News Updates from CLG
23 April 2015
23 April 2015
http://www.legitgov.org/
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news
All links are here:http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news
Previous edition: Deal Reached on Fast-Track Authority for Obama's Secretive
TPP, which Yahoo relegated to the sp*m
bin.
Note: We are not sending doubles. The list-serve has a
technical problem (again) and will soon be fixed.
Radioactive Drone That Landed on Japan PM's Rooftop Also Carried
Cesium in Liquid Container, Investigators Say --Sources of radiation found on drone might be from
Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant - investigators | 23 April
2015 | The small drone carrying a trace amount [?!?] of radioactive cesium that
was discovered Wednesday morning on the rooftop helipad at the prime minister's
office could have landed there anytime after March 22, when the facility was
last used, investigative sources said Thursday...Meanwhile, sources of radiation
found on the drone might be from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, which
experienced three reactor-core meltdowns triggered by the March 2011 [events]
and spewed radioactive materials across wide areas of eastern Japan, the
investigators said. The drone, which measures about 50 cm wide, was found on the
roof at around 10:20 a.m. Wednesday. It was equipped with what appeared to be a
small camera, a smoke flare and emblazoned with a radiation symbol.
Investigators said they also detected trace amounts of radioactive cesium in a
liquid container attached to the device.
Drone 'containing radiation' lands on roof of Japanese PM's
office --Traces of radiation
reportedly detected on drone carrying camera and bottle with unidentified
contents | 22 April 2015 | Japanese authorities have launched an
investigation after a small drone reportedly containing traces of radiation was
found on the roof of the prime minister's office Wednesday, sparking concerns
about drones and their possible use for terrorist attacks. The drone was about
50cm in diameter and had four propellers, carrying a small camera and a plastic
bottle with unidentified contents inside, according to Tokyo's Metropolitan
police department. The drone was also decorated with a symbol that warns of
radioactive material, according to NHK.
Senate panel OKs Obama's secretive 'fast track' trade legislation,
but battle awaits in House | 22 April 2015
| President Barack Obama's trade corporate rule agenda
[drafted in secrecy by and for
corporations] narrowly passed an initial Senate test late
Wednesday, but many fellow Democrats hope to trip him in the House. The Senate
Finance Committee endorsed Obama's request for "fast track" legislation, which
would renew presidential authority to present trade deals that Congress can
endorse or reject but not amend. If the House and Senate eventually comply,
Obama is likely to ask them to approve the 12-nation Trans-Pacific
Partnership...Liberals, labor unions and other groups bitterly oppose these
trade measures, saying they would hurt U.S. jobs [and subjugate the US to the governance of the
trans-national corporations that drafted the
legislation].
Obama and Republicans Agree on the Trans-Pacific
Partnership...Unfortunately | 22 April 2015
| There's an important issue out there you may never have heard of, which is
just what its proponents would like. That's the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
currently being pushed by the Obama administration and its corporate (and mostly
Republican!) allies. It's a blatant attack on labor, farmers, food safety,
public health and even national sovereignty. And the details of the deal are
largely secret. Other than what's been leaked, the public has no access to its contents, and even members of
Congress don't know much. (On the other hand, "cleared advisers," mostly
corporate lawyers, have full access.)
Elizabeth Warren Fires Back at Obama: If You Want a Trade Deal, 'Let
Us See It' | 22 April 2015 | Senator
Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has been one of the loudest opponents to the Obama
administration's proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which earned her
a presidential rebuke on Hardball last night. Warren fired back on her website this morning, calling for the White House to release details of the
trade deal before Congress grants Obama fast track authority. "If the American people would be opposed to a trade agreement if
they saw it, then that agreement should not become the law of the United
States," she wrote Wednesday.
TPP allows for 'free flow of workers' between countries to create
cheap labor pool for corporations --'Unrestricted immigration' created by TPP - Dick
Morris | 20 April 2015 | On Newsmax TV's
"America's Forum" Monday, political commentator Dick Morris said the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) fast track being supported by many Republicans
has a provision that allows for the "free flow of workers" between countries,
essentially creating a backdoor to "unrestricted immigration." Morris said, "I
don't think that people understand that in this deal which is a trade agreement
among Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, the United States, Mexico,
Peru, and Chile, there's a provision for free flow of workers, just like in the
European Union. What It means is unrestricted immigration. It means literally
that Congress would not have the authority to restrict immigration because a
treaty supersedes a statute under our Constitution."
German activists turn out in force to protest TTIP trade
deal | 18 April 2015 | More than 200
demonstrations took place across Germany on Saturday as demonstrators marched to
protest at the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free
trade agreement currently being negotiated between the European Union and the
United States. Thousands of people attended rallies in cities and towns
including the capital, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Stuttgart. In all, some
600 anti-TTIP protests were planned across the world for Saturday.
