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Waterboarding, Interrogations: The CIA's $1,000 a Day Specialists
2009-04-30, ABC News
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7471217

According to current and former government officials, the CIA's secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington. Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates. Both men declined to speak to ABC News citing non-disclosure agreements with the CIA. But sources say Jessen and Mitchell together designed and implemented the CIA's interrogation program. "It's clear that these psychologists had an important role in developing what became the CIA's torture program," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union. Former U.S. officials say the two men were essentially the architects of the CIA's 10-step interrogation plan that culminated in waterboarding. Associates say the two made good money doing it, boasting of being paid a $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the techniques on top al Qaeda suspects at CIA secret sites. Both Mitchell and Jessen were previously involved in the U.S. military program to train pilots how to survive behind enemy lines and resist brutal tactics if captured. But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them. The new documents show the CIA later came to learn that the two psychologists' waterboarding "expertise" was probably "misrepresented" and thus, there was no reason to believe it was "medically safe" or effective. The waterboarding used on al Qaeda detainees was far more intense than the brief sessions used on U.S. military personnel in the training classes.

Note: For lots more on CIA torture and other recent government attacks on civil liberties, click here.

Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild
2009-04-30, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-swine-reality30-2009apr30,0,360...

As the World Health Organization raised its infectious disease alert level Wednesday and health officials confirmed the first death linked to swine flu inside U.S. borders, scientists studying the virus are coming to the consensus that this hybrid strain of influenza -- at least in its current form -- isn't shaping up to be as fatal as the strains that caused some previous pandemics. In fact, the current outbreak of the H1N1 virus, which emerged in San Diego and southern Mexico late last month, may not even do as much damage as the run-of-the-mill flu outbreaks that occur each winter without much fanfare. "Let's not lose track of the fact that the normal seasonal influenza is a huge public health problem that kills tens of thousands of people in the U.S. alone and hundreds of thousands around the world," said Dr. Christopher Olsen, a molecular virologist who studies swine flu at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine in Madison. Flu viruses are known to be notoriously unpredictable, and this strain could mutate at any point -- becoming either more benign or dangerously severe. But mounting preliminary evidence from genetics labs, epidemiology models and simple mathematics suggests that the worst-case scenarios are likely to be avoided in the current outbreak. "This virus doesn't have anywhere near the capacity to kill like the 1918 virus," which claimed an estimated 50 million victims worldwide, said Richard Webby, a leading influenza virologist at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn.

Note: For lots more on bird and swine flu scares, click here.

The State-Secrets Privilege, Tamed
2009-04-30, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/opinion/30thu1.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pag...

Of the many ways that the Bush administration sought to evade accountability for its violations of the law and the Constitution under the cover of battling terrorism, one of the most appalling was its attempt to use inflated claims of state secrecy to slam shut the doors of the nation’s courthouses. Sadly, the Obama administration also embraced this tactic, even though President Obama criticized the cult of secrecy while running for office, leaving it to the courts to stand up for transparency and accountability. And that is just what a panel of the federal appeals court in San Francisco did on Tuesday by firmly rejecting the claim that the government can prevent a judge from even hearing those who say they were hurt by federal policies and actions. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated a civil lawsuit brought against a government contractor by five victims of the extraordinary rendition program, under which foreigners were kidnapped and flown to other countries for interrogation and torture. The panel said the government can ask a judge to decide on a case-by-case basis whether disclosing particular evidence would jeopardize national security. But it recognized the affront to civil liberties and the constitutional separation of powers in the Justice Department’s argument that the executive branch is entitled to have lawsuits shut down whenever an official makes a blanket claim of national security.

Note: For lots more on government secrecy from reliable sources, click here.

Companies look to Swine Flu to drive profits
2009-04-29, ABC News
http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/national_world&id=6786340

Pharmaceutical stocks are skyrocketing on fears that a swine flu outbreak could go global. Manufacturers of antiviral drugs [and] companies gearing up to produce a vaccine ... are turning profits in an otherwise skittish and down market. Companies gearing up for swine flu, including Roche, Gilead Sciences and GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturers of the leading antiviral flu medications, are best positioned to see a boost in profits if the disease escalates to epidemic proportions, analysts said. Tamiflu ... was developed by Gilead and manufactured by Roche. Both companies' share prices spiked soon after the U.S. government allowed for its stockpiles of the drug to be made publicly available. Gilead stock surged to $47.53 at the end of the day Monday, up 3.78 percent. Roche rose to $31.72, up 4.34 percent. The other major flu drug currently on the market is Relenza, also stockpiled and released by the government, and manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline. Shares of Glaxo closed surged Monday to $31.56, up 7.57 percent. Both Tamiflu and Relenza are stockpiled by governments and in the case of an outbreak the companies are often required to sell the drugs directly to the government at a discount. "Government stockpiling is viewed as boon for profits. Though the government gets a discount and the margins sold to the government are lower than those if they sold to Walgreens, from a stock perspective it's an unexpected positive surprise," he said.

