AOL – by Chris Talbot

Bobby Womack, a colorful and highly influential R&B singer-songwriter who influenced artists from the Rolling Stones to Damon Albarn, has died. He was 70.

Womack’s publicist Sonya Kolowrat said Friday that the singer had died, but she could provide no other details.

With an incomparable voice few could match, Womack was a stirring singer and guitarist in his own right and a powerful songwriter whose hits like “Across 110th Street,” ”If You Think You’re Lonely Now” and “I Wish He Didn’t Trust Me So Much” captured the imagination of future stars in rock ‘n’ roll and R&B.   Continue reading “Bobby Womack, R&B singer- songwriter, dies at 70”

Steve Shamblin an English teacher at Nitro High School, holds banned books by author Pat Conroy Thursday, Nov. 1, 2007 in Nitro, W.Va. The Pat Conroy books "Beach Music" and "The Prince of Tides" were suspended from Nitro High School English classes after parents of two students complained about depictions of violence, suicide and sexual assault. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)Mint Press News – by Katie Rucke

Under the First Amendment, the U.S. government cannot outright ban literature in the United States, but as Mark Crispin Miller, author and professor of media studies at New York University, explained, books can be hidden from public view or written off as conspiracy theory in order to prevent people from reading them.

While censorship is often conducted by corporations and governments to prevent words, images or ideas from entering the mainstream, censorship of literature has been around as early as 399 B.C. and has affected intellectuals and philosophers such as Socrates.   Continue reading “Banned But Not Forgotten: Book Censorship In The U S”

Crime File News

Phoenix, AZ—Politicians and their appointed police chiefs across this nation demand nearly total control of police related information.

It’s epidemic in the larger cities controlled by Democratic Party mayors.  They see the value of leaving their citizens with a false sense of security and public safety as they spin any and all information accordingly.   Continue reading “Police, Media Relations and Disinformation”

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

LOS ANGELES — 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”