CLG: House Republican Budget Privatizes-Voucherizes Medicare, Slashes Medicaid, and Repeals the Health Law, W.H.O. Report Links Ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup to Cancer

News Updates from CLG
22 March 2015

http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Previous edition: Secret C.I.A. Fund Adds Millions to al-Qaeda Coffers

Islamic State calls on backers to kill 100 U.S. military personnel | 21 March 2015 | Islamic State has posted online what it says are the names, U.S. addresses and photos of 100 American military service members, and called upon its "brothers residing in America" to kill them. The Pentagon said after the information was posted on the Internet that it was investigating the matter. In the posting, a group referring to itself as the "Islamic State Hacking Division" wrote in English that it had hacked several military servers, databases and emails and made public the information on 100 members of the U.S. military so that "lone wolf" attackers can kill them.

Pentagon investigates 'IS online threat' to US military | 21 March 2015 | The US defence department says it is investigating an online threat allegedly made by Islamic State (IS) to about 100 of its military personnel. A list of names and addresses was posted on a website linked to the group alongside a call for them to be killed. The group said it obtained the information by hacking servers and databases but US officials said most of the data was in the public domain.

Plane drops of ammunition helping to reinforce ISIS - reports; earlier munitions had English-language markings | 17 March 2015 | The Islamic State is getting outside help [and I think we all know who that is], with plane drops providing ammunition for the terrorist organization, according to an RT Arabic report. Iraqi government soldiers also say this is a recurring theme and the group is as strong as ever...This begs the question: Who is supplying the Islamic State with arms? [US allies] Saudi Arabia and Qatar have both been rumored to be helping to arm the Islamic State - claims which have been repeatedly denied by Riyadh and Doha...There have been unconfirmed reports from the Iranian news agency FARS that Britain and the US could be behind the ammunition drops.

Navy fires commander of strategic air wing; cites investigation and 'loss of confidence' | 17 March 2015 | The Navy fired the commander of an organization whose aircraft allow the president and the secretary of defense to directly contact the submarines, bombers and land-based missiles that comprise the nation's strategic nuclear force. A Navy statement said Capt. Heather E. Cole was relieved of her duties as commander of Strategic Communications Wing 1, based at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, for what it called a "loss of confidence" in her ability to lead. A spokeswoman, Cmdr. Jeannie Groeneveld, said the firing was based on findings of an investigation into her management of the wing.

Obama confirms 'evaluating options' after Netanyahu's 'no Palestinian state' pledge | 22 March 2015 | Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apparently meant what he said in announcing that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, the White House is re-evaluating its policy towards Israel and seeking other option to avoid chaos in the region, the US President has said. Commenting on the Israeli elections for the first time after PM Netanyahu's victory, US president Barack Obama made it clear that the US supports the two-state solution in the Israeli conflict despite the PM's strong pre-election rhetoric. The two-state solution is "the only way for the long-term security of Israel, if it wants to stay both a Jewish state and democratic," US President said in his interview with the Huntington Post.

Binyamin Netanyahu bids to form rightwing Israeli coalition after decisive win |18 March 2015 | Binyamin Netanyahu has begun efforts to assemble a new rightwing coalition to govern Israel after his Likud party scored a decisive victory in the country's general election. Hours after opposition leader Isaac Herzog conceded defeat on Wednesday morning, Netanyahu called Naftali Bennett, the hard-right pro-settlement leader of the Jewish Home party, to open negotiations over the shape of his new coalition. Speaking on a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon, Netanyahu said he was "thrilled by the heavy responsibility" of his victory.

Syrian air defenses shoot down U.S. drone | 18 March 2015 | On Tuesday, the U.S. military lost contact with an unarmed Predator drone in Syria. Although U.S. officials couldn't confirm the actual status of the lost drone, Syrian state media reported that it had been shot down by Syrian air defenses. "Syrian air defences brought down a hostile U.S. surveillance plane in the coastal province of Latakia,' Syrian state news agency SANA said on Tuesday.

US troops withdrawing from Yemen air base | 21 March 2015 | The United States is evacuating its remaining military personnel from Yemen because of the deteriorating security situation, US officials have confirmed. On Saturday, Yemeni officials said about 100 US troops were leaving an air base near a southern city that was stormed by al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] fighters on Friday. There has been mounting violence by rival armed groups in Yemen, including Houthi rebels, al-Qaeda and IS [thanks to the US].

