Monday, April 18, 2011

Cynthia McKinney asks Hard Questions

Michelle Obama Avoids Birther Issue On The View

When asked about the issue of her husbands birth place Michelle Obama avoids the question entirely despite having stated on two other occasions his home country was Kenya.
#1 "Home Country Is Kenya"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBJihJBePcs

#2 "Barak Is A Kenyan"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx3-MGHFXkc



Obama's CIA connection
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/18/wayne-madsen-obamas-cia-connections-p...


Jack Blood rips Rachel Maddow on "Racist Nullification and Currencies!"

Sheriff faces meth charge in state ravaged by drug

Sheriff faces meth charge in state ravaged by drug - Yahoo! News

VAN BUREN, Mo. – One county on the edge of the Missouri Ozarks seemed oddly immune to the scourge of methamphetamine ravaging the state, boasting few meth raids or arrests in recent years. Some residents now think they know why, after a meth bust landed the Carter County sheriff himself in jail.

Tommy Adams, county sheriff for a little more than two years, was arrested earlier this month after giving meth to an informant at his cabin on a remote and hilly gravel road, according to a court document. He also allegedly snorted the drug himself with a straw. Authorities would not detail the extent of Adam's alleged meth involvement, but charged him with meth distribution. He is being held in Cape Girardeau County jail on $250,000 bond.

Now, a county once seen as an exception has become the latest example of how deeply meth has saturated every corner of rural Missouri life. Other rural law enforcement officers have been linked to drugs over the years, but Adams is one of the first arrested for meth.

Opium cultivation returns to parts of Afghanistan

Opium cultivation returns to parts of Afghanistan | Reuters

(Reuters) - Opium poppies are being grown this year in parts of Afghanistan where last year there were none, but overall cultivation of the drug will decrease slightly, the United Nations said in a report on Monday.

EU Prepares To Invade Libya With Ground Troops Under “Humanitarian” Hoax

EU Prepares To Invade Libya With Ground Troops Under “Humanitarian” Hoax

UN to rubber stamp occupying force in bid to goad Gaddafi into attacking western troops

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, April 18, 2011

The United Nations is set to rubber stamp an EU invasion force of ground troops that would be sent into Libya under the cooked up pretense of “humanitarian aid” and empowered to fight if Gaddafi forces threatened to impede their mission to “secure sea and land corridors inside the country,” another blatant attempt to legitimize the aggressive war by goading Gaddafi into attacking western troops and justifying a wider military intervention.

“The EU has drawn up a “concept of operations” for the deployment of military forces in Libya, but needs UN approval for what would be the riskiest and most controversial mission undertaken by Brussels,” reports the Guardian.

“The armed forces, numbering no more than 1,000, would be deployed to secure the delivery of aid supplies, would not be engaged in a combat role but would be authorised to fight if they or their humanitarian wards were threatened. “It would be to secure sea and land corridors inside the country,” said an EU official.

The plan is being spearheaded by the EU’s anointed foreign and security policy chief Catherine Ashton, a woman who has never been democratically elected to public office in her life yet is now about to commit EU troops to a new war that some have warned could last anything up to 30 years.

Denmark scientist accused of stealing autism research money

Open Your Eyes News » Denmark scientist accused of stealing autism research money
Reuters – A scientist in Denmark has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta for allegedly stealing $1 million in grant money that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had earmarked for autism research. He used the stolen money to buy a home in Atlanta, a Harley Davidson motorcycle and two cars, prosecutors said. “Grant money for disease research is a precious commodity,” said Sally Yates, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, in a news release. Read article

Citizen Review Board: Officer arrested man because he startled cop in public stairwell  

Citizen Review Board: Officer arrested man because he startled cop in public stairwell | ajc.com

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Returning to work from his lunch break at Underground Atlanta, James Hereford was on the wrong floor when he stepped off an elevator that also served an adjacent parking deck.

The 50-year-old man decided to take a public stairwell down to the street rather than the elevator. He had 15 minutes to walk several blocks back to work at 180 Peachtree St., the former downtown store for Macy’s where the Atlanta Police Department’s 911 call center is now located.

Instead, Hereford said an Atlanta police officer he met in the stairwell put him in handcuffs. The officer searched his pockets, opened the envelope with his pay stub in it, questioned him about having two bank debit cards, and scrolled through the calls saved on his cell phone. Then the officer took him to a nearby police precinct, where he was held for two hours on suspicion of trespassing.

“He was going through my phone,” Hereford told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. “I don’t even know the purpose of opening my pay stub. Not only was I embarrassed, he had a grip on my pants like I was going to take off running. He also had me handcuffed.”