Note: Pharmaceutical companies make big bucks from scares like the avian flu and swine flu. Yet are the recommended drugs really effective? Many studies say they are not. For analysis of profiteering by the pharmaceutical industry during a previous flu scare, click here. See this link for lots more.

Paying a Price for Loving Red Meat
2009-04-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/health/28brod.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&page...

There was a time when red meat was a luxury for ordinary Americans, or was at least something special: cooking a roast for Sunday dinner, ordering a steak at a restaurant. Not anymore. Meat consumption has more than doubled in the United States in the last 50 years. Now a new study of more than 500,000 Americans has provided the best evidence yet that our affinity for red meat has exacted a hefty price on our health and limited our longevity. The study found that, other things being equal, the men and women who consumed the most red and processed meat were likely to die sooner, especially from one of our two leading killers, heart disease and cancer, than people who consumed much smaller amounts of these foods. The number of excess deaths that could be attributed to high meat consumption is quite large given the size of the American population. Extrapolated to all Americans in the age group studied, the new findings suggest that over the course of a decade, the deaths of one million men and perhaps half a million women could be prevented just by eating less red and processed meats, according to estimates prepared by Dr. Barry Popkin, who wrote an editorial accompanying the report. In place of red meat, nonvegetarians might consider poultry and fish. In the study, the largest consumers of “white” meat from poultry and fish had a slight survival advantage. Likewise, those who ate the most fruits and vegetables also tended to live longer.

Note: For many excellent reports on health issues, click here.

How ’07 ABC Interview Tilted a Torture Debate
2009-04-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28abc.html?partner=rss&emc=r...

In late 2007, there was the first crack of daylight into the government’s use of waterboarding during interrogations of Al Qaeda detainees. On Dec. 10, John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer who had participated in the capture of the suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002, appeared on ABC News to say that while he considered waterboarding a form of torture, the technique worked and yielded results very quickly. Mr. Zubaydah started to cooperate after being waterboarded for “probably 30, 35 seconds,” Mr. Kiriakou told the ABC reporter Brian Ross. “From that day on he answered every question.” His claims — unverified at the time, but repeated by dozens of broadcasts, blogs and newspapers — have been sharply contradicted by a newly declassified Justice Department memo that said waterboarding had been used on Mr. Zubaydah “at least 83 times.” Some critics say that the now-discredited information shared by Mr. Kiriakou and other sources heightened the public perception of waterboarding as an effective interrogation technique. “I think it was sanitized by the way it was described” in press accounts, said John Sifton, a former lawyer for Human Rights Watch. On “World News,” ABC included only a caveat that Mr. Kiriakou himself “never carried out any of the waterboarding.” Still, he told ABC that the actions had “disrupted a number of attacks, maybe dozens of attacks.” A video of the interview was no longer on ABC's website.

Note: For the transcript of the original ABC interview of John Kiriakou, click here. To watch a video of the interview which ABC News removed from its website, click here.

Jet Flyover Frightens New Yorkers
2009-04-28, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/nyregion/28plane.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&p...

It was supposed to be a photo opportunity, a showcase of Air Force One alongside the sweep of New York City skyline. But as the low-flying Boeing 747 speeded in the shadows of skyscrapers, trailed by two fighter jets, the sight instead awakened barely dormant fears of a terrorist attack, causing a momentary panic that sent workers pouring out of buildings on both sides of the Hudson River. “I thought there was some kind of an attack,” said Paul Nadler, who sprinted down more than 20 flights of stairs after watching the plane from his office in Jersey City shortly after 10 a.m. “We ran like hell.” Witnesses described the engine roar as the planes swooped by office towers close enough to rattle the windows and prompt evacuations at scores of buildings. Some sobbed as they made their way to the street. “As soon as someone saw how close it got to the buildings, people literally ran out,” said Carlina Rivera, 25, who works at an educational services company on the 22nd floor of 1 Liberty Plaza, adjacent to the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack. “Probably about 80 percent of my office left within two minutes of seeing how close it got to our building.” Neither the White House nor the F.A.A. explained why the mission was deemed a secret, even though officials conceded the primary purpose was picture taking. Officials at the Department of Transportation and at the Pentagon each denied responsibility for the secrecy.