Suicide bombers kill 137 in Yemen mosque attacks | 20 March 2015 | Suicide bombers killed at least 137 worshippers and wounded hundreds more during Friday prayers at two mosques in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, in coordinated attacks claimed by Islamic State. The attacks on mosques used by supporters of the Shi'ite Muslim Houthi fighters who control the city were the deadliest in a years-long campaign of violence in the country, where Washington has been waging a drone air war against a local branch of the Sunni Muslim militant group al Qaeda [al-CIAduh]. State news agency Saba, which is controlled by the Houthis, put the death toll at 137 and the number of wounded at 357.

Venezuela advert in US press demands Obama rescind 'national security threat' --New York Times advert accuses US of trying to 'govern Venezuela by decree' | 17 March 2015 | Venezuela's foreign ministry has demanded President Obama retract an executive order declaring the South American state a threat to US national security in a combative full-page advert published in the New York Times. The advertisement - published under the title: "Letter to the people of the United States: Venezuela is not a threat" - also demands the cancellation of sanctions against seven senior law enforcement and military officials, accused by the US of corruption and human rights violations.

Venezuelans March against Obama Threats --The march coincided with a vote in the Venezuelan Parliament on dealing with Obama's claims that the South American nation posed a security threat. | 15 March 2015 | Venezuelans took the streets of Caracas Sunday to reject U.S. threats and to support a new law passed to enable President Nicolas Maduro to respond to the latest aggression. Thousands attended the march, which was addressed by President Maduro, who described it as highlighting the unity of the Venezuelan people in the face of such external threats.

Gunmen storm Tunisian museum, kill two Tunisians, 17 foreign tourists | 18 march 2015 | Gunmen in military uniforms stormed Tunisia's national museum, killing 17 foreign tourists and two Tunisians on Wednesday...Visitors from Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain were among the dead in the noon assault on the Bardo museum near parliament in central Tunis, Prime Minister Habib Essid said. Security forces stormed the former palace around two hours later, killed two militants and freed other tourists held hostage inside, a government spokesman said. One policeman was killed in the police operation.

Court: NSA Spying May Continue Even If Congress Lets Authority Expire | 18 March 2015 | The National Security Agency may be allowed to continue scooping up American phone records indefinitely even if congressional authority for the program that allows it expires later this year, according to a recently declassified court order. The legal underpinning of the NSA's bulk collection of U.S. call data resides in a provision of the post-9/11 USA PATRIOT Act that is scheduled to sunset on June 1. The common understanding among lawmakers and the intelligence community is that the surveillance program will halt unless Congress reauthorizes Section 215 of the Patriot Act in some fashion. But a passage buried on the last pages of an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court declassified last week leaves open the door for the program--exposed publicly by Edward Snowden nearly two years ago--to continue even if lawmakers let Section 215 lapse.

The NSA's plan: improve cybersecurity by hacking everyone else | 21 March 2015 | The National Security Agency want to be able to hack more people, vacuum up even more of your internet records and have the keys to tech companies' encryption - and, after 18 months of embarrassing inaction from Congress on surveillance reform, the NSA is now lobbying it for more powers, not less. NSA director Mike Rogers testified in front of a Senate committee this wee, lamenting that the poor ol' NSA just doesn't have the "cyber-offensive" capabilities (read: the ability to hack people) it needs to adequately defend the US. How cyber-attacking countries will help cyber-defense is anybody's guess, but the idea that the NSA is somehow hamstrung is absurd.

Suspect in New Orleans airport machete attack dies; explosives found in bag | 21 March 2015 | The machete-wielding man who attacked two Transportation Security Agency workers at a New Orleans airport and was carrying a bag holding six Molotov cocktails has died, officials said. Richard White, 63, was pronounced dead Saturday afternoon, according to officials. He was shot multiple times by an officer, police said.

Machete-wielding suspect in New Orleans airport attack was carrying bag with 6 Molotov cocktails, officials say | 21 March 2015 | The machete-wielding man who attacked two Transportation Security Agency workers at a New Orleans airport was carrying a bag holding six Molotov cocktails, officials said. Officials said they don’t know what suspect Richard White intended to do with the homemade bombs or what triggered the incident. White, 62, chased the two Transportation Security Agency workers at New Orleans International Airport with a machete and wasp spray late Friday. He was shot multiple times by an officer, police said.

