July 30, 2013

It's that face again

July 30, 2013

Because of this:

we're stuck with this:

July 29, 2013

FBI Files Show Snipers Targeted Occupy Houston

Large sections of the files are blacked out, including names of those believed by the FBI to be plotting the deaths of Occupy activists in Texas, perhaps nationwide.

"I...could've been shot and killed by a sniper just a little over a year ago." wrote Carl Gibson in an open letter to FBI director Mueller. "Your offices knew of this plot, yet none of us who were at risk of assassination were informed."
Gibson, one of the leaders of Occupy Houston who could have been in a sniper's cross-hairs, called on Mueller to resign his post.

What is this all about? Snipers?

A set of documents released to the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund by the FBI as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request included a page, some of it blacked out, showing that there were early plans to use suppressed sniper fire to kill leaders of Occupy Houston.

An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles. (Note: protests continued throughout the weekend with approximately 6000 persons in NYC. "Occupy Wall Street' protests have spread to about half of all states in the US, over a dozen European and Asian cities, including protests in Cleveland (10/6-8/11) at Willard Park which was initially attended by hundreds of protesters.)

Remember, the Occupy Wall Street protests began in September of 2011, and the FBI was aware of a plan to kill Occupy leaders in October of that same year. How did they get such early news of these deadly plans? The documents do not say. Paul Kennedy, a Houston attorney who represented several Occupy Houston members arrested during protests, was concerned. In a story at TruthDig he says about the plot.

"f it is something law enforcement was planning," Kennedy said, "then nothing would have been done. It might seem hard to believe that a law enforcement agency would do such a thing, but I wouldn't put it past them."

He added that the phrase "if deemed necessary," which appeared in the bureau's report, further suggests the possibility that some kind of official organization was involved in the plan.

More: http://www.opednews.com/populum/pagem.php?f=FBI-Files-Show-Snipers-Tar-by-Gregg-Jocoy-130729-87.html

July 27, 2013

Cops plant drugs on suspect

July 26, 2013

Check in if you've criticized President Obama on DU but worked to get him elected

I drove to Ohio to canvas for him in 2008. I voted for him in 2008 and 2012.

July 26, 2013

Don't Drink and Ride

July 25, 2013

NSA’s program for surveillance survives first post-leak vote in Congress

Source: Salt Lake Tribune

Washington • The House on Wednesday protected the National Security Agency’s ability to broadly collect phone data in the first vote on the covert program revealed earlier this year by Edward Snowden, a former security contractor and now a fugitive.

By a vote of 217-205, the House defeated an amendment offered by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., that would have prohibited the use of the Patriot Act to gather information on people not suspected of a crime.

His plan split the political parties and divided Utah’s delegation. The state’s Republican Reps. Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz and Chris Stewart voted to end the program even though a majority of Republicans, 134 of them, voted to keep it.

Rep. Jim Matheson, a Democrat, voted to keep the program, even though a majority of Democrats, 111, went the other way.

President Barack Obama and House Republican leaders supported the NSA program, which relies on the Patriot Act as its legal justification to gather "telephony metadata."

Read more: http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56639446-90/nsa-program-vote-security.html.csp

July 24, 2013

Lawyer says Snowden to stay in Russia

Edward Snowden may be settling in for a long stay in Russia, his lawyer said, adding the National Security Agency whistleblower plans to start studying the Russian language and culture and that, for the time being, Russia is his final destination.

Anatoly Kucherena's comments on Wednesday came after the lawyer met with Snowden in the transit zone of Moscow's Sheremetyevo international airport.

Russian news reports said that Snowden was about to receive documents that would allow him to leave the airport where he has been marooned for more than a month.

Some Russian news agencies cited unidentified sources as saying Kucherena would deliver the documents to Snowden, but the lawyer later said there was no such paperwork. Snowden has applied for temporary asylum in Russia.

More: http://aje.me/143ozBt

July 24, 2013

Elizabeth Warren wants to stop Goldman Sachs’ soda can scheme

Elizabeth Warren wants to crack down on Goldman Sach’s exploitation of loose market regulations to inflate the price of aluminum, a set-up that costs consumers around $5 billion a year.

“I share the concern of many of my colleagues about asset managers at huge Wall Street banks exercising control of key parts of America’s infrastructure,” Warren said in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on the subject, Business Insider reports.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Wall Street firms have been buying up infrastructure in the commodities market, and making bank off of it:

Using special exemptions granted by the Federal Reserve Bank and relaxed regulations approved by Congress, the banks have bought huge swaths of infrastructure used to store commodities and deliver them to consumers —from pipelines and refineries in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas; to fleets of more than 100 double-hulled oil tankers at sea around the globe; to companies that control operations at major ports like Oakland, Calif., and Seattle.

In the case of aluminum, Goldman bought Metro International Trade Services,one of the country’s biggest storers of the metal. More than a quarter of the supply of aluminum available on the market is kept in the company’s Detroit-area warehouses.

Goldman purposefully increases the amount of time the metal is stored, according to the Times, which eventually increases the price of an aluminum can, for instance, by a a tenth of a cent. This amounts to millions more dollars per year that Goldman makes off of the inflated price.

More: http://www.salon.com/2013/07/24/elizabeth_warren_wants_to_stop_goldman_sachs_soda_can_scheme/

July 24, 2013

Arctic methane 'time bomb' could have huge economic costs

Scientists say that the release of large amounts of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have huge economic impacts for the world.

The researchers estimate that the climate effects of the release of this gas could cost $60 trillion (£39 trillion), roughly the size of the global economy in 2012.

-snip-

Using an economic model very similar to the one used by Lord Stern in his 2006 review of the economics of climate change,the researchers examined the impact of the release of 50-gigatonnes of methane over a decade.

They worked out that this would increase climate impacts such as flooding, sea level rise, damage to agriculture and human health to the tune of $60 trillion.

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23432769