August 29, 2014

BREAKING: Restrictive Texas Abortion Law Blocked by Judge

Source: Associated Press

@AP: BREAKING: Federal judge blocks Texas law that would stop abortions at majority of facilities statewide.

Restrictive Texas abortion law blocked by judge

AP
Aug 29, 2014 5:55 PM EDT
A federal judge has blocked a Texas law that would stop abortions at majority of facilities statewide.

Story developing ...

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/restrictive-texas-abortion-law-blocked-by-judge

August 27, 2014

‘Sons of Guns’ Reality Show Star Will Hayden Arrested for Rape of Daughter

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/27/gun-store-reality-show-star-will-hayden-arrested-for-rape-of-11-year-old-child

‘Sons of Guns’ reality show star Will Hayden arrested for rape of 11-year-old child

By David Ferguson
Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:24 EDT

The star of the Discovery Channel’s reality show Sons of Guns was arrested Tuesday on charges of aggravated rape of his daughter.

According to FoxNews.com, the East Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sheriff’s Department confirmed that Hayden is accused of raping his 14-year-old daughter in a series of assaults that began with him taking her virginity at the age of 11.

TMZ reported that Hayden’s daughter is backing up the allegations, claiming that her father forced her to participate in oral and vaginal sex “almost daily” for the past three years.

When asked why she didn’t report the sexual assaults earlier, the girl said that she was afraid her father would hurt her.

“Don’t tell them nothing,” he reportedly told her, “because I’m all you’ve got.”

Sons of Guns is a five-season reality program that centers around Hayden’s business, Red Jacket Firearms, which sells, builds, designs and repairs guns. Red Jacket specializes in weapons fabrication and modification.

MORE

August 27, 2014

Walmart Video Shows John Crawford Was Shot on Sight By Cops With No Warning, Family Attorneys Say

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/26/1324793/-Video-Shows-John-Crawford-Was-Shot-on-Sight-By-Cops-With-No-Warning-Family-Attorneys-Say

Walmart Video Shows John Crawford Was Shot on Sight By Cops With No Warning, Family Attorneys Say

Aug 26, 2014 2:13pm PDT by Steven D
212 352
John Crawford was the unfortunate black man holding a BB gun in the toy section of a Walmart Store in Beavercreek, OH, when police, in response to several 911 calls, shot and killed him on August 5, 2014. Police have maintained that Crawford was waving the BB gun around in a threatening manner when they arrived and refused their commands to drop the "weapon" (even though Ohio is an "open carry" state), thus requiring his execution style death by cop.

However, Ohio Attorney General Mike Dewine, who assigned the case investigating the police homicide of Mr. Crawford to a special prosecutor, recently allowed family members and their attorneys to view the surveillance tape from the store that shows the moments up to and including John Crawford's shooting death by police. After viewing that tape, the family's attorneys and Crawford's father dispute the police account of this incident in no uncertain terms:


This is extremely troubling news. Much like the case of Michael Brown, the family has been complaining that leaks about the investigation have benefited the police shooters and denigrated John Crawford's character.

MORE

August 26, 2014

Breaking: Irreversible Damage Seen From Climate Change in UN Leak

Source: Bloomberg News

Irreversible Damage Seen From Climate Change in UN Leak

By Alex Morales
August 26, 2014 11:52 AM EDT

Humans risk causing irreversible and widespread damage to the planet unless there’s faster action to limit the fossil fuel emissions that cause climate change, according to a leaked draft United Nations report.

Global warming already is impacting “all continents and across the oceans,” and further pollution from heat-trapping gases will raise the likelihood of “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems,” according to the document obtained by Bloomberg.

“Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally,” the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in the draft.

The study is the most important document produced by the UN about global warming, summarizing hundreds of papers. It’s designed to present the best scientific and economic analysis to government leaders and policymakers worldwide. It feeds into the UN-led effort drawing in more than 190 nations for an agreement on limiting emissions.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-26/irreversible-damage-seen-from-climate-change-in-un-leak.html

August 25, 2014

ICREACH: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

@ggreenwald: ICREACH has records on "millions of records on American citizen" & is shared "with domestic agencies like the FBI" https://t.co/1p09R1AylM/s/NKYu

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/08/25/icreach-nsa-cia-secret-google-crisscross-proton/

The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

By Ryan Gallagher

25 Aug 2014, 1:09 PM EDT

The National Security Agency is secretly providing data to nearly two dozen U.S. government agencies with a “Google-like” search engine built to share more than 850 billion records about phone calls, emails, cellphone locations, and internet chats, according to classified documents obtained by The Intercept.