Note: The official lack of explanation for the government secrecy prior to this terrifying overflight of traumatized Manhattan certainly raises further questions. For lots more on the hidden realities behind the fake "war on terror", click here.

How to Deal with Swine Flu: Heeding the Mistakes of 1976
2009-04-27, Time Magazine
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1894129,00.html

In February 1976, an outbreak of swine flu struck Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, killing a 19-year-old private and infecting hundreds of soldiers. Concerned that the U.S. was on the verge of a devastating epidemic, President Gerald Ford ordered a nationwide vaccination program at a cost of $135 million (some $500 million in today's money). Within weeks, reports surfaced of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease that can be caused by the vaccine. By April, more than 30 people had died of the condition. Facing protests, federal officials abruptly canceled the program on Dec. 16. The epidemic failed to materialize. Medical historians and epidemiologists say ... the decisions made in the wake of the '76 outbreak — and the public's response to them — provide a cautionary tale for public health officials, who may soon have to consider whether to institute draconian measures to combat the disease. "I think 1976 provides an example of how not to handle a flu outbreak," says Hugh Pennington, an emeritus professor of virology at Britain's University of Aberdeen. Despite modern advances in microbiology, today's health officials still make decisions in a "cloud of uncertainty," Pennington says. "At the moment, our understanding of the current outbreak is similarly limited. For example, we don't yet understand why people are dying in Mexico but not elsewhere." Howard Markel, director of the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan and a historical consultant to the CDC on flu pandemics, says the most vexing decision facing health officials is when to institute mass vaccination programs.

Note: To watch two short commercials made in 1976 showing clear scare tactics, click here. Only one person died from the actual flu in this 1976 "epidemic," yet more than 30 died of the flu vaccine. To explore the serious risks of vaccines reported in the media, click here. For lots more on bird and swine flu scares, click here.

Pentagon to Release Detainee Photos
2009-04-25, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/us/politics/24web-prison.html?partner=rss&e...

The Pentagon has agreed to release dozens of previously undisclosed photographs depicting the abuse by American military personnel of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The pictures, showing incidents at a half-dozen prisons in addition to the notorious Abu Ghraib installation in Iraq, will be made available by May 28, the Defense Department and the American Civil Liberties Union said. “These photographs provide visual proof that prisoner abuse by U.S. personnel was not aberrational but widespread, reaching far beyond the walls of Abu Ghraib,” said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney with the A.C.L.U., which sued for release of the pictures under the Freedom of Information Act. There were early reports that at least some of the new pictures show detainees being intimidated by American soldiers, sometimes at gunpoint, but Ms. Singh said it is not yet clear what kinds of scenes were captured, and by whose cameras. Disclosure of the latest pictures “is critical for helping the public understand the scope and scale of prisoner abuse as well as for holding senior officials accountable for authorizing or permitting such abuse,” said Ms. Singh, who argued the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan. The Pentagon’s decision to release the pictures came after the A.C.L.U. prevailed at the Federal District Court level and before a panel of the Second Circuit. The Pentagon had fought the release of the photographs, connected with investigations between 2003 and 2006, on the grounds that the release could endanger American military personnel overseas and that the privacy of detainees would be violated.

Note: For many revealing reports on the horrific realities of the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, click here.

Barstow Who?
2009-04-24, Newsweek blog
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/04/24/barstow-who.aspx

We missed this story from earlier this week, but think it's still worth sharing. Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com wrote an interesting column on Tuesday about the lack of cable news coverage related to New York Times journalist David Barstow's Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. Barstow wrote two fascinating, deeply researched stories last year about how retired generals, acting as military analysts for cable channels, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to push their line on the war. He also discovered that the generals had, as the Pulitzer committee describes it "undisclosed ties to companies than benefited from the policies they defended." Greenwald notes that there was a virtual moratorium on discussing Barstow's prize on TV. Brian William at NBC just said that the NYT had won five awards, and CNN's write-up didn't even mention Barstow's name. You can read Greenwald's piece here.

Note: For lots more on major media cover-ups, click here.

Gonzales Said to Have Intervened on Wiretap
2009-04-24, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/us/politics/24harman.html?partner=rss&emc=r...

The director of the Central Intelligence Agency concluded in late 2005 that a conversation picked up on a government wiretap was serious enough to require notifying Congressional leaders that Representative Jane Harman, Democrat of California, could become enmeshed in an investigation into Israeli influence in Washington, former government officials said Thursday. But Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales told the director of the agency, Porter J. Goss, to hold off on briefing lawmakers about the conversation, between Ms. Harman and an Israeli intelligence operative, despite a longstanding government policