ARCHIVE PHOTO: Residents who returned to their homes damaged by Hurricane Sandy line up for a hot meal served from a red Cross vehicle on Samson Avenue in Seaside Heights, New Jersey November 12, 2012 (Reuters / Tom Mihalek)RT News

American Red Cross has been reluctant to make public details over how it raised and spent over $300 million in Hurricane Sandy relief funds. The charity’s lawyers say the disclosure would inflict “competitive harm” on the group.

The Red Cross supplied some of the information concerning its Sandy activity to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, whose office has been investigating the issue.    Continue reading “Red Cross says how it used Hurricane Sandy funds is ‘trade secret’”

The Tribune – by Matt Hamilton

 — People in San Luis Obispo County received a series of unsettling, erroneous emergency alerts Friday as repairs were being made to a nuclear power plant’s siren system, including a vague cellphone message that told them to “prepare for action.”

The chain of mistaken alerts began arousing confusion and fear when a siren that’s part of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s warning system began wailing Friday afternoon for no apparent reason, county emergency services manager Ron Alsop said.   Continue reading “Sirens, phones sound erroneous alert in California”

The Onion

NEW YORK—Noting that it has had thousands of years to develop a more agreeable option, humankind expressed bewilderment this week that it has yet to devise a better alternative to governing itself than always letting power-hungry assholes run everything, sources worldwide reported.

Individuals in every country on earth voiced their frustration that, in spite of generations of mistreatment, neglect, and abuse they have suffered at the hands of those in positions of authority, they continue to allow control over the world’s governments, businesses, and virtually every other type of organization and social group to fall to the most megalomaniacal pr#@ks among them.     Continue reading “Humanity Surprised It Still Hasn’t Figured Out Better Alternative To Letting Power-Hungry Assholes Decide Everything”

US President Barack Obama (R) meets hisGlobal Research – by Robert Parry

Washington’s official Ukraine narrative has been that it was all Vladimir Putin’s fault, that the Russian president staged the crisis to restore the Russian empire, a storyline that never made sense and is now being rearranged to explain why Putin is seeking peace.

It’s always interesting when the New York Times promotes a false narrative – as it has on Ukraine by blaming the crisis all on “Russian aggression” – and then has to shift its storyline when events move in a different direction, like President Vladimir Putin’s recent peacemaking initiatives.   Continue reading “The New York Times Revamps Its False Ukraine Narrative”

The Latin Bridge in Sarajevo ends at the street corner where Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, on June 28, 1914.NPR – by Ari Shapiro

The shot that killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was fired a hundred years ago this weekend.

The assassination in Sarajevo, on June 28, 1914, triggered World War I and changed the course of the 20th century. The consequences of that act were devastating. But the beginning of the story sounds almost like a farce — complete with bad aim, botched poisoning and a wrong turn on the road.   Continue reading “A Century Ago In Sarajevo: A Plot, A Farce And A Fateful Shot”

Bosnian-Serb nationalist Gavrilo PrincipThe Guardian – by Andrew MacDowall

For one half of the city, he was the national hero who fought against imperial oppression and fully deserves a new park in his name. For the other half he is a villain who killed a pregnant woman and brought a flourishing epoque to an end.

Gavrilo Princip, the Bosnian-Serb radical who set in train a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the first world war will be the central figure in Sarajevo this weekend as the city marks 100 years since he assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.   Continue reading “Villain or hero? Sarajevo is split on archduke’s assassin Gavrilo Princip”

Yahoo News – by Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) – BP Plc has asked a U.S. judge to direct what it called a “vast number” of businesses to repay hundreds of millions of dollars it says were wrongly awarded as compensation on claims stemming from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

In a Friday court filing, BP asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in New Orleans to require businesses to make restitution plus interest of excess payments, which it called “windfalls.” It also requested an injunction to stop the businesses from spending these excess sums.   Continue reading “BP seeks to recoup ‘windfall’ Gulf spill payments”

MuckRock – by Shawn Musgrave

FOI Requests:

In March 2008, the general counsel for Governor Rod Blagojevich approved the covert purchase of a Stingray device by Illinois State Police, documents released last week reveal.

Continue reading “Illinois State Police purchased Stingray in 2008 for $250k”

un martial law forcesSHTF Plan

SHTFplan Editor’s Note: What you’re about to read by Dave Hodges is a chilling analysis of the events currently playing out on the southern border of the United States of America.