The documents provide the first definitive evidence that the NSA has for years made massive amounts of surveillance data directly accessible to domestic law enforcement agencies. Planning documents for ICREACH, as the search engine is called, cite the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration as key participants.

ICREACH contains information on the private communications of foreigners and, it appears, millions of records on American citizens who have not been accused of any wrongdoing. Details about its existence are contained in the archive of materials provided to The Intercept by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Earlier revelations sourced to the Snowden documents have exposed a multitude of NSA programs for collecting large volumes of communications. The NSA has acknowledged that it shares some of its collected data with domestic agencies like the FBI, but details about the method and scope of its sharing have remained shrouded in secrecy.

- snip -

Legal experts told The Intercept they were shocked to learn about the scale of the ICREACH system and are concerned that law enforcement authorities might use it for domestic investigations that are not related to terrorism.

“To me, this is extremely troublesome,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. “The myth that metadata is just a bunch of numbers and is not as revealing as actual communications content was exploded long ago—this is a trove of incredibly sensitive information.”

MORE

August 25, 2014

Gov. Christie Shifted Pension Cash to Wall Street, Costing New Jersey Taxpayers $3.8 Billion

Source: International Business News

@davidsirota: Docs show @GovChristie's move to give Wall St pension cash has cost taxpayers $3.8B - or $1200 for every NJ household http://t.co/JFnwBSgI3t/s/1juV

Gov. Christie Shifted Pension Cash to Wall Street, Costing New Jersey Taxpayers $3.8 Billion

By David Sirota@davidsirotad.sirota@ibtimes.com

on August 25 2014 8:16 AM

Gov. Chris Christie's administration openly acknowledged that more New Jersey taxpayer dollars were going to land in the coffers of major financial institutions. It was 2010, and Christie had just installed a longtime private equity executive, Robert Grady, to manage the state's pension money. Grady promoted a plan to put more of those funds into riskier investments managed by Wall Street firms. Though this would entail higher fees, Grady said the strategy would "maximize returns while appropriately managing risk."

Four years later, New Jersey has secured only half the promised results. The state has sent more pension money to big-name Wall Street firms like Blackstone, Third Point, Omega Advisors, Elliott Associates and Grady's old firm, The Carlyle Group. Additionally, the amount of fees the state pays financial managers has more than tripled since Christie assumed office. New Jersey is now one of America’s largest investors in hedge funds.

The “maximized returns” have yet to materialize.

Between fiscal year 2011 and 2014, the state’s pension trailed the median returns for similarly sized public pension systems throughout the country, according to data from the financial analysis firm, Wilshire Associates. That below-median performance has cost New Jersey taxpayers billions in unrealized gains and has left the pension system on shaky ground. Meanwhile, New Jersey is now paying a quarter-billion dollars in additional annual fees to Wall Street firms -- many of whose employees have financially supported Republican groups backing Christie’s reelection campaign.


Between 2009 and 2013, New Jersey has paid an additional $439 million in fees to Wall Street International Business TImes/Hanna Sender
Those who originally opposed the state's shifting of pension funds into hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate and other “alternative investments” see the below-average returns as no accident but an inevitable byproduct of the strategy: The Christie administration has effectively taken money from retired state workers and delivered the cash to Wall Street money managers.

Read more: http://www.ibtimes.com/gov-christie-shifted-pension-cash-wall-street-costing-new-jersey-taxpayers-38-billion-1667622

August 25, 2014

VIDEO: Final Sequence "Oh! What A Lovely War" Directed by Richard Attenborough

In 1969, Attenborough directed the film adaption of the 1963 theatre production. The musical, which was inspired by and used period songs, essentially reveals how World War I was started on lies.