The CRB last Thursday sustained Hereford’s allegations of false arrest and false imprisonment against the officer. The CRB said the officer should be reprimanded and that he and his sergeant, who was the first APD supervisor to review the matter, needed to be “retrained on the Fourth Amendment,” the U.S. Constitution’s protection for illegal search.

But also last week, Hereford got a totally different conclusion. APD’s Office of Professional Standards (OPS) notified him in a letter “your allegation of misconduct has been investigated. Sufficient information was gathered to prove the action of this officer was lawful, proper and within the guidelines.”

Hereford said that conclusion was met without anyone from APD contacting him after the initial complaint was filed with the officer’s sergeant last August.

“I called down there several times. These people were ignoring what was going on,” Hereford said.

It was workers at the 911 center who urged him to go to the CRB in January and to contact an attorney about six weeks ago.

“We have made a formal demand to the city of Atlanta, and if they don’t [respond], we will be suing them,” attorney Dan Grossman said. “This is another example of the way the city has handled this [complaints about police conduct] and it has increased the cost to taxpayers.”

Grossman represented eight men whom the city paid more than $1 million several months ago to settle a lawsuit filed after a 2009 police raid on the Atlanta Eagle bar in Midtown.

“If they had come out with a fair OPS report and they had disciplined this officer, James would be satisfied,” Grossman said. “James patiently waited for the Atlanta police to do the right thing.”

Hereford said he was preoccupied with a conversation with his sister and that is why he pushed the wrong button on the elevator after a quick lunch on Aug. 5. He went up instead of down.

According to his interview with the CRB, officer Grady Goggins admitted he raised a fist to Hereford in the stairwell on the seventh floor “because he was surprised by his presence in the stairwell.”

Goggins said he handcuffed Hereford because he didn’t believe Hereford's accounting for what he had been doing and why he was there. Goggins told the CRB he escorted Hereford to the mini police precinct, where he called the last number called on the cell phone to verify his story.

All the while, Hereford’s supervisor was trying to reach him, leaving messages on the cell phone voice mail asking where he was and telling him he was needed at work.

“I could tell they were getting frustrated,” Hereford said. “They wanted to know why I wasn’t back from lunch. The first call was around 12:40.”

Still, Goggins insisted to the CRB that Hereford was not under arrest. Goggins was allowed to leave after Hereford's sister returned Goggins' message to call.

The CRB said “the movement of Mr. Hereford from the garage to the police station was an arrest.”

Hereford reported back to work two hours late.

He made two return trips to the precinct that day to file a complaint, once with the head of security from his workplace.

The second time, Goggins’ sergeant said she would take a “formal complaint,” but he would have to come back. A meeting was scheduled for two weeks later, after she had returned from vacation.

Hereford said the sergeant said Goggins “was doing his job by doing what he did.”

And after taking his statement, Hereford said the sergeant asked what he wanted to happen.

“I did tell her I didn’t think anything was going to be done,” he said.

Ron Paul's Texas Straight Talk 4/18/11: Budget Cuts are Meaningless With...

Interview with Representative Michele Bachmann: 'I Have a Spine Made Out of Titanium'

Interview with Representative Michele Bachmann: 'I Have a Spine Made Out of Titanium' - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

Michele Bachmann, a darling of the Tea Party movement in the US, voted against President Barack Obama's budget compromise last week. She spoke with SPIEGEL about the need to cut spending, the US involvement in Libya and her fight for principles.

Info

SPIEGEL: Representative Bachmann, President Barack Obama plans to get US debt under control by raising taxes, but also via the kind of drastic spending cuts that you have long been demanding. A breakthrough?

Bachmann: The President's speech was more of the same. He said he had a plan for spending cuts, but then he talked about the need for more spending and more taxes. It sounds like the same story we've been hearing since he claimed that his trillion-dollar stimulus would keep unemployment from going above 8 percent.

SPIEGEL: Last week, you voted against the budget compromise for 2011. The budget includes cuts worth $38 billion. Why are you so opposed?

Bachmann: The deal that was reached is a disappointment for me and for millions of Americans who expected $100 billion in cuts. Instead, we've been asked to settle for $39 billion in cuts. We're missing the mandate given us by voters last November.

SPIEGEL: How deep would you like to see the cuts ultimately be?

Bachmann: I think that my opinion has been from the beginning that we need to have a defunding of Obamacare in any final agreement. There is no other issue like Obamacare that has unified people across America. We're talking Democrats, independents, apolitical people, Libertarians, Republicans. All people want to see Obamacare defunded.