Police shoot man who attacked TSA agents at New Orleans airport | 21 March 2015 | A police officer shot a man who attacked three Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents while armed with a machete and wasp spray at a New Orleans airport on Friday night, officials said. Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told reporters that the man, who he identified as Richard White, approached the first agent at a boarding pass screening area of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport and sprayed the officer in the face with wasp repellent. White then pulled out the machete, which was tucked in his pants, and started swinging it.

Envelope mailed to White House tests 'presumptive positive' for cyanide | 17 March 2015 | An envelope mailed to the White House tested "presumptive positive" for cyanide and will undergo more testing to confirm the results, the U.S. Secret Service said on Tuesday. The agency charged with protecting the president said the envelope, which was received on Monday at the White House Mail Screening Facility, initially tested negative. Biological testing on Tuesday "returned a presumptive positive for Cyanide," the Secret Service said in a statement, adding the sample was then sent to another facility to confirm the results.

Flight Returns to DC 'as Passenger Yells Jihad' | 17 March 2015 | A United Airlines flight from Washington DC to Denver has returned to Dulles International Airport after a passenger started yelling "Jihad! Jihad!", according to news reports. An airline spokesman said Flight 1074 returned after take-off on Monday evening as a passenger failed to comply with crew instructions. According to the New York Daily News, the man was subdued by fellow passengers. The newspaper cited witnesses saying the man had yelled "jihad" during the disturbance.

Social media threat puts North Texas school district on high alert | 18 March 2015 | A social media threat led to extra security precautions in a North Texas school district Wednesday morning. More than a thousand students passed through metal detectors after police said a juvenile threatened to shoot up Princeton High School Tuesday using an app called Burnbook. Though the threat was aimed at Princeton High School, the entire district was on high alert. Extra police officers were brought in to patrol and check book bags.

W.H.O. Report Links Ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup to Cancer | 20 March 2015 | The world's most widely-used weed killer can "probably" cause cancer, the World Health Organization said on Friday. The organization's cancer arm, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, said glyphosate, the active ingredient in the Monsanto herbicide Roundup, was "classified as probably carcinogenic to humans." It also said there was "limited evidence" that glyphosate was carcinogenic in humans for non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

52 Congress members sign letter warning of GMOs killing monarch butterflies | 18 March 2015 | Dozens of House Democrats have signed onto a letter sent to President Obama claiming that the spread of GM crops is leading to the death of monarch butterflies. The letter, authored by Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, says that the butterflies are "in peril of being lost to the history books" in large part because of the "virtual eradication" of milkweed plants from their primary breeding grounds in the Midwest. The milkweed eradication, the letter states, has come primarily from the "widespread spraying of herbicides in agricultural areas" where the plants were once bountiful.

Two more U.S. healthcare workers repatriated for Ebola monitoring | 19 March 2015 | The last two members of a group of U.S. healthcare workers whose colleague is being treated for the Ebola virus returned on Wednesday from Sierra Leone to the United States, where they are being monitored for possible exposure to the deadly virus. Their repatriation brought the total number of Americans brought back from the West African nation to 18 since last Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday night.

16 Americans Coming Back From the Ebola Zone | 17 March 2015 | At least 15 Americans were exposed to Ebola from a single, infected U.S. healthcare worker and have been brought back to the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday. They all work for Partners in Health, a nonprofit group that's been helping fight the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Over the weekend, Partners in Health said 10 of its staffers might have been exposed to the often deadly virus when they were trying to help the patient -- who hasn't been identified and who's in critical condition at the National Institutes of Health outside Washington, D.C.

Ebola patient in critical condition at NIH in Bethesda | 17 March 2015 | An American health worker who contracted the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone is in critical condition at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, officials said Monday. The person had arrived at the hospital Friday in serious condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Saturday at least 10 health workers from a Boston nonprofit were being evacuated from Sierra Leone for potential Ebola exposure.

