CLG: Secret Pentagon report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset, Live anthrax 'inadvertently' sent by U.S. military, Israel asking US for 50% increase - to reach $4.5bn - in next defense package

News Updates from CLG
28 May 2015

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

Previous edition: Fukushima leak 'could cause hydrogen explosion' at nuclear plant

Live anthrax 'inadvertently' sent by U.S. military | 28 May 2015 | Four Defense Department workers in the United States and up to 22 overseas have been put in post-exposure treatment, a defense official said, following the revelation the U.S. military 'inadvertently' shipped live anthrax samples in the past several days. CNN learned on Wednesday a Maryland-based lab received the live samples, which prompted an across-the-board urgent review to see whether any other live anthrax has been shipped. Officials are concerned because samples left over at the lab in Dugway, Utah, where the samples originated, were tested and determined to contain live agent. Pentagon spokesman, Col. Steve Warren, said one sample was also sent to the Joint United States Forces Korea Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition Program at Osan Air Base. [A drill gone live?]

Live anthrax shipped across states, to S. Korea 'by accident' - Pentagon | 28 May 2015 | The Pentagon says that live anthrax was 'inadvertently' shipped across state lines from a military lab in Utah to nine other states and a military base in South Korea. However, a Department of Defense spokesperson says the public is not at risk. [?!?] One unnamed US official also told Reuters that anthrax samples were being shipped out from two military facilities for over a year, from March 2014 to April 2015. These samples were mistakenly marked inactive, the official said. While the anthrax samples were first moved out of Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, they were later shipped from Edgewood Chemical Biological Center in Maryland to federal, private and academic facilities.

Secret Pentagon report reveals West saw ISIS as strategic asset | 23 May 2015 | A declassified secret US government document [US Defense Intelligence Agency document then classified as "secret," dated 12 August 2012] obtained by the conservative public interest law firm, Judicial Watch, shows that Western governments deliberately allied with al-Qaeda [al-CIAduh] and other Islamist extremist groups to topple Syrian President Bashir al-Assad. The document reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent Islamist groups to destabilize Assad, despite anticipating that doing so could lead to the emergence of an 'Islamic State' in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) [(I-CIA-SIS)]. According to the newly declassified US document, the Pentagon foresaw the likely rise of the 'Islamic State' as a direct consequence of the strategy, but described this outcome as a strategic opportunity to "isolate the Syrian regime."

Insane in the membrane: US infrastructure is *disintegrating,* but Israel needs to carry out more war crimes, so US taxpayers will fund the latter: Israel asking US for 50% increase - to reach $4.5bn - in next defense package | 26 May 2015 | Israel reportedly wants the US to increase its annual defense assistance package by half, to an average [eye-popping] 4.5 billion. Defense News reported this weekend that Israel and US officials have in recent months begun negotiations on the next 10-year aid package. The previous package, negotiated by the George W. Bush and Ehud Olmert governments in 2007, averaged 3 billion of assistance each year, for a total of 30 billion, from 2007-2017.

Australia's search for MH370 under scrutiny | 27 May 2015 | Nearly a year after embarking on a multi-million dollar quest to solve one of aviation's greatest unsolved mysteries, authorities and search teams are being criticised over their approach to finding Flight MH370 in the remote southern Indian Ocean. The Australian-led search, already the most expensive in aviation history, has found no trace of the Malaysia Airlines jet or its 239 passengers and crew, prompting calls for a rethink into the way the mission is conducted. Experts involved in past deep water searches say the search to find MH370 could easily miss the plane as Dutch company Fugro NV, the firm at the forefront of the mission, is using inappropriate technology for some terrain and inexperienced personnel for the highly specialized task of hunting man-made objects. [Check Diego Garcia.]

Supreme Court to consider redefining 'one-person, one-vote' principle [26 May 2015 | The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to define what it meant by "one person, one vote" a half century ago. The justices will consider a challenge brought by two rural voters in Texas who claim their state Senate ballots carry less weight than those cast in urban areas with large numbers of non-citizens ineligible to vote. Under the current system in nearly all states, state legislative districts are drawn with roughly equal populations. The standard dates back to decisions made by the Supreme Court in the early 1960s. [OMG. Apparently, predator/Koch troll Clarence Thomas wants to return to the days of King Henry VIII.]

Why Is the U.S. Desperate to OK Slavery in Malaysia? | 27 May 2015 | On Friday night, in an impressive display of dysfunction, the U.S. Senate approved a controversial trade corporate control bill with a provision that the White House, Senate leadership and the author of the language himself wanted taken out. The provision, which bars countries that engage in slavery from being part of major trade deals with the U.S., was written by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.). At the insistence of the White House, Menendez agreed to modify his language to say that as long as a country is taking "concrete" steps toward reducing human trafficking and forced labor, it can be part of a 'trade' deal. Under the original language, the country that would be excluded from the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership pact is Malaysia...Observers are left with a deeper question: Why, in the year 2015, is the White House teaming up with Republican leaders essentially to defend the practice of slavery?

TISA: Yet Another Leaked Treaty You've Never Heard of Makes Secret Rules for the Internet | 27 May 2015 | A February 2015 draft of the secret Trade In Services Agreement (TISA) was leaked again last week, revealing a more extensive and more recent text than that of portions from an April 2014 leak that we covered last year. Together with the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), TISA completes a trifecta of trade agreements that the administration could sign under Fast Track without full congressional oversight. Although it is the least well-known of those agreements, it is the broadest in terms of membership.

Rick Santorum runs for White House again | 27 May 2015 | Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who mounted an unexpectedly strong bid for the Republican nomination in 2012, is making another bid for the White House. Santorum launched his campaign on Wednesday evening from a factory in the blue collar town of Cabot, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, with a starkly populist tone. He said that not only "big government," but also "big business" had demolished the American middle class.

Nebraska Bans Death Penalty, Defying a Veto | 27 May 2015 | (Lincoln, NE) Nebraska on Wednesday became the first conservative state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty, with lawmakers defying their Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, a staunch supporter of capital punishment who had lobbied vigorously against banning it. After more than two hours of emotional speeches at the Capitol here, the Legislature, by a 30-to-19 vote that cut across party lines, overrode the governor's veto of a bill repealing the state’s death penalty law.

Hundreds Form Search Parties to Seek Survivors in Texas Floods | 27 May 2015 | (Wimberley, TX) They descended on this tiny town in the hundreds on Wednesday, volunteers who spread out on foot, in off-road vehicles and fanboats and even aboard private helicopters to search the wreckage and muck along normally idyllic rivers for seven people still missing three days after floodwaters ravaged the area...This was the largest of many search operations across a region that has been battered since Saturday by severe thunderstorms, flooding and tornadoes, leaving at least 19 people dead in Texas and Oklahoma and 14 in Mexico, with others missing and the toll expected to rise. Two more bodies were found Wednesday, including one of eight people who had been missing from a vacation house here that was carried off and dashed to pieces by the Blanco River.

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