US warships dispatched near Yemen | 20 April 2015 | The United States has dispatched its warships near
Yemen as Saudi Arabia's aggression continues against the Arab world’s poorest
country. US Central Command moved the ships due to the situation in Yemen, said
Colonel Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, on Monday, further denying reports
that the move aimed at the interception of Iranian ships present in the region.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon confirmed that the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and
the cruiser USS Normandy have been dispatched to the region. "Theodore Roosevelt
and Normandy have joined other U.S. forces conducting maritime security
operations in the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Aden, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb and the
Southern Red Sea," said a US Navy statement.
Two Saudi-led coalition air strikes in Yemen kill at least 40 people,
mostly civilians | 21 April 2015 | Two air
strikes in Yemen on Tuesday killed at least 40 people, most of them civilians
and wounded dozens of others, medical sources said. One strike hit a bridge in
central Ibb province as cars carrying militia members were driving on it,
residents said, killing at least 20 people, mostly civilians. Another, on a
security building in the city of Haradh near Yemen's border with Saudi Arabia,
killed 13 civilians and seven soldiers.
18 civilians killed, 300 wounded in Saudi airstrikes in
Sana'a | 20 April 2015
| At least 18 civilians have been killed in Saudi airstrikes on a missile depot
in the Yemeni capital city of Sana'a. According to Yemeni medics on Monday, 300
have been wounded and scores of nearby houses and vehicles were destroyed in the
attack hitting the Faj Attan district in the mountainous outskirts of the
capital, where the missile depot is located. Two of the dead and ten of the
wounded civilians were employees of the local television channel, al-yemen
al-Youm.
Bomb explodes at Spanish embassy in Libyan
capital | 20 April 2015 | A bomb exploded
in front of the Spanish embassy in the Libyan capital late on Monday, residents
said, the latest in a string of attacks on foreign missions in the North African
country. Spain's El Mundo newspaper said nobody had been hurt...Pictures posted
on social media showed some damage at the building's wall.
'Maidan snipers trained in Poland': Polish MP alleges special op in
Ukraine to provoke riot | 22 April 2015 |
Snipers who are thought to have operated in Kiev's Independence Square amidst
events that led to a coup in February 2014 were trained in Poland and sent to
Ukraine to "do a favor" for the US, a Polish Euro-MP claimed in an interview. On
February 20, 2014, riot police trying to restrain anti-government demonstrators
on Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kiev suddenly retreated up the street from whence
they had come. As the protesters rushed forward, gunfire suddenly broke out,
with many witnesses saying it was a sniper attack. In some two hours, 46 people
were killed.
Terror in the air as passengers 'start to pass-out' on airliner:
Pilot plunges jet into 7,000-ft-minute dive and lands - but cause remains a
mystery because investigators say cabin pressure did NOT
fail | 22 April 2015 | A SkyWest airlines
flight to Connecticut was diverted, descended steeply and made an emergency
landing in New York on Wednesday after two passengers lost consciousness and
others became lightheaded on Wednesday. A nurse who was one of 75 passengers
aboard the Connecticut-bound flight has revealed that, after helping the first
woman who passed out, she and others began to feel ill, which had the pilot
fearful a potentially deadly loss of pressure had occurred...The Federal
Aviation Administration said initial information indicated the Embraer E170 jet
may have had a pressurization problem, but that turned out to be
incorrect.
Jeb Bush Praises Obama's Expansion of NSA
Surveillance | 21 April 2015 | One of the
most glaring myths propagated by Washington -- especially the two parties' media
loyalists -- is that bipartisanship is basically impossible, that the two
parties agree on so little, that they are constantly at each other's throats
over everything. As is so often the case for Washington partisan propaganda, the
reality is exactly the opposite: from trade deals to Wall Street bailouts to a
massive National Security and Penal State, the two parties are in full agreement
on the bulk of the most significant D.C. policies...To illustrate how true this
all is, consider the comments today of leading GOP presidential candidate Jeb
Bush. He appeared on Michael Medved's conservative talk radio program, and was
asked by the host what his favorite part of the Obama administration has been. His
answer? As McClatchy noted, Bush hailed "Obama's enhancement of
NSA."
At Everglades, Obama sounds
alarm on global warming | 22 April 2015 |
President Obama looked out on the tall grasses of the Florida Everglades on
Wednesday and declared that the sweeping wetlands illustrate the dangers posed
by climate change global
warming. Obama visited the South Florida landmark to warn of the damage a
warming planet is already inflicting on the nation's environmental treasures --
and to hammer political opponents he says are doing far too little about it.
Obama's remarks were a not-so-veiled reference to allegations that Gov. Rick
Scott's (R) administration had banned use of the terms "climate change" and
"global warming."
Pharma fascism: California Senate committee approves school children
vaccine bill --Hundreds of
opponents again filled the committee room for Wednesday's vote. | 22
April 2015 | A California Senate committee has approved a bill that would
require California school children to be vaccinated. The Senate Education
Committee voted 7-2 Wednesday on the bill by Sen. Richard Pan, a Democratic
pediatrician from Sacramento, with votes from both Democrats and Republicans.
The proposal would eliminate California's personal-belief and religious
exemptions so unvaccinated children would not be able to attend public or
private schools. Medical waivers would only be available for children who have
health problems.
FBI admits forensic experts gave flawed evidence in death row
convictions | 19 April 2015 | Hundreds of
convicted criminals - some sentenced to death - could be released after the FBI
admitted that nearly every forensic examiner in one of their elite units
purposely gave flawed evidence. Of the team's 28 experts in the bureau's
Laboratory's microscopic hair comparison unit only two were found to have given
truthful testimony. The other 26 provided evidence that overstated forensic
matches in more than 95 per cent of criminal cases in the 1980s and 1990s to
favour the FBI's case.
Justice Department opens civil rights probe of Baltimore police in
suspect's death | 22 April 2015 | The
Justice Department said Tuesday it has opened a civil rights investigation into
the death of Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury
under mysterious circumstances after he was handcuffed and put in the back of a
police van. After the probe was announced, at least 1,000 people gathered at a
previously planned rally at the site of Gray's arrest. Protesters marched to a
police station a couple of blocks away, chanting and holding signs that read
"Black Lives Matter" and "No Justice, No Peace" -- slogans that have come to
embody what demonstrators believe is widespread mistreatment of blacks by
police.
Man died of spinal injury after being arrested by Baltimore
police | 20 April 2015 | City officials
suspended six police officers Monday as they investigate the death of a
25-year-old man who suffered a severe spinal cord injury while in police
custody. Freddie Gray had been hospitalized since his April 12 arrest and,
according to his attorney, was in a coma when he died Sunday. Mayor Stephanie
Rawlings-Blake (D - Fraud) and the police commissioner said an investigation
[sic] would be turned over to prosecutors by May 1 to determine whether criminal
charges are warranted.
Secret Koch memo outlines plans for 2016 | 23 April 2015 | The Koch brothers' political machine is expanding
into new states and recruiting new donors as it seeks to shape the Republican
Party -- and its presidential field -- headed into 2016, according to interviews
with multiple sources, as well as confidential donor briefing documents obtained
by POLITICO. The documents detail plans to beef up the network's state-of-the-art data
system, and pay hundreds of staff embedded in local
communities across the country in preparation for get-out-the-vote efforts that are unprecedented from a third-party group. The plan comes with
a 125 million 2015 budget for Americans for Prosperity, the most robust arm in
the network of small-government advocacy groups helmed by the billionaire
industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch.
Social Security not Chris Christie's bridge to
close | 20 April 2015 | I do not give Chris
Christie or anyone else permission to lower my Social Security benefits,
increase the age at which I can retire, or alter anything else about the
government "old age" program into which I was forcibly enrolled when I was 16
years old. If Washington wants to take actions like these, let it ask permission
from me and the hundreds of millions of other people who have paid, and are
still paying, into Social Security. I think I know what the answer will
be...Christie, the buffoon governor of New Jersey who actually thinks he should
be president, brought up Social Security last week.
Rand Paul's son cited for DUI after car crash in
Kentucky | 22 April 2015 | A son of
Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul has been cited for driving under the
influence of alcohol in Kentucky. Police in Lexington say William H. Paul was
driving a 2006 Honda Ridgeline at 11:24 a.m. on Sunday when he crashed into the
back of an unoccupied parked car. Some people nearby heard the crash and alerted
authorities.
Way out of touch and also out of their minds | 18 April 2015 | New York politicians beware. A revolution is in
progress. This past week angry and frustrated parents across the state kept
their third- through eighth-graders in astounding numbers from taking required
but despised standardized English tests...The revolution is showing the power
structure that it cannot keep poking the public in the eye with a sharp stick
over this unwanted Prussian model of public education with no noticeable gain
for all the pain. At some point, the public will grab that stick and shove it
where the sun does not shine. We're at that point.
Offspring of cold war-era crocodiles en route to Cuba from
Stockholm | 19 April 2015 | Cuba's efforts
to sustain the critically endangered Cuban crocodile are getting a boost from
Sweden, home to a pair of reptiles that Fidel Castro gave to a Soviet cosmonaut
four decades ago. A Stockholm zoo on Sunday is sending 10 of the couple's babies
to Cuba, where they will be placed in quarantine and eventually released into
the Zapata Swamp, said Jonas Wahlstrom, the zookeeper who raised them. The Cuban
crocodile, once found across the Caribbean, is restricted today to two swamps in
Cuba, where it is threatened by interbreeding with American crocodiles, habitat
loss and illegal hunting.
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