From the Memory Hole: CIA Instructions to Media Assets re: Assassination of President Kennedy
RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report
This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination. Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachment.
Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:
To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to asset.
"Check out the link and read the whole "Memo" it was declassified in the 90's it is from CIA Document #1035-960, marked "PSYCH" for presumably Psychological Warfare Operations" Willy Bova
How to Cast a Ballot in Indiana if You Don't Have State-Issued Photo-ID...
For those wondering what a legally registered voter needs to do to successfully cast a ballot in Indiana --- now that their draconian polling place Photo ID restrictions have been upheld by the Supreme Court --- so that it might be counted, in the event the voter doesn't currently own a state-issued photo ID (no, military ID is not acceptable) we thought we'd offer a handy quick guide.
HBO Film Recount Relives Florida 2000 (Video)
Supreme Court Justice Antonin "get over it" Scalia likely won't be watching it, but HBO will be re-living the election that launched a thousand legal briefs -- and tens of thousands of touch-screen voting machines -- when it airs the new film Recount beginning May 25th.
The movie stars Kevin Spacey as Al Gore's former chief of staff, Ron Klain, and Laura Dern as Katherine Harris, the formidable former Florida secretary of state who certified George Bush the victor.
The uncredited star, of course, is the hanging, dangling, pregnant chads.....
After Records Reveal E-Voting Glitches, Florida Election Official Jokes She'll Stop Keeping Records
Kathy Dent, the election director in Sarasota County, Florida, was the target of controversy after the 2006 election when more than 18,000 ballots cast on ES&S touch-screen voting machines in her county showed no vote cast in the 13th congressional district race. The so-called undervote rate in that race was five times what is considered normal and resulted in two lawsuits filed by voters and the defeated candidate, Christine Jennings, who lost the congressional seat by fewer than 400 votes.
Documents that Wired.com obtained through a records request last year showed that voters in 19 precincts reported problems with the machines on Election Day, complaining that they had to press the ES&S screens repeatedly to cast their vote or that even after a machine registered their vote for Jennings on the ballot page, the vote had disappeared by the time they reached the review screen at the end of the ballot. Throughout the day, poll workers called in the complaints to Dent's office, where staff recorded the problems on the forms that Wired.com obtained.
Olbermann: McCain doesn't even play by his own ethical rules (Video)
Under the heading “Double Talk Express,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann reported on Monday that Sen. John McCain has twice crossed ethical guidelines laid down by his own campaign. “He’s such a maverick, he not only doesn’t play by other people’s rules, he doesn’t even play by his own rules,” stated Olbermann mockingly.
In the War Against Terrorism, Intelligence Drones On
Finding a "needle in a needle stack": That's how the head of Army intelligence training described the new challenge of spying in the war on terrorism. Searching for a "needle in a haystack" would be much easier, he says, because at least "there's a visible difference."
NYC Is Getting a New High-Tech Defense Perimeter. Let's Hope It Works
At the southernmost end of Brooklyn, just off Dead Horse Bay, there's a weather-beaten helipad where the New York Police Department keeps a gray unmarked twin-engine Bell 412 helicopter. Detective Brendan Galligan ushers me aboard. "We don't really let people see this," he says.
We climb in behind the pilot and find ourselves facing a console with three screens: One shows a map of the city; another, an interface for checking license plates and addresses; and the third, the view from a gyro-stabilized L-3 Wescam camera attached to the chopper's nose. The camera can see clear across the city, in both the visible and the infrared slices of the spectrum; then it can broadcast the images to police headquarters using an onboard microwave transmitter.
One-Stop Defense Shopping
The Government Accountability Office reported last month on how things are going with nearly 100 major U.S. defense systems. Not well, it seems. They have exceeded their original budgets and are, on average, almost two years behind schedule.
The GAO report lays bare a festering problem in our nation's military procurement system: Competition barely exists in the defense industry and is growing weaker by the day.
Michigan voters to decide on legal Medical Marijuana
When Michigan voters head to the polls this November, they'll have the chance to remove the legal hassles for tens of thousands of their neighbors whose pain and suffering caused by a dozen diseases can be eased with medical marijuana. A measure that will appear on the ballot there this fall would remove penalties for suffering patients who find their only relief from smoking a joint, eating a pot brownie or brewing tea with the infamous herb. A poll last month found two-thirds of Michiganders support the proposal, which would make their state the 13th to legalize medical marijuana.
US air force calls for mission to combat climate change
The US air force will this week call for the world's top scientists to come together in a 21st-century Apollo-style programme to develop greener fuels and tackle global warming. It wants universities, governments, companies and environmental groups to collaborate on a multibillion-dollar effort to work out greenhouse gas emissions of existing and future fuels.
He said controversy over the environmental impact of biofuels showed such an effort was needed to avoid making the situation worse: "If you look at the situation with bioethanol from corn, a lot of people saw that as a panacea, but now it seems that if you include the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions, the carbon footprint may be worse than people realised.
The Plunge Protection Team Turns 20
Some people foolishly think that Washington's recent high-profile effort to steer, subsidize and protect the American financial sector is the beginning of something new -- a revolutionary development.
It isn't. Consider that the President's Working Group on Financial Markets – nicknamed “the Plunge Protection Team” by The Washington Post in 1997 & ndash; quietly observed its 20th birthday on Mar. 18.
"Quietly,” in fact, is an understatement. “Semi-secretly” would be more like it. The Working Group, or PPT, is much-pondered but reclusive group that has declined to submit to the federal Freedom of Information Act or to testify in detail before Congress about its activities. This is true even though its current chief, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. – Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke is another prominent member -- made no secret of revving up its operations after he took took over at Treasury in 2006.
Electoral College road to the White House favors Democrats; McCain playing defense
The electoral road to the White House favors Democrats this fall — either Barack Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton — and has Republican John McCain playing defense to thwart a presidential power shift.
A downtrodden economy, the war in Iraq and a public call for change have created an Electoral College outlook and a political environment filled with extraordinary opportunity for the Democrats and enormous challenge for the GOP nominee-in-waiting.
Both parties count on victory in dozens of states that long have voted their way. The competition to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win is expected to play out primarily in 14 states. All but one saw the greatest action in 2004. The exception is Virginia, a longtime Republican stronghold where Democrats have made inroads.
With Bingaman Endorsement, Obama Takes Senate Support Lead
Sen. Barack Obama officially pulled ahead today in the scramble for endorsements from colleagues in the U.S. Senate, thanks to Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico.
Never one of the Senate's most high-profile members, Bingaman now has a claim to political fame: He put Obama over the top after his long slog to catch Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had a head start in winning the support of her peers. Obama now has 14 endorsements to Clinton's 13.
Court: Government Must Reveal Watch-List Status to Constantly Detained Americans
The Terrorist Screening Center, which runs the list, says it has been pruning the list and removing errant entries, even as the list grows by an estimated 20,000 names a month. While the TSC says the majority of the names on the list are foreigners, most of the people compared against the list are Americans, who are checked against the list when they are stopped for a traffic violation, enter or leave the country or fly domestically.
Additionally, the judge ruled that the state secrets privilege against disclosing sources and methods does apply to FBI investigative files and terrorism information in its TIDES database, but that the government should show those documents to the judge in secret, so the judge can decide what portions of those files can be safely released.
The Pentagon is Everywhere
In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower famously warned the country about the "unwarranted influence" of the "military-industrial complex." But back then, only a relative handful of companies did business with the Pentagon. Today, the military-industrial web is everywhere, Nick Turse writes in his new book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. And "it's nothing like the olive-drab outfit of Eisenhower's day: It reaches deeper into American lives and the American psyche than Eisenhower could ever have imagined. The truth is that, at every turn, in countless, not-so-visible ways [our day-to-day dealings are] wrapped up with the military."
The Pentagon's $1 Trillion Problem
The Defense Department has spent billions to fix its antiquated financial systems. So why does the Pentagon still have no idea where its money goes?
On a winter afternoon in Indianapolis, Jessica Hilligoss, a young Defense Department worker, types long strings of numbers and letters into a computer, helping the United States armed forces transfer the billions of dollars it draws each week from the Federal Reserve to contractors, vendors, and military and civilian personnel.
Her job is to review invoices for everything from construction projects to lawnmowing, and to approve payment. Within a few days, another computer system—behind locked doors in the building's basement—deposits the money in the recipients' bank accounts.