Saudis Slash Oil Output; Say Market Oversupplied

Saudis Slash Oil Output; Say Market Oversupplied - CNBC

Saudi Arabia's oil minister said on Sunday the kingdom had slashed output by 800,000 barrels per day in March due to oversupply, sending the strongest signal yet that OPEC will not act to quell soaring prices.

AP
Saudi Arabia slashed oil output by 800,000 barrels per day in March.

Consumers have urged the exporters' group to pump more crude to put a cap on oil, which surged to more than $127 a barrel this month, its highest level in 2 1/2 years amidunrest in North Africa and the Middle East.

Oil Ministers from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates echoed Saudi Arabia's Ali al-Naimi's concerns about oversupply and said rocketing crude prices were out of the hands of OPEC, which next meets in June.

"The market is overbalanced ... Our production in February was 9.125 million barrels per day (bpd), in March it was 8.292 million bpd. In April we don't know yet, probably a little higher than March. The reason I gave you these numbers is
to show you that the market is oversupplied," Naimi told reporters.

Is The Radiation Really from Fukushima?

Agency says US may lose top credit rating

Agency says US may lose top credit rating - Americas - Al Jazeera English

The US has had the outlook on its sovereign debt cut to "negative" by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P).

The move, which casts doubt on US ability to tackle its huge debt and fiscal deficits, depressed shares around the world.

Other countries with the same coveted AAA rating had taken firm action to deal with their deficits, S&P officials said, but the US remained locked in a political battle that only fuelled further deterioration.

"Because ... the path to addressing these [problems] is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable," S&P said.

While France, Germany and Britain all moved last year on their fiscal problems, "the US has yet to agree on a plan", S&P's Nikola Swann said.

The negative outlook meant there was a one-in-three chance the world's largest economy could lose its AAA rating within two years, for the first time ever, he said.

Leading indexes in the US and Europe were all down by about two per cent following the announcement.

Yemen ruling party members form pro-protest bloc

Yemen ruling party members form pro-protest bloc | Reuters
Reuters) - Members of Yemen's ruling party including three former ministers formed a new bloc on Monday to support protests against the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections

Alan Watt - Bin Laden is Dead

Report from Bretton Woods II

Veteran Broadcaster Lou Dobbs Calls Out Geithner On Threats To Congress

Veteran Broadcaster Lou Dobbs Calls Out Geithner On Threats To Congress

Steve Watson
Prisonplanet.com
April 18, 2011

Veteran broadcast journalist Lou Dobbs has scolded Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s open threat that the US may default on it’s debt should Republicans in Congress refuse to raise the debt ceiling, noting that the statement is akin to financial terrorism.

Appearing on the nationally syndicated Alex Jones show last Friday, Dobbs expressed disgust over Geithner’s statements to Congress last week, and called for more scrutiny from watchdog groups and the national media.

“Our Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is somewhat limited in his outlook towards the consequences of a decision that would be taken not to raise the debt ceiling.” Dobbs told Jones.

“He has a relatively either limited knowledge of banking itself, or of the role of the federal government when it comes to the Treasury Department.” he added.

“Default is not a requisite or a logical conclusion to not raising the debt ceiling. There are choices to be made by the administration should the congress elect not to raise the debt ceiling. None of those decisions require default, and anyone who says that it does is utterly and completely mistaken.” Dobbs continued.

The trailblazing journalist, now hosting a regular nightly show on Fox Business after leaving his long running post at CNN, had more stark words for Geithner and the officials around him at the Treasury.

“Not a single person that I respect with a knowledge of finance, public or corporate, would support their view.”

FDA claims no need to test Pacific fish for radioactivity

FDA claims no need to test Pacific fish for radioactivity: Environment | Alaska news at adn.com

JAPAN MELTDOWN: Ocean too huge, distance too far for concern.

North Pacific fish are so unlikely to be contaminated by radioactive material from the crippled nuclear plant in Japan that there's no reason to test them, state and federal officials said this week.

Even with dangerous levels of radiation reported recently just off the coast from the Fukushima reactor complex, the ocean is so huge and Alaska fisheries so far away that there is no realistic threat, said FDA spokeswoman Siobhan DeLancey. The Food and Drug Administration has oversight of the nation's food supplies.

The state's food safety program manager, Ron Klein of the Department of Environmental Conservation, said the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have demonstrated that Alaskans have no cause for worry.

"Based on the work they're doing, no sampling or monitoring of our fish is necessary," he said.

It's now a little more than a month into the nuclear crisis, and Japanese officials believe they have plugged the major leak that allowed tons of water containing highly radioactive isotopes of iodine and cesium to flow into the sea. Radiation levels went down after the alarming reports last week that they had risen to millions of times the legal limits, though on Saturday officials said the levels were rising again.



