Tag Archives: government

Cable Reveals US Behind Airstrike That Killed 21 Children In Yemen

A diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks shows that the US military covered up the killing of dozens of civilians during a cruise missile strike in south Yemen in December 2009. The secret cable from January 2010( http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/cable/2010/01/10SANAA4.html ) corroborated images( http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/yemen-images-missile-and-cluster-muni… ) released earlier this year by Amnesty International, implicating the US in the use of cluster bombs. The cable was sent by Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh to US General David Petraeus, saying his government would “continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours.” According to the cable, this prompted Yemeni Deputy Prime Minister Rashad al-Alimi “to joke that he had just 'lied' by telling Parliament that the bombs in Arhab, Abyan, and Shebwa were American-made but deployed by the ROYG [Republic of Yemen Government].” “The cable appears to confirm Amnesty International's finding that the Abyan strike was carried out by the US military, not Yemeni government forces,” Philip Luther, a Deputy Director for Amnesty International, said. On December 17, 2009, an alleged al-Qaeda training camp in Abyan was hit by a cruise missile, killing 41 local residents, including 14 women, 21 children, and 14 alleged al-Qaeda members. According to the leaked cable, President Saleh praised the strikes, “but said that 'mistakes were made' in the killing of civilians in Abyan.” Gen. Petraeus responded that only three civilians, the wife and two children of an al-Qaeda member, were killed. After the attack, Amnesty International requested information from the Pentagon about US involvement in the missile attack, but received no response. The Pentagon later released a statement saying that questions on operations against al-Qaeda should be posed to the Yemeni government. The leaked cable revealed that Gen. Petraeus proposed abandoning the use of cruise missiles and instead using fixed-wing bombers circling outside of Yemeni territory to strike at targets using precision-guided bombs “when actionable intelligence became available.” The proposal was welcomed by President Saleh. Security assistance to Yemen may substantially increase, if Gen. Petraeus has his way. “The General told Saleh that he had requested USD 150 million in security assistance for 2010, a substantial increase over the 2009 amount of USD 67 million,” the cable states. Amnesty International is calling on the US to investigate the use of drones by US forces for targeted killings of individuals in Yemen. “There must be an immediate investigation into the dozens of deaths of local residents in the Abyan air strike, including into the extent of US involvement,” Luther said. “Those responsible for unlawful killings must be brought to justice.” US Attorney General Eric Holder said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently under investigation and would be pursued if he were found to have broken the law. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/wikileaks-chief/ Republican Congressman Peter King( http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/gop-rep-wikileaks-deemed-foreign-terrorist-or… ), the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, went so far as to say that the website should be deemed a “foreign terrorist organization.” Rep. King's call for prosecution was echoed( http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/graham-cheney-wikileaks-prosecuted/ ) by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Clair McCaskill (D-MO) and former State Department official Liz Cheney. “We're deeply skeptical that prosecuting WikiLeaks would be constitutional, or a good idea,” Hina Shamsi, Director of the ACLU National Security Project, said. “The courts have made clear that the First Amendment protects independent third parties who publish classified information. Prosecuting WikiLeaks would be no different from prosecuting the media outlets that also published classified documents.” “Prosecuting publishers of classified information threatens investigative journalism that is necessary to an informed public debate about government conduct, and that is an unthinkable outcome.” added by: toyotabedzrock

