"With America's drone capabilities expanding, the United Nations has stepped in and is demanding the US stop conducting unmanned airstrikes in Pakistan. The UN is calling the drone program a violation of the country's sovereignty and the attacks are being carried out without the consent of the people of Pakistan." Continue reading →
"Leaked audio recording of Bradley Manning describing his response to the July 12, 2007 Baghdad Apache airstrike video that documented the killing of two Reuters journalists." Continue reading →
"Bills being shopped in six states by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) would make it a crime to film animal abuse at factory farms or lie on job applications, in hopes of shutting down animal rights activists who infiltrate slaughterhouses to expose ghastly conditions. The proposals mandate that evidence of animal abuse be turned over to law enforcement within 48 hours, or face a financial penalty. Several of the bills also make it a crime to lie on slaughterhouse job applications, which activists commonly do in order to get footage like the content of a video published by the HSUS, embedded below." Continue reading →
"The Eurogroup held a teleconference this evening to take stock of the situation in Cyprus. The eurozone's decision-making institution on the euro is an informal committee of finance ministers. The committee has no official name. It has no official power. It is not voted into office. In the Lisbon Treaty, which went into effect on January 1, 2009, this no-name informal committee at last got its legal status. This no-name Committee promised Cyprus banks $13 billion worth of euros over the weekend, on its own authority, and answerable to no one in any European parliament, including the European Union. This is called democracy in Europe." Continue reading →
"The controversial tax is seen hitting Russian pockets hard, with experts estimating that Russian deposits in Cypriot banks amount to at least 15.4 billion euros of the estimated 67 billion euros of deposits held by Cyprus banks. Russian President Vladimir Putin criticised the proposed tax, describing it, according to a Kremlin spokesman, as 'unfair, unprofessional and dangerous'. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was equally forthright. 'We should say this directly: this simply looks like the confiscation of other people’s money,' Russian news agencies quoted him as saying. 'I do not know who the author of this idea is, but this is what it looks like.'" Continue reading →
"Over the weekend, Eurozone bureaucrats at a closed meeting came up with a plan. The committee demanded that the government of Cyprus impose a tax of 3% on all bank accounts under $130,000, and close to 10% on all accounts over $130,000. If the government refuses, the Eurozone will not provide a $13 billion bailout for the banks of Cyprus. The story is all over the European press, for good reason. The Eurocrats had always said that bank accounts would be sacrosanct. This announcement says, 'We lied.' But they also assured depositors that this will never happen again. 'Trust us.'" Continue reading →
"The usually reserved waitress at our favorite Greek-owned Sunday breakfast place approached us in dismay. Her daughter and son-in-law were escaping Greece for the US. Even middle class professionals were finding themselves digging in the garbage for food to eat, she said. Former Greek career diplomat Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos says that the government has hired Blackwater, the American private military firm infamous for its activities in Iraq, which now goes by the name 'Academi', along with five other international for-profit security outfits. He says bluntly: 'The Greek government does not trust the police whose salaries have also been cut.'" Continue reading →
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/03/greek-monopoly-as-designed-by-imf-and.html
"The Associated Press reports that eight former DEA administrators are urging the Obama administration to sue Washington and Colorado over their voter-approved moves toward marijuana legalization. Hopefully the administration will choose to ignore this thuggish recommendation. But if they do decide to litigate, this will be another sign that the feds don’t give a damn about the will of the people. Liberty-loving Americans should respond to this federal intrusion with a massive wave of civil disobedience. Let’s publicize the efforts of these authoritarians to undermine the voters of Colorado and Washington." Continue reading →
"A North Chicago police officer was charged on Saturday with two counts of reckless homicide and two counts of aggravated driving under the influence for his involvement in a three-car collision that killed two people. WMAQ-TV reported that Officer Terrel Garrett was been placed on administrative leave after the accident, in which Garrett was going the wrong way on on Lake Shore Drive on Friday morning when his SUV plowed into two other vehicles. Witnesses said Garrett was driving at more than 60 miles an hour at the time. Two college students, 25-year-old Joaquin Garcia and 27-year-old Fabian Torres, were killed at the scene." Continue reading →