Read more: http://www.adn.com/2011/04/16/1813982/fda-claims-no-need-to-test-pacific.html#ixzz1Jtw7Es2n

NBC executives don't think Trump will run

NBC executives don't think Trump will run - War Room - Salon.com

As Trump tries to silence doubters of his 2012 aspirations, an NBC exec concludes, "This is Donald being Donald" VIDEO

No Humanitarian Aid One Afghan protester killed, 10 injured

PressTV - One Afghan protester killed, 10 injured
At least one Afghan protester has been killed and 10 others have been left wounded in northern Afghanistan as police opened fire at the demonstrations against the presence of foreign troops in the country.


More than 3,000 people took part in the protests against the US-led forces in the war-torn country which turned violent in the town of Charikar, the capital of Parwan province, on Monday, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The protests come after the arrest of three local clerics by the US-led forces in an overnight raid.

Two of the clerics detained on Sunday were later released, but one is still being held, triggering the protests, International Security Assistance Force spokesman Major Tim James said.

Police say the clashes between the protesters and Afghan security forces broke out after armed men in the crowd started shooting.

Resentment has been building in war-wrecked Afghanistan against the US-led forces for years.

Afghans blame the coalition troops for killing and mistreating civilians

Boehner visits Iraq, assures support for mission

Boehner visits Iraq, assures support for mission - Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner visited Iraq over the weekend to express U.S. commitment to the country's postwar success, despite a rancorous Washington budget debate over spending cuts.

The Ohio Republican lawmaker's office said on Sunday that Boehner led a delegation including four other House Republicans and a House Democrat. The group met with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, U.S. Ambassador James Jeffrey and senior military officials. It provided few other details.

The delegation focused on future cooperation between the U.S. and Iraqi governments and the need to protect both Iraq's sovereignty and U.S. interests.

"Our first priority must be ensuring that the remaining 46,000 U.S. forces and their civilian counterparts that are working with the government of Iraq and advising and assisting the Iraqi security forces have the resources and support they need to complete their mission," Boehner said in a statement.

Bahrain PM says protests amounted to coup attempt

Bahrain PM says protests amounted to coup attempt | Reuters
An anti-government protester gestures to riot police in the mainly Shi'ite village of Diraz, west of Manama, March 25, 2011. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
(Reuters) - Bahrain's Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa said protesters, who had called for his removal, would be held to account and described the anti-government unrest as a coup attempt.

BP's 'scapegoat' strikes it rich with Rothschild & Co

BP's 'scapegoat' strikes it rich with Rothschild & Co - Business News, Business - The Independent

Year on from oil spill, ex-boss is in the money

By Nalini Sivathasan

Sunday, 17 April 2011

Tony Hayward is reinventing himself through new business ventures

REUTERS

Tony Hayward is reinventing himself through new business ventures

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BP Stocks - Time to Buy?
Free Report: 5 Dirt-Cheap Oil Stock
Picks to Boom in 2011 - Read Now
WyattResearchEnergy.com/Oil

As the first anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster approaches, the former BP boss Tony Hayward could be forgiven for wishing to see the back of 12 months in which he was dubbed America's "most hated" for his mishandling of the event.

Yet the year since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, killing 11 workers and injuring scores more, and causing an environmentally catastrophic oil spill, is proving to be more of an annus mirabilis.

Mr Hayward, who described himself as BP's "sacrificial lamb", could have sat back and enjoyed the benefits of the £1m payout and £10m pension pot awarded him on departing BP, together with the $150,000 (£91,000) he is paid to sit on the board of TNK-BP, its joint venture with Russia's third largest oil company. Instead, he is discussing a new financial enterprise with the multimillionaire Nat Rothschild that could see him rake in millions.

BP's former chief executive was at the epicentre of the maelstrom that engulfed the oil giant. Yet while many of those communities affected by the Deepwater spill are still fighting to get their lives back on track, Mr Hayward is flourishing. On leaving BP, many expected him to retire to lick his wounds to his 16th-century house in Sevenoaks, Kent, with his wife, Maureen, and his two children. He is, however, enjoying a Lazarus-like career resurrection.

Mr Rothschild, famous for his lavish hospitality, is nothing if not well connected. This proved counterproductive when he found himself unwittingly at the heart of a row between his friend Lord Mandelson and George Osborne, the Chancellor. It was claimed that Mr Osborne attempted to solicit a donation to the Tory party from the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska at one of his parties, although Mr Osborne denied this. Mr Rothschild has also been linked to Saif Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator. Mr Rothschild is investing heavily in energy and commodities in the Far East.

