans Pay for Service-Related Injuries with Private Insurance
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki confirmed Tuesday that the Obama administration is considering a controversial plan to make veterans pay for treatment of service-related injuries with private insurance.
But the proposal would be “dead on arrival” if it’s sent to Congress, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Washington, said. Murray used that blunt terminology when she told Shinseki that the idea would not be acceptable and would be rejected if formally proposed. Her remarks came during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs about the 2010 budget.
No official proposal to create such a program has been announced publicly, but veterans groups wrote a pre-emptive letter last week to President Obama voicing their opposition to the idea after hearing the plan was under consideration. The groups also cited an increase in “third-party collections” estimated in the 2010 budget proposal — something they said could be achieved only if the Veterans…
H.R. 875: The Food Police, Criminalizing Organic Farming and the Backyard Gardener
This bill is sitting in committee and I am not sure when it is going to hit the floor. One thing I do know is that very few of the Representatives have read it. As usual they will vote on this based on what someone else is saying. Urge your members to read the legislation and ask for opposition to this devastating legislation. Devastating for everyday folks but great for factory farming ops like Monsanto, ADM, Sodexo and Tyson to name a few.
* Legally binds state agriculture depts to enforcing federal guidelines effectively taking away the states power to do anything other than being food police for the federal dept.
* Effectively criminalizes organic farming but doesn’t actually use the word organic.
* Effects anyone growing food even if they are not selling it but consuming it.
* Effects anyone producing meat of any kind including wild game.
* Legislation is so broad based…
Baxter: Product Contained Live Bird Flu Virus
The company that released contaminated flu virus material from a plant in Austria confirmed Friday that the experimental product contained live H5N1 avian flu viruses.
And an official of the World Health Organization’s European operation said the body is closely monitoring the investigation into the events that took place at Baxter International’s research facility in Orth-Donau, Austria.
“At this juncture we are confident in saying that public health and occupational risk is minimal at present,” medical officer Roberta Andraghetti said from Copenhagen, Denmark.
“But what remains unanswered are the circumstances surrounding the incident in the Baxter facility in Orth-Donau.”
The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.
The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to…
Bush’s Secret Documents (U.S. Dept of Justice)
Office of Legal Counsel Memoranda:
* Memorandum Regarding Status of Certain OLC Opinions Issued in the Aftermath of the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 (01-15-2009)
* Memorandum Regarding Constitutionality of Amending Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to Change the “Purpose” Standard for Searches (09-25-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding Authority for Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities within the United States (10-23-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty (11-15-2001)
* Memorandum Regarding the President’s Power as Commander in Chief to Transfer Captured Terrorists to the Control and Custody of Foreign Nations (03-13-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Swift Justice Authorization Act (04-08-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Determination of Enemy Belligerency and Military Detention (06-08-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding Applicability of 18 U.S.C. § 4001(a) to Military Detention of United States Citizens (06-27-2002)
* Memorandum Regarding October 23, 2001 OLC Opinion Addressing the Domestic Use of Military Force to Combat Terrorist Activities (10-06-2008)
Due to public…
CIA Destroyed 92 Interrogation Tapes
New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations, far more than has previously been acknowledged.
The revelation Monday comes as a criminal prosecutor is wrapping up his investigation in the matter.
The acknowledgment of dozens of destroyed tapes came in a letter filed by government lawyers in New York, where the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit seeking more details of terror interrogation programs.
“The CIA can now identify the number of videotapes that were destroyed,” said the letter by Acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin. “Ninety two videotapes were destroyed.”
The tapes became a contentious issue in the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, after prosecutors initially claimed no such recordings existed, then acknowledged two videotapes and one audiotape had been made.
The letter, dated March 2 to Judge Alvin Hellerstein, says the CIA is now gathering more details for the lawsuit, including a list of the destroyed…
Is Allen Stanford An Asset Of The CIA?
A federal agency killed the SEC’s investigation into Allen Stanford back in 2006. We don’t know which one it is, but some commenters suspect it could’ve been the CIA.
After all, last year, Stanford’s Venezuelan offices were raided on suspicion that the billionaire was a US government tool, involved in spying.
Telegraph: Officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country.
The officials spent three hours searching files and documents at offices of Stanford International Banks in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, removing several of them for closer inspection.
The Stanford Group’s spokeswoman, Lula Rodriguez, denied that any of the bank’s employees were involved in spying. Read the whole thing.
If the SEC doesn’t know where Stanford is, is there any chance the CIA does?
Also see this Telegraph story from November 9th 2008.
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