Author: Admin

Reuters – by Khaled Yacoub Oweis

Gulf-based supporters have sent a 400-ton shipment of arms to Syria’s outgunned rebels, one of the biggest to reach them in their two-year-old uprising, opposition sources said on Sunday.

The consignment – mostly ammunition for shoulder-fired weapons and anti-aircraft machine guns – came into northern Syria via the Turkish province of Hatay in the past 24 hours, and was already being handed out, the sources added.   Continue reading “Large arms shipment reaches Syrian rebels: opposition”

Common Dreams – by Abby Zimet

In what critics say is the most comprehensive anti-homeless measure ever passed, Columbia SC’s City Council has unanimously approved an “Emergency Homeless Response” plan under which patrolling police will remove unsightly homeless people from downtown under the aegis of the city’s “quality of life” laws – complete with a hotline so business owners can report the presence of any aforementioned unsightly etc – and take them to a shelter on the outskirts of town where more patrolling police will ensure they don’t up and wander back downtown. If they refuse to be taken, they will be arrested and taken to jail. If they try to leave the shelter, they will be returned to pseudo-jail.   Continue reading “Poverty Prison: Columbia SC Demands Homeless People Go Away or Go To Jail, Police Not So Sure”

Anti-War – by John Glaser

Even as they condemn the Syrian regime’s use of cluster munitions, the U.S. is selling Saudi Arabia $640 million worth of American-made cluster bombs. Cluster munitions have been banned in 83 countries on account of their indiscriminate nature and their record of killing children.

John Reed at Foreign Policy:

These weapons are loathed because in addition to killing enemy combatants, their fairly indiscriminate nature means they can kill plenty of civilians. And not just in the heat of battle. The little ball-shaped bomblets dispersed by cluster munitions don’t always detonate on first impact. Often, they will just sit there on the ground until someone, often a child, picks them up and causes them to explode.   Continue reading “US Sending Saudi Arabia Thousands of Cluster Bombs, Despite International Ban”

Empty Wheel

ABC reports that, along with former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell, former Homeland Security Czar Richard Clarke, and former Obama special assistant for economic policy Peter Swire, the White House (or James Clapper — who knows at this point) has picked Cass Sunstein for its Review Committee on NSA programs.

Frankly, a lot of people are investing misplaced confidence that Richard Clarke will make this committee useful. While he’s good on a lot of issues, he’s as hawkish on cybersecurity as anyone else in this country. And as I keep pointing out, these programs are really about cybersecurity. Richard Clarke is not going to do a damned thing to rein in a program that increasingly serves to surveil US Internet data to protect against cyberthreats.   Continue reading “Advocate of Secret Infiltration, Cass Sunstein, on Obama’s “Committee To Make Us Trust the Dragnet””

Fox News

LAS VEGAS –  A couple spent hundreds of hours over four months plotting to abduct, torture and kill Las Vegas police officers as a way to attract attention to their anti-authority “sovereign citizens” movement, police said.

David Allen Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman attended training sessions about sovereign citizen philosophy, shopped for guns, found a vacant house and rigged it to bind captives to cross beams during interrogation, and recorded videos to explain their actions and why officers had to die.   Continue reading “Police in Vegas say ‘sovereign citizen’ plot to kill officers thwarted”

This story has been sent in by a number of contributors but all had copyrights ‘do not republish’ on them.  I have found this most recent account.

Fox News

A suspect in the brutal beating of a World War II veteran who later died from his injuries has been arrested, as police in Spokane, Washington continue to search for a second attacker.   Continue reading “Police arrest one suspect, seek another after World War II veteran dies following parking lot beating”

Be Your Own Leader – by Dana Gabriel

In a short period of time, the Pacific Alliance has emerged as one of the leading economic integration projects in Latin America. It aims to succeed where others have failed by creating a gateway to Asian markets and building a Pacific-rim trade deal. The U.S. and Canada are both pursuing deeper ties with the group and have been granted observer status. This is part of efforts to revive and expand their presence in Latin America. In some areas of integration, the Pacific Alliance has surpassed NAFTA. By merging the two together, it could be used to fill the void left by the collapse of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).    Continue reading “U.S. Economic Hegemony: Consolidation and Deepening of the Pacific Alliance Trade Bloc”

Salon -by JILLIAN RAYFIELD

War correspondent Michael Hastings, who died in a car crash in April, had reportedly become concerned that his car had been tampered with in the days leading up to his death, and asked friend Jordanna Thigpen to borrow hers, according to new profile in the LA Weekly.

From the report:   Continue reading “Report: Michael Hastings feared his car had been tampered with”

CNN – by Michael Pearson

“I am Chelsea Manning.”

With those words, read from a statement on NBC’s “Today” on Thursday, Bradley Manning immediately shifted public conversation away from the Army private’s conviction on espionage charges to gender identity.  Continue reading “Bradley Manning wants to live as a woman, be known as Chelsea”

Daily Mail – by DAVID MARTOSKO

More than 1,600 new employees hired by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources in the aftermath of Obamacare’s passage include just two described as ‘consumer safety’ officers, but 86 tasked with ‘criminal investigating’ – indicating that the agency is building an army of detectives to sleuth out violations of a law that many in Congress who supported it still find confusing.   Continue reading “Feds are building a detective squad to target consumers and companies that don’t follow Obamacare’s rules”

AlterNet – by Alex Henderson

In a democratic republic, the “innocent until proven guilty” concept is supposed to be sacrosanct. Jurors, police officers, judges and prosecuting attorneys—at least in theory—are required to err on the side of caution, and if a guilty person occasionally goes free, so be it. But with the war on drugs, the concept of innocent until proven guilty has fallen by the wayside on countless occasions. The war on drugs is not only fought aggressively, it is fought carelessly and haphazardly, and a long list of innocent victims have been killed or maimed in the process.   Continue reading “10 Shocking Examples of Police Killing Innocent People in the “War on Drugs””

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

The EFF finally gets to step away from one of its many legal battles with the government with its hands held aloft in victory and clutching a long-hidden FISA court opinion.

For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court’s opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated “the spirit of” federal law.   Continue reading “Declassified FISA Court Opinion Shows NSA Lied Repeatedly To The Court As Well”

My Fox Orlando

Authorities say a sinkhole has apparently swallowed a small lake in Ocala.

Woodland Villages Association property manager Wes Herren told the Ocala Star-Banner that something appeared wrong with the lake on Tuesday afternoon.

By 4:30 p.m., Herren says his phone was bombarded with calls from residents saying the lake was “essentially gone.”   Continue reading “Sinkhole empties small lake in Ocala”

Syrian Arab News Agency

Damascus, (SANA) – An official spokesman at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry said that the cooperation agreement between Syria and the international committee for investigating the use of weapons of mass destruction in some areas in Syria didn’t please the terrorists and the countries supporting them, which is why they came up with new false allegations that the Armed Forces used toxic gas in Damascus Countryside.   Continue reading “Foreign Ministry: Allegations of armed forces using toxic gas in Damascus countryside untrue”