Month: October 2016

The Federalist Papers – by C.E. Dyer

As the mainstream media and establishment Republicans have concerned themselves with an 11-year-old video of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, the national debt shot up to just under $19.7 trillion.

As Zero Hedge reported, the national debt rose $170 billion in just eight days, which means that as the media obsessed over Trump, the country dramatically plunged dramatically further into debt.   Continue reading “While The Media Obsesses Over “Trump Tapes;” THIS Just Happened…”

CNS News – by Susan Jones

In a March 4, 2015 email to Hillary Clinton’s lawyer Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s eventual campaign chairman John Podesta asks if they should withhold email exchanges between Clinton and President Obama that were sent over Clinton’s private server.

The day before Podesta sent his email to Mills, the House Benghazi Committee privately told Clinton to preserve and hand over all her emails. (The FBI report on Clinton’s emails notes on Page 18 that on March 3, 2015, the United States House Select Committee on Benghazi provided a letter to the law firm Williams & Connolly requesting the preservation and production of all documents and media related to the email addresses hdr22@clintonemail.com and hrcl7@clintonemail.com.)   Continue reading “WikiLeaks: Podesta Asks Clinton’s Lawyer, ‘Think We Should Hold Emails To and From (Obama)?’”

Waking Times – by Nathaniel Mauka

We’ve come a long way in education since the 1960s, but not necessarily in a positive direction. The psychologist J.P. Guilford once drew a distinction between two forms of thinking: convergent and divergent. One produces alternative theories, creative ideas, and useful solutions, the other, the dogmatization of information and a ‘single’ correct answer which can be force-fed to students on standardized tests and in common core classrooms.   Continue reading “Common Core – Standardized Reality and the Slow Kill of Divergent Thinking”

Reuters

A woman arrested in Phoenix for domestic violence and assaulting a police officer slipped out of her handcuffs and hung herself with a shoelace from a vent in the back of a police van, authorities said on Thursday.

The woman was rushed to hospital unconscious after the officers driving the van tried to revive her, but she was not expected to survive, a Phoenix police statement said.   Continue reading “Phoenix woman removes handcuffs, hangs herself in police van: police”

RT

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to sign an agreement regarding the shipment of Russia’s most advanced anti-aircraft defense system, the S-400 Triumph, to India.

“As a result of [Putin’s] meeting with Narendra Modi the agreement for supplying India with S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missile systems will be signed along with a number of other documents,” Yury Ushakov, Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide, said on Friday, as cited by TASS.   Continue reading “Russia to sign deal on S-400 shipment to India – Putin aide”

Free Thought Project – by Claire Bernish

Well over a half billion dollars is shelled out annually by the Pentagon to propagandize and galvanize public support of its wars based nearly entirely on lies — because, after all, war crafted to prop up the military-industrial machine’s profiteering can indeed be a tough sell.

In the latest report on Public Relations Spending from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the United States’ government PR apparatus has been revealed to spend over $1 billion annually — $626 million of which the Department of Defense allots to employ a massive propaganda army constituting roughly 40 percent of the more than 5,000-strong federal public relations workforce.   Continue reading “60% of the US Govt’s Billion Dollar PR Budget Goes to the Pentagon to Sell You War — And It’s Working”

Breitbart – by Bob Price

The man accused of critically wounding two Boston police officers and injuring several others served as a constable in that city for nearly six months.

Boston Police towed a Ford Crown Victoria from the home of accused shooter Kirk Figueroa, 33, on Thursday morning. A photo of Figueroa wearing a military-style red beret was found on the ElitePolicing.org website, according to the Boston Globe. The Crown Victoria bore the Elite Policing’s web address.   Continue reading “Report: Accused Boston Cop-Shooter Served as a Local Constable”

Fox News

The University of Florida is offering counseling to anyone who gets offended by any costumes worn this coming Halloween.

The school wrote in a blog post Monday urging students to “think about your choices of costumes and themes.”   Continue reading “University of Florida offers counseling for students ‘troubled’ by Halloween costumes”

Tech Dirt – by Tim Cushing

This opinion — written by Texas appeals court judge Brian Quinn — is a breath of fresh air for those of us who have watched as courts have continually deferred to law enforcement officers and their declarations that nearly everything drivers do — or DON’T do — is “suspicious.”

It’s also a slap in the face of those same law enforcement officers — the ones who use their “experience and training” to find nearly any action, or lack thereof, to be supportive of a warrantless search.   Continue reading “Judge Tears Apart Law Enforcement’s Ridiculous Assertions About ‘Suspicious’ Behavior”

MIT Technology Review – by Stacey Higginbotham

Insurers such USAA and American Family have lately begun offering to strike a high-tech bargain: wire your home with Internet-connected devices such as a new thermostat, and get a discount on your home insurance policy in return.

Offers like that could speed up the adoption of smart gadgets, revamp the insurance business, and transform how we manage our homes. In the future, your insurer might call a plumber before a pipe bursts, for example. But the data needed to help prevent leaks or burglaries will also introduce new risks, such as vulnerabilities to data loss or ransomware.
Continue reading “Why Insurance Companies Want to Subsidize Your Smart Home”

Department of Justice

Today, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch announced several steps by the Department of Justice to enable the nationwide collection of data on law enforcement interactions with civilians, including data related to the use of force by law enforcement officers.

“Accurate and comprehensive data on the use of force by law enforcement is essential to an informed and productive discussion about community-police relations,” said Attorney General Lynch.  “The initiatives we are announcing today are vital efforts toward increasing transparency and building trust between law enforcement and the communities we serve.  In the days ahead, the Department of Justice will continue to work alongside our local, state, tribal and federal partners to ensure that we put in place a system to collect data that is comprehensive, useful and responsive to the needs of the communities we serve.”      Continue reading “Justice Department Outlines Plan to Enable Nationwide Collection of Use of Force Data”

Washington’s Blog – by David Swanson

Before people had an easy way to see video footage of police murders, headlines crediting the police with just and noble actions couldn’t be effectively questioned.

We’re still back there in the dark ages when it comes to war murders, but we can overcome the lack of quickly shared videos if we choose to. When the headlines celebrate some sort of “victory” in Mosul or anywhere else, we can point out that the videos of people being blown up in their houses would be truly horrific if we had them. This is not, after all, a point on which there can actually be any question.   Continue reading “What Police Videos Teach Us About Wars”

USA Today – by Gregory Korte

WASHINGTON — President Obama has expanded his use of executive power beyond bounds of earth, signing an executive order Thursday to prepare the federal government to deal with the effects of space weather events.

That space weather — which includes phenomena like solar flares, geomagnetic disturbances — can have big effects on everyday technologies like global positioning systems, satellite communication and aviation.   Continue reading “Obama expands his executive power beyond Earth”

NJ.com – by Kathleen O’Brien

Federal health officials are warning anyone who had open heart surgery since 2011 to be on the alert for possible infection from a contaminated surgical device in wide use.

In an alert issued Thursday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a device that heats and cools blood during surgery is suspected of causing dangerous infections months or even years after surgery.   Continue reading “CDC warns heart patients of surgery risk from ‘disastrous’ bacteria”