GOP Blocks Childhood Nutrition Bill

(AP) House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier. First lady Michelle Obama has lobbied for the bill as part of her “Let's Move” campaign to combat childhood obesity. House Democrats said the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment. Because the nutrition bill is identical to legislation passed by the Senate in August, passage would send it to the White House for President Obama's signature. If the bill were amended, it would be sent back to the Senate with little time left in the legislative session. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. said the House would hold separate votes on Thursday on the amendment and the bill. Republicans say the nutrition bill is too costly and an example of government overreach. “It's not about making our children healthy and active,” said Rep. John Kline, R-Minn., the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee. “We all want to see our children healthy and active. This is about spending and the role of government and the size of government – a debate about whether we're listening to our constituents or not.” Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has also taken a swipe at the first lady's campaign, bringing cookies to a speech at a Pennsylvania school last month and calling the campaign a “school cookie ban debate” and “nanny state run amok” on her Twitter feed. The legislation would give the government the power to decide what kinds of foods could be sold and what ingredients may be limited in school lunch lines and vending machines. The Agriculture Department would create the standards, which would likely keep popular foods like hamburgers and pizza in school cafeterias but make them healthier, using leaner meat or whole wheat crust, for example. Vending machines could be stocked with less candy and fewer high-calorie drinks. The bill would provide money to serve more than 20 million additional after-school meals annually to children in all 50 states. Many of those children now only receive after-school snacks. It would also increase the number of children eligible for school meals programs by at least 115,000, using Medicaid and census data to identify them. The legislation would increase the amount of money schools are reimbursed by 6 cents a meal, a priority for schools that say they don't have the dollars to feed needy kids. added by: TimALoftis

You Are No Longer Free To Move About the Country

Janet Napolitano said last month that we should expect to soon see tighter restrictions at bus, train, and marine transportation centers, too. Here's a report about TSA, Border Patrol, and local police setting up a checkpoint at a Greyhound station in Tampa. Note how quickly preventing a possible terrorist attack expands to include catching illegal immigrants, and preventing drug and what sounds like “cash smuggling.” (It's hard to tell from the audio.) Note also the complete and utter reverence the local news report bestows on these government agencies, who after all are merely “teaming up to keep your family safe.” A liberal blogger wrote to me in an email this week that libertarians who call the TSA pat-downs a violation of their civil liberties do a disservice to actual violations of civil liberties. It's not difficult to envision the day where anyone wishing to take mass transportation in this country will have to first submit to a government checkpoint, show ID, and answer questions about any excess cash, prescription medication, or any other items in his possession the government deems suspicious. If and when that happens, freedom of movement will essentially be dead. But it won't happen overnight. It'll happen incrementally. And each increment will, when taken in isolation, appear to some to be perfectly reasonable. added by: Darevalo

Bozell Column: Glorifying ‘Great’ Liberal Judges

America was founded on the principle of representative democracy: the government would make policy based on the consent of the governed. Liberal elitists have grown increasingly impatient with this unenlightened system, and more and more, they are relying on judicial activists to remake society in their desired image. Far from being tribunes of the people, these judges are honored by the media elite for going around public opinion – and the Constitution – whenever the liberal impulse beckons. CBS’s “60 Minutes” earned the title “Syrupy Minutes” on November 28 with a thoroughly one-sided tribute to the “great” liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, with a focus on how this “great” man publicly suggested George W. Bush was a tyrant. Pelley hailed how Stevens had “shaped more American history than any Supreme Court justice alive.” He especially underlined how liberals see Stevens’ opinions on the rights of terrorist suspects as “among the most important of his career.”

Canadian Government Partnered With Polluting Industry to Fight US Climate Action

photo: Diane Worth / Creative Commons Considering the considerable official enthusiasm for the highly polluting and carbon intensive Alberta tar sands, this really isn’t so surprising: According to correspondence obtained by the Pembina Institute , the Canadian Government is “pursuing an orchestrated strategy to undermine US effort to combat climate change” and partnered with polluters to fight US effort to reduce emissions from high-carb… Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Canadian Government Partnered With Polluting Industry to Fight US Climate Action