Activist Under FBI Investigation Found Dead in Lake, Hands and Legs Bound, Eyes Covered with Duct Tape; Police Leaning Toward Suicide Ruling
Austin police said Thursday that they are leaning toward a ruling of suicide in the death of a middle school teacher and activist whose body was found Wednesday in Lady Bird Lake with his hands and legs bound and tape over his eyes.
Police identified Riad Hamad, 55, at a news conference Thursday and said the binding of his limbs and the placement of the tape was consistent with Hamad having done it himself.
Who and What Is the Monsanto Chemical Corporation?
Who and what is the Monsanto Corporation? The Monsanto Chemical Company has a diverse and interesting history. Monsanto is the leading chemical producer for agricultural products. They manufacture the best-selling herbicide RoundUp (as well as other herbicides). They are also the producer of leading seed brands such as DEKALB and Asgrow and they are heavily involved in providing farmers and seed companies with the necessary biotechnology for insect protection and herbicide tolerance.
Monsanto is the creator and distributor of Bovine Growth Hormone (BST). They also have a long history with the soft drink industry in the manufacturing of both saccharin and aspartame (NutraSweet).
Suspicions grow that drugs were used in detainee interrogations
The Washington Post charged on Tuesday that detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been injected with drugs in the course of their interrogation. "At least two dozen other former and current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere say they were given drugs against their will or witnessed other inmates being drugged, based on interviews and court documents," the Post reports.
A Moroccan detainee released in 2004 also claimed he was given forcible injections, and Jose Padilla's lawyer has asserted that his client was given drugs against his will, possibly LSD or PCP. However, no charges of this nature have ever been proven.
Stewart: Clinton would win if Democrats were Republicans
Jon Stewart surveyed the aftermath of the inconclusive Pennsylvania Democratic primary on Wednesday’s Daily Show. Although he noted the overheated rhetoric of the media coverage, his sharpest jabs by far were aimed at Hillary Clinton.
“When the campaign started,” Stewart began, “the senator from New York was the clear front-runner.” He then offered a series of clips from Clinton’s speeches and interviews in which she offered an ever-shifting set of rationales for why she should still be considered the leading candidate, despite Obama’s victories.
Decriminalizing Cannabis would save $10 Billion per year
Jeffery A. Miron finds that by decriminalizing cannabis, the federal government would generate $2.4 billion in federal tax revenue annually, and that an additional $7.7 billion would be saved as the cost of incarceration, policing, and processing offenders. Now, that's too much money to for the human brain to fully conceptualize, given the air quality around April 20th, so your friends at the Prometheus Institute have provided this handy quantitive index in order to show exactly how much the U.S. can earn each year from cannabis decriminalization. The math: $2.4 billion per year + $7.7 billion per year = $10.1 billion gained in total per year. You're welcome.
The Republican War on Voting
Using the Department of Justice, friendly governors, and its usual propaganda outlets, the GOP has propagated the myth of voter fraud to purge the rolls of non-Republicans.
Revelations that U.S. attorneys were fired for their failure to successfully prosecute voter fraud have revealed how fictitious the allegations of widespread fraud actually were -- but the allegations haven't gone away. They live on in all the vote-suppressing laws and regulations that will likely affect this year's election, in GOP rhetoric and, most recently, in the arguments presented by champions of Indiana's restrictive voter-identification law in a case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Bush lawyer tangles with judge over wiretaps Attorney won't say if Congress can limit president's power
A Bush administration lawyer resisted a San Francisco federal judge's attempts Wednesday to get him to say whether Congress can limit the president's wiretap authority in terrorism and espionage cases, calling the question simplistic.
"You can't possibly make that judgment on the public record" without knowing the still-secret details of the electronic surveillance program that President Bush approved in 2001, Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino said at a crucial hearing in a wiretapping lawsuit.
Suspicions grow that drugs were used in detainee interrogations
The Washington Post charged on Tuesday that detainees at Guantanamo Bay may have been injected with drugs in the course of their interrogation. "At least two dozen other former and current detainees at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere say they were given drugs against their will or witnessed other inmates being drugged, based on interviews and court documents," the Post reports.
The CIA and the Defense Department have denied using drugs in interrogations and suggest that the detainees' stories "are either fabrications or mistaken interpretations of routine medical treatment."