Similarly Mr Hayward, who set up his own energy advisory business, 3E Capital, last October, has reportedly been discussing new ventures with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and the wife of the Singapore Prime Minister, Ho Ching, who runs Temasek Holdings, one of the most powerful sovereign wealth funds in the world.

Magnitude-6.6 quake jolts New Zealand

PressTV - Magnitude-6.6 quake jolts New Zealand
A magnitude-6.6 earthquake has struck off New Zealand's coast, raising fear that a tsunami could follow the powerful tremor.


The US Geological Survey said the quake struck the northeastern coastal areas at 1:02 a.m. local time (1302 GMT) on Monday.

The quake struck around 550 kilometers east of Auckland
.

PressTV - 'Arab media ignore Bahrain revolution'

PressTV - 'Arab media ignore Bahrain revolution'

High Level Forecast Of Cesium-137 Not Shown To The Public :

High Level Forecast Of Cesium-137 Not Shown To The Public :

The Intel Hub

The forecast that was not shown to the public was possibly a worse case scenario but it makes one wonder which prediction turned out to be more accurate.

The simple fact is that every single government that has ever been involved with a radiation release before the current Japanese disaster has covered up the dangers.

One glaring example is the Boeing-Rocketdyne nuclear disaster. 5 weeks after a partial meltdown 30 miles from downtown L.A. the U.S. government claimed that NO radiation was released. This can be confirmed with very little research.

We can only hope that this situation is different and that the EPA is telling the truth.

Links To “Alternative” Forecasts
http://squid.nilu.no/~burkhart/sharing/MOVIES/?C=M;O=D
http://squid.nilu.no/~burkhart/sharing/


April 17th, 2011

The Melancholy of the Anarchist

Chemtrails & Sundog Greenville SC 4/18/11

The Budget Deal Turns Out To Be A Gigantic Fraud

The Budget Deal Turns Out To Be A Gigantic Fraud
Originally the deal between The White House and Congressional Republicans was touted for delivering $38 billion in cost savings.

Then, yesterday's analysis showed that the savings were probably just half that, since a lot of the savings came from not spending money that was never going to be spent.

Turns out, the spending cuts are even more minimal than that.

According to the CBO, via National Journal, the total savings come to a whopping... $352 million. With an M:

A comparison prepared by the CBO shows that the omnibus spending bill, advertised as containing some $38.5 billion in cuts, will only reduce federal outlays by $352 million below 2010 spending rates. The nonpartisan budget agency also projects that total outlays are actually some $3.3 billion more than in 2010, if emergency spending is included in the total.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/cbo-on-the-budget-deal-2011-4#ixzz1JscWy8tN

Prostitution, pot legalization could make Detroit attractive

Carol Cain: Prostitution, pot legalization could make Detroit attractive, Fieger says | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

Why not, barrister and occasional mayoral candidate Geoffrey Fieger said during a taping of “Michigan Matters” on what he would do if he walked in Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s shoes and tried to address the city’s woes.

“I could turn it around in five minutes,” Fieger said.

“I’d shovel the snow and I’d clean the streets and parks. Then, I’d tell the police department to leave marijuana alone and don’t spend one dime trying to enforce marijuana laws. I also would not enforce prostitution laws and I’d make us the new Amsterdam.”

Va. Nuclear Power Plant Shuts Down After Storm

Va. Nuclear Power Plant Shuts Down After Storm | NBC Washington

Dominion Virginia Power reports that an apparent tornado touched down on the switchyard supporting the Surry Power Station and the facility's access road Saturday. The storm cut off the electrical feed from the grid to the station, which is located in Surry County, Va.

Both reactors at the station shut down automatically as designed and backup diesel generators started immediately to provide the electricity necessary to maintain both units.

‘Looked Like the Wizard of Oz’ As Tornadoes Ripped N.C.

‘Looked Like the Wizard of Oz’ As Tornadoes Ripped N.C.

Sanford, N.C. (AP) - Lowe's store manager Michael Hollowell had heard the tornado warnings but his first clue that the danger was outside his front door came when he saw his staff running toward the back of the home improvement store.

More than 100 employees and customers screamed in near unison when the steel roof curled off overhead Saturday. The store was becoming part of the wreckage left by a ferocious storm system bristling with killer twisters that ripped through the South.

"You could hear all the steel ripping. People screaming in fear for their lives," Hollowell told The Associated Press on Sunday.

Those in the store did not become part of the death toll that totaled at least 45 across six states, and officials said quick action by Hollowell and his employees helped them all make it out alive in Sanford, about 40 miles south of Raleigh.