House Republican Budget Privatizes-Voucherizes Medicare, Slashes Medicaid, and Repeals the Health Law | 17 March 2015 | House Republicans on Tuesday unveiled a proposed budget for 2016 that partly privatizes Medicare, turns Medicaid into block grants to the states, repeals the Affordable Care Act and reaches balance in 10 years. The House proposal leans heavily on the policy prescriptions that Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin (R-Sociopath) outlined when he was budget chairman. Future recipients of Medicare would be offered voucherlike "premium support" to pay for private insurance rather than government-provided health care. Spending on Medicaid would be cut substantially over 10 years, with the money turned into block grants to state governments, which in turn would have much more flexibility in deciding how it is allocated. The House budget includes 94 billion to fight the "global war on [US-fomented] terrorism" in 2016, 43 billion more than Mr. Obama has requested.

Ted Cruz to announce presidential bid Monday | 21 March 2015 | Sen. Ted Cruz (R) plans to announce Monday that he will run for president of the United States, according to his senior advisers, accelerating his already rapid three-year rise from a tea party insurgent in Texas into a divisive political force in Washington. Cruz, scheduled to speak Monday at a convocation ceremony at Liberty University in Virginia, will not form an exploratory committee but rather launch a presidential bid outright, said advisers with direct knowledge of his plans, who spoke on condition of anonymity because an official announcement had not been made yet.

Local CT Officials Say Bill Would Preclude Local Control Near Transit Stations | 16 March 2015 | Local officials and groups that represent municipalities are sounding the alarm over a bill they fear would strip towns and cities of control over development near train and CTfastrak stations. At issue is legislation proposed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy to create a new quasipublic agency called the Connecticut Transit Corridor Development Authority. The authority...is intended to assist and promote development within a half-mile radius of transit stations. But the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the City of New Haven, Republicans on the town council in Newington (home to two CTfastrak stations), and others worry that the legislation as now written would undermine local zoning and decision-making authority.

FBI Investigating Hanging Death of Black Man in Mississippi | 19 March 2015 | Federal and state authorities are investigating the hanging death of a black man Mississippi who had been missing for more than two weeks, the FBI said Thursday. The investigation involves the FBI, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the United States Attorney's office. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is also involved.

Cyclone Olwyn: Aboriginal people denied access to cyclone shelter | 17 March 2015 | Five elderly Aboriginal people with medical conditions were declined access for up to seven hours from the Carnarvon cyclone shelter and hospital, ahead of the impact of Severe Tropical Cyclone Olwyn, the CEO of the Aboriginal medical service says. "They were told to go to the hospital, the hospital declined. And then they were told to go to the evac (evacuation) centre where they were also declined," said Shane Van Styn, the CEO of the Carnarvon Aboriginal Medical Service (CAMS).

Man, 20, Is Arrested in the Shooting of 2 Officers in Ferguson --Protesters had criticized police officials for suggesting that the shooting was linked to them. | 15 March 2015 | A 20-year-old suspect was charged Sunday with shooting two police officers during a protest outside Police Headquarters here Thursday. Law enforcement officials said the man, Jeffrey L. Williams, claimed to have been targeting someone other than the officers and shot them by accident from inside a car. Mr. Williams was arrested late Saturday and charged with first-degree assault in connection with the shooting, which had ratcheted up tensions between the police and protesters here.

Florida conservationists report record numbers of manatees | 16 March 2015 | Conservationists making an annual count of Florida's manatees said Monday they have tallied a record 6,000 -- a number that reflects years of effort to protect the marine mammals. "The high count this year shows that our long-term conservation efforts are working," said Richard Corbett, chairman of the state's Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC). The director of the FWC's research arm, Gil McRae, said that Florida's environmentalists are particularly heartened by latest evidence that the manatee population is flourishing, despite "large-scale mortality events that resulted in over 800 deaths in 2013."

Babies' first snow: Over-excited polar bear cubs caught on camera playfighting with each other and climbing all over mom | 17 March 2015 | These are the adorable images of a set of polar bear cubs seeing the world for the first time. Despite temperatures reaching -50C, the excitable cubs played in the snow - even during a blizzard - rolling around and climbing on top of their mother. Photographer Andy Skillen tracked down the family at Wapusk National Park in Manitoba, Canada, and followed the family for two days.

*****

CLG needs your support.

http://www.legitgov.org/donate.html

Or, please mail a check or m*ney order to CLG: Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG)
P.O. Box 1142
Bristol, CT 06011-1142
Contributions to CLG are not tax deductible.

Feel free -- and CLG encourages you -- to forward this newsletter to your lists and friends!
Those who wish to be added to the list can go here: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name