Despite massive protests, US Senate passes S 510 Food Safety Bill

(NaturalNews) The new Food Tyranny Act — called the “Food Safety Modernization Act” in the U.S. Senate — has been passed by the senate today. It would give the FDA vast new powers to criminalize and imprison farmers and food producers while doing absolutely nothing to address to real root of the food contamination problem: Factory animal farm operations (which are regulated under the USDA, not the FDA). The bill passed 73 to 25, with Sen Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) emerging as the greatest “voice of reason” in the debate. His last-ditch amendment to reduce the scale of the bill was defeated this morning. Here's the official vote record:http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L… Notably,there wasn't a single Democrat who opposed the bill. This bill, as originally written, would have outlawed most nutritional supplements through “harmonization” with European laws. It also would have authorized ten-year prison sentences for farmers sellingraw milkto their neighbors. Both of those provisions were eventually stripped out of the bill thanks to some last-minute amendments, but it gives you an idea of the outright police state mentality of the original bill authors who attempted to put in place completegovernmentcontrol over food, gardens, rawmilkand more. To give you an idea ofhow cluelessU.S. Senators are aboutfood, the New York Times is reporting that whenSenatestaff members met to discuss this bill, they would eat Starburst candies and jellybeans. As the NYT reports, “In the midst of negotiations, the negotiators — nearly allwomen– took a field trip to a nearby food market so that a Republican staff member could teach theDemocratshow to buy high-quality steaks.” So what we have here is a new foodtyrannylaw that was essentially negotiated by a group of women who eatdeadfoods, animals products and candy. No wonder they still don't get it. Thecontaminationof lettuce and other fresh produce is caused byfactory animals farms, not by produce farms. (E.coli can only thrive in the digestive tracts of animals, not plants.) The “small farms” exclusion will soon be meaningless The Tester Amendment of the bill did manage to excludesomesmallerfarmersfrom the more tyrannical provisions of the bill. As currently stated, this would exclude small farms that sell less than $500,000 worth of food and which sell most of their food locally. However, Senators failed to consider what's going to happen when theFederal Reservekeeps printing counterfeitmoney, devaluing the dollar and causing massive food price inflation. A farm that right now produces merely $100,000 worth of food (which could be a small, two-person farm) will soon find itself producing $500,000 worth of food (or more) due to the rapidly falling value of the U.S. dollar. This is how the Federal Reserve's money counterfeiting actions will further destroyAmericaand place small family farms under the tyranny ofthe FDA. What's next: Defeat the bill in committee The Senate version of the bill must now be reconciled with the House version that was passed last year. This reconciliation committee must hammer out the differences between the two bills. Democrats are urgently rushing to do this during their “lame duck” session in order to avoid moreRepublicansgetting involved who would seek to scale back thepowerand size of the federal government. Some House Democrats are even suggesting they would support passing the Senate version of the bill as it is written, without requiring any changes whatsoever, just to rush it through before the end of the year.NaturalNewsand other health freedom organizations intend to fight this effort, hoping to stall the bill until the newCongresscan enter the picture and hopefully interject some common sense into the negotiations. Please don't feed the monster If signed into law by the President (who is sure to sign it), this Food Safety Bill would provide yet more power and funding to one of the most dangerous monsters our nation has ever known: TheFDA. This is the agency responsible for the death of more Americans than all the wars our nation has ever been involved with — combined! ( http://www.naturalnews.com/030461_S…) The idea that we're going to save a few lives from food poisoning while subjectingeveryoneto yet another layer ofBig Governmenttyranny is so abhorrent and downright evil that if our country's founding fathers saw all this going on, they would be stunned into silence that it's happening in “the land of the free.” Fresh milk being criminalized? You've got to be kidding… Only they're not kidding. The FDA is the agency that has raided vitamin companies ( http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html ), arrestednutritional supplementmanufacturers and ordered the destruction of books containing stevia recipes. This is the agency that censors the scientific truth aboutnaturalfoods like cherries and walnuts ( http://www.naturalnews.com/029698_c…) while promoting the outright fraud and quackery of the pharmaceutical industry. And now the FDA is to be rewarded for its malfeasance with yet MORE power andauthority? This is how Washington works, folks. The government always thinks it's here to save you, and the Democrats want Big Government to be your nanny and “take care of you.” (The Republicans, for their part, just want to bail out the wealthy banksters with your money.) And yet, when it all comes down to it, these people are justtyrantswho have forgotten American history and abandoned the Constitution and its founding principles. Mark my words: Five years down the road, when the FDA's armed “food police” are running rampant across America, arresting farmers and imprisoning lettuce growers, people will be appalled, and they'll wonder, “How could we have let this happen!?” The answer is right here: You let it happen because you allowed Big Government to rule overthe food supply. And if there's one thing we know about Big Government, it's thatit always wants to get bigger. It always wants more power. More authority. More funding. And more excuses to function as a dictatorship that rules over the American people. The Food Safety Modernization Act is to thefood supplywhat the Patriot Act is to the Bill of Rights. We must make every effort to prevent this from becoming law, lest we find ourselves living under afood dictatorshipwhere only dead, fumigated or irradiated food will be allowed to be sold to the public. The “food irradiation plot” has been the plan from the very beginning of all this ( http://www.naturalnews.com/023015_f…) . Of course, once the real food is all criminalized and outlawed, there's alwayssoylent green. That might not be too far off, come to think of it. Learn more:http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html#ixzz16nMK85q5 ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS ARTICLE: •The Honest Food Guide empowers consumers with independent information about foods and health •Interview with “Kevala” Karen Parker, master raw foods chef •Cigarettes, Lies, and Pet Food Advertising •The true horrors of pet food revealed: Prepare to be shocked by what goes into dog food and cat food •Interview: Raw food guru David Wolfe explores the healing energy of living foods •Boku Super Food: An Astonishing New Premium Superfood Product Reviewed by the Health Ranger Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/030576_Food_Safety_S_510.html#ixzz16nNAqgn4 added by: GLOBALPOLITICAL