Bush Reaffirms North American Union Agenda At Leaders' Summit
President Bush yesterday reaffirmed a commitment to progress the much maligned Security and Prosperity Partnership agenda, amid intensified opposition from commentators and critics concerned that the plan constitutes an undermining of national sovereignty.
Canadian PM Harper to U.S.: don't forget who has the oil
Prime Minister Stephen Harper waved a red flag Tuesday in the debate over NAFTA's future, warning Americans who want to reopen the accord that U.S. dependence on Canadian oil gives Canada a big bargaining chip.
Harper staked out his position as he joined presidents George W. Bush of the United States and Felipe Calderon of Mexico at a joint news conference to end their three-way summit that turned into a pep rally for keeping NAFTA intact in the face of threats from the Democratic presidential contenders to kill or rewrite it.
Canadian TransLink Cops Will Continue To Taser Fare Dodgers
Police patrolling Greater Vancouver's TransLink system will continue to Taser "non-compliant" passengers and fare dodgers a news conference heard Friday, providing more evidence to indicate that the notorious stun gun has become a tool of official oppression and torture.
Insp. Bob Huston told media Friday that the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority Police Service will allow officers to Taser non-threatening passengers at their own discretion following a complaint filed by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
Alaska Independence Movement
There are many potential Kosovos in the international community – a great number of these within the United States of America itself, where the Lakota people claim their right to a huge swathe of territory across the north of the country, the peoples of Aztlan in the south proclaim their right to independence and today, the Alaska Independence Movement presents its case in PRAVDA.Ru
"Political parties, both Republican and Democrat, dominate from Washington, D.C., and [don't] quite understand the political problems, or opportunities, in an arctic and subarctic country."
The Taxpayer Frog In the IRS Pot
You know the story. Put a frog in hot water and he'll jump out, but put him in cooler water and slowly raise the heat and he'll stay in even as he boils to death. Are we frogs starting to boil in government stew? In the midst of a Presidential campaign where we seem to be deciding who's universal health care is more universal and who's global climate policy is more global, maybe it's time to check the temperature of the pot we're in.
The nature of the slow boil is that short-term changes are not detectable. So let's look at a longer term to see just how much hotter it's become. Let's look at the last century and compare its beginning with its end and to current time.
HILLARY'S PENNSYLVANIA WIN: TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE
Hillary Clinton refuses to die. Having been given up for dead after losing Iowa, she rebounded in New Hampshire. Then a string of 11 straight consecutive losses - followed by a win in Ohio and a tie (in delegates) in Texas. Now, she's won Pennsylvania. Problem is, it doesn't mean anything.
Because of the Democratic Party's arcane proportional-representation rules, her win stands to give her a net gain of 10 to 15 delegates when all is counted. That means that Barack Obama will fall from a lead of 161 in elected delegates to about 145 or so. Big deal.
TPMtv: Pennslyvania Post-Game (Video)
Your Daily Politics Video Blog: Hillary Clinton achieved a solid win in the Pennsylvania Primary Tuesday night, but just how much does her 10-point win change the look of the Democratic nomination battle? We break down some numbers in today's episode of TPMtv.
Maureen Dowd: Wilting Over Waffles
He’s never going to shake her off. Not all by himself.
The very fact that he can’t shake her off has become her best argument against him. “Why can’t he close the deal?” Hillary taunted at a polling place on Tuesday.
She’s been running ads about it, suggesting he doesn’t have “what it takes” to run the country. Her message is unapologetically emasculating: If he does not have the gumption to put me in my place, when superdelegates are deserting me, money is drying up, he’s outspending me 2-to-1 on TV ads, my husband’s going crackers and party leaders are sick of me, how can he be trusted to totally obliterate Iran and stop Osama?
Bush goes to NAFTA (NAU) Summit in New Orleans
The second reason Bush has kept this major summit a virtual secret is its real agenda - and the real agenda-makers. The names and faces of the guys who called the meeting must remain as far out of camera range as possible: The North American Competitiveness Council.
Never heard of The Council? Well, maybe you’ve heard of the counsellors: the chief executives of Wal-Mart, Chevron Oil, Lockheed-Martin and 27 other multinational masters of the corporate universe.