August 21, 2014

LA to Settle Police-Death Lawsuit For $5 Million (Unarmed, Disabled)

Source: Associated Press

LA TO SETTLE POLICE-DEATH LAWSUIT FOR $5 MILLION
Aug. 20, 2014 9:56 PM EDT
You are here
Home » Los Angeles » LA to settle police-death lawsuit for $5 million

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to pay $5 million to the family of an unarmed, disabled man who was killed by police in a shooting captured on live television.

- snip -

Beaird, a 51-year-old National Guard veteran, led authorities on a nearly hour-long chase after they tried to stop him for reckless driving.

Driving a silver Corvette, Beaird ran red lights and stop signs before hitting a car in a downtown intersection and seriously injuring the other driver. The vehicle then spun out onto a sidewalk.

Beaird's father, Billy Beaird, watched live on television as his son staggered out of the car, briefly raised his hands and was shot several times.

- snip -

- snip -

"It implicitly says they acknowledge that the shooting was inappropriate and should not have happened," he said. However, "it seems to take a video to really force their hand in settling a case like this," Galipo added.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/la-settle-police-death-lawsuit-5-million

August 20, 2014

ACLU: First Amendment ‘Suspended in Ferguson’

Source: MSNBC

ACLU: First Amendment ‘suspended in Ferguson’

08/19/14 02:54 PM—UPDATED 08/19/14 05:29 PM

By Irin Carmon

Police in Ferguson, Mo., on Monday began telling protesters – who have been gathered for days demanding justice for the death of an unarmed teenager at the hands of police – that they were no longer allowed to stand in place for more than five seconds, but had to keep moving.

“When inquiries were made to law enforcement officers regarding which law prohibits gathering or standing for more than five seconds on public sidewalks,” the ACLU of Missouri wrote in its emergency federal court filing to block the apparent policy, “the officers indicated that they did not know and that it did not matter. The officers further indicated that they were following the orders of their supervisors, whom they refused to name.” The ACLU argued the policy was a prior restraint on speech and asked for a temporary restraining order.

“The attorney general came to court via phone and announced that there was an alternative speech zone that was being set up,” Tony Rothert, the legal director of the ACLU of Missouri, told msnbc. That satisfied the judge, who agreed it was a close call but denied the ACLU’s request to block the policy.

So where and what was that free speech zone? “It’s supposed to be at the intersection of Ferguson and Florissant,” Rothert said. “There is a field there, but it is padlocked and no one can get in.”

Read more: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/aclu-first-amendment-suspended-ferguson

August 19, 2014

@jeremyscahill: Confirmed: @the_intercept reporter @rdevro has been handcuffed & placed (Ferguson)

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/19/intercept-reporter-detained-covering-ferguson-protests/

VOICES
Intercept Reporter Detained While Covering Ferguson Protests

By John Cook

19 Aug 2014, 3:50 AM EDT 3

Intercept reporter Ryan Devereaux was detained this morning while on the ground covering the protests in Ferguson, Mo. According to St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer David Carson, who witnessed the apprehension, Ryan and a German reporter he was with were both taken into custody by members of a police tactical team. They were handcuffed and placed in a wagon, and Carson was told they were being taken to St. Louis County jail.

We haven’t been able to reach officials with the St. Louis County Police Department or Ferguson Police Department to find out if Ryan has been arrested or charged, or under what pretext he was detained. But needless to say, it’s an outrage that he was stopped and handcuffed by police in the course of lawfully doing his job on the streets of Ferguson. We are trying to contact Ryan now.

At a press conference early this morning, Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson told reporters in Ferguson that 31 arrests had been made, including members of the “criminal element” from “as far away as New York.” When asked by a reporter if any of those 31 had been reporters, he immediately–and falsely–replied, “these people were not journalists that were arrested.”

But he quickly admitted that in the “chaos” of the protests, officers may not be able to distinguish between reporters and other bystanders: “So yes, we may take some of you into custody. But when we do take you into custody, and we have found out that you are a journalist, we have taken the proper action.” This begs the question as to why police would be compelled to arrest an otherwise law-abiding non-journalist simply for attending a protest. But we insist that the St. Louis County Police Department, Ferguson Police Department, and Missouri Highway Patrol take the proper action and release Ryan Devereaux immediately.