Several weeks after the White House feigned surprise over the flood of tens of thousands of unaccompanied alien children crossing into the U.S. it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security posted a job listing in January of 2014 seeking adult escorts for, you guessed it, about 65,000 alien children who were expected to show up at immigration offices without their parents. That “coincidence” coupled with numerous other warning signs such as videos showing brand new U.N. armored vehicles being transported on America’s highways in recent weeks suggests that something unprecedented is about to take place.   Continue reading “Analysis: United Nations Assets Will Be Deployed in USA To Resolve “International Crisis” On Border”

Before It’s News – by Sher Zieve 

It has been a few years since I’ve talked and, subsequently, interviewed former USBP Supervisor David J. Stoddard (Ret).  In my opinion—and that of many others—there really is no better information source than Dave for what is currently transpiring at and on our Southern Border.

David J. Stoddard BIO: US Border Patrol Supervisor David J Stoddard (Ret) was with the US Border Patrol for 27 years.  David served in Calexico, California, Vermont, Yuma, Tucson Sector Headquarters and Naco, Arizona and worked in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other locations.   Continue reading “Obama’s End of the USA Via Fomenting Foreign Invasion”

Image: alainonline.netForbes – by Peter Kelly-Detwiler

The rapid advance of jihadists throughout Iraq unnerves us. The goal of establishing a radical Islamist caliphate – providing a haven to thousands of violent individuals with a hatred of the West – should unnerve us. Because it’s the unknown next step that follows that keeps us awake at night, and reminds us of our vulnerability.

News from Yemen last week further underscores that sense, as we learned that an attack on the power lines left the entire nation of Yemen (with its 23 million people) without power for a day.

Continue reading “Terrorist Attack Left All of Yemen In Darkness Last Week: Another Wake-Up Call”

Washington Heights lawmaker pleads guilty to marriage fraudWashington Post – by Rich Calder and Carl Campanile

A Washington Heights lawmaker on Friday pleaded guilty to marriage fraud​, ​​which not only paved the way ​for her ​to ​become a U.S. citizen ​– but also to ​be elected to public office.

Appearing in Manhattan federal court, Assemblywoman Gabriela Rosa, a 47​-​year-old Dominican native elected in 2012, admitted to filing bogus documents submitted to the federal government in which she lied about a sham marriage to obtain citizenship.   Continue reading “Washington Heights lawmaker pleads guilty to marriage fraud”

MEDICAL MARIJUANAHuffington Post – by Shadee Ashtari

Los Angeles’ first medical marijuana farmers market is set to launch July 4, marking a unique opportunity for card-carrying cannabis patients to purchase a variety of products, including cannabis flowers, edibles and concentrates, directly from growers.

The new farmers market, which will feature 20 to 50 vendors, will be held at the West Coast Collective in East Los Angeles.    Continue reading “Los Angeles Set To Open Its First Medical Marijuana Farmers Market”

Activist Post – by Brandon Turbeville

Ever since 9/11, it has been apparent that the American empire is living on borrowed time. In more recent years, the inevitable collapse of American world hegemony and the unipolar world is one that very few informed observers can continue to ignore. 

Riddled with massive unemployment, an overextended military, entrenched police state, crumbling infrastructure, and the ever-present threat to the US dollar, it is clear that the United States is merely the shell of its former self. Indeed, in 2014, the concept of long-term American primacy is only a fantasy maintained by the mainstream media with its constant repetition of meaningless and absurd notions of recoveries, humanitarian interventions, and national security. Continue reading “Zbigniew Brzezinski: The Decline Of The US And The End Of The American Empire”

Activist Post

The environmental campaigning group Greenpeace, digital rights watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Tenth Amendment Center (TAC) joined forces today to fly an airship over the NSA’s data center in Utah to protest the government’s illegal mass surveillance program.

Greenpeace flew its 135-foot-long thermal airship over the Bluffdale, UT, data center early Friday morning, carrying the message: “NSA Illegal Spying Below” along with a link steering people to a new web site, StandAgainstSpying.org, which the three groups launched with the support of a separate, diverse coalition of over 20 grassroots advocacy groups and Internet companies. The site grades members of Congress on what they have done, or often not done, to rein in the NSA. Continue reading “Activists Use Blimp to Spy on NSA’s Data Center in Utah”