And why did the landlords of our continent order our presidents to a three-nation pajama party? Their agenda is “harmonization.”
House Dems, Ron Paul targeted over Surveillance Votes
New radio ads are running in districts of several Democratic members of Congress, as well as Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul, targeting the lawmakers for their opposition to a White House-backed surveillance bill. The ads play on national security fears in an attempt to spur these lawmakers to give in to the administration's demands.
Critics of the administration-backed bill say it does not guarantee enough civil liberties protections and would eliminate oversight of President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program.
We Have A Winner! Bush Gets Highest Gallup Disapproval Rating Ever
President Bush has reached a new milestone: He now has the highest disapproval ratings ever of any president in the 70-year history of the Gallup poll.
The newest ratings: Approve 28%, Disapprove 69%. The previous high disapproval was held by Harry Truman during the depths of the Korean War in 1952, at 67%.
Obama site hacked; Redirected to Hillary Clinton
With a day to go before a critical Pennsylvania Democratic primary, Barack Obama’s team has been busy patching security holes.
According to Netcraft, a hacker exploited security flaws in Obama’s site to redirect traffic to Hillary Clinton’s site. Anyone that visited Obama’s community blogs section of the site was sent to Clinton.
Hillary Clinton on Countdown (Video)
Senator Hillary Clinton joined MSNBC host Keith Olbermann for a lengthy interview on this evening's broadcast of Countdown. Clinton offered a clarification on her "umbrella of deterrence" remark from last week's debate, noting that she'd offer to bring in any country in the region "that might be intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran because they were nuclear power."
She triangulated her way around other pressing matters, such as the inclusion of images of Osama bin Laden in a new ad (termed a "bloody shirt" and a "scare tactic" by Olbermann, Clinton said "that ad is about leadership")
THE VEEPSTAKES
No sooner had John McCain wrapped up the Republican presidential nomination than the inevitable speculation started over his running mate. Indeed, the Arizona senator has done nothing to quiet this quadrennial guessing game, noting he has a list of 20 prospects. ¶ And while the Democratic race is proceeding at fever pitch, that has not prevented talk about whether Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would combine on a "dream ticket" or, if not, who would be a logical political partner for each.
Election Fraud in Pennsylvania?
Almost 90 percent of Pennsylvanians will vote using touch screen voting machines that have no paper record of votes cast. Once you touch the screen, the machine can count your vote any way it's programmed. It can even give you a receipt indicating you voted for Smith and count your vote for Jones. These touch screens total their own votes, invisibly and without any outside checks. We can't watch and even if we could, we wouldn't know what to look for. Our election boards routinely sign contracts agreeing that the computer programs that count our votes are the trade secrets of the e-voting machine companies, no peeking. The companies even "refuse to promise that their products will work."
White House challenges release of visitor logs
A federal appeals court sought compromise Monday between a liberal group demanding the names of White House visitors and the Bush administration, which says releasing the names would erode the president's power.
If released, the documents would show how often prominent religious conservatives visited the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence, allowing a glimpse into how much influence they exerted on government policy.
New anti-terrorism rules 'allow US to spy on British motorists'
Routine journeys carried out by millions of British motorists can be monitored by authorities in the United States and other enforcement agencies across the world under anti-terrorism rules introduced discreetly by Jacqui Smith.
The discovery that images of cars captured on road-side cameras, and "personal data" derived from them, including number plates, can be sent overseas, has angered MPs and civil liberties groups concerned by the increasing use of "Big Brother" surveillance tactics.
Us Military pays $88 per day for Gasoline per service member in Iraq
hink you're being gouged by Big Oil? U.S. troops in Iraq are paying almost as much as Americans back home, despite burning fuel at staggering rates in a war to stabilize a country known for its oil reserves.
Military units pay an average of $3.23 a gallon for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, some $88 a day per service member in Iraq, according to an Associated Press review and interviews with defense officials. A penny or two increase in the price of fuel can add millions of dollars to U.S. costs.
North American leaders meet for summit of under-fire NAFTA
The leaders of Canada, Mexico and the United States meet here Monday for the annual summit of the North American Free Trade Agreement, amid sharp criticism of the pact in the US presidential race.
As US President George W. Bush meets with his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper in New Orleans, US workers' unions and the Democratic White House hopefuls have lambasted NAFTA.