How can we balance increasing transpareny with the need for secrecy regarding sensitive information?

In the wake of controversy around the latest documents to appear on Wikileaks, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has denounced the release of the cables as an “attack on the international community.” Clinton, and others in government, maintain that diplomacy often requires confidentiality to be effective, and that the release of information by sites like Wikileaks could compromise military or diplomatic operations. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and other defenders of the site, however, say that such information should be used to hold the government accountable. In a world where the public demands more transparancy and technology makes information more accessible, how can we balance accountability and transparancy with the need for confidentiality around sensitive government and military operations? added by: sgwhites

Africa is Messed Up

A 2010 study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to South Africa’s most populous city of Johannesburg, more than 37 percent of men said they had raped a woman. added by: joeeddy

Who Does Barbara Walters Find Fascinating?

As she does at the conclusion of every year, Barbara Walters has compiled a list of the world’s Most Fascinating People. Really just a rundown of those who have been in the news (seriously, we all love Betty White, but does a single reader find her “fascinating?”), the following celebrities made the cut: Sandra Bullock

Sarah Palin Rips Michelle Obama, Decries First Lady’s Efforts to Curb Childhood Obesity

Sigh. Sarah Palin is back in the news again. For whatever reason, the ex-Alaska Governor took First Lady Michelle Obama and her efforts to improve childhood nutrition to task on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. We know conservatives believe in smaller government, and there are strong cases to be made for that philosophy. Attacking Michelle’s nutrition initiative, though? Sarah Palin is not a fan of Michelle Obama’s anti-obesity efforts . Of the First Lady, Palin told Ingraham that “I think she has got a different worldview and she is not hesitant at all to share what her worldview is.” As for Sarah Palin’s worldview, no one can make sense of it, but she does use big words like “exceptionalism” in the rant against Michelle below: “She encapsulated what her view of America is, I believe, unless she has evolved and things have changed in the last two years, but she said it on the campaign trail twice that it was the first time that she had been proud of her country when finally people were paying attention to Barack Obama.” “I think that’s appalling. We can think of this infinite number of reasons to be proud of American exceptionalism and it baffles me that anybody would have that view and then allow that view to bleed over into policy.” “Take her anti-obesity thing that she is on. She is on this kick, right. What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat.” “I know I’m going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician’s wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back, and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track.” Yes … the government needs to “get off our back” for this silly “anti-obesity thing.” Why encourage health when we can be as fat as we want! Freedom rules! Can’t you encourage people to make smarter choices that benefit themselves and the public health system as a whole? How is that an evil federal takeover? Choose your side : [poll id=”1662″ /]

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Sarah Palin Rips Michelle Obama, Decries First Lady’s Efforts to Curb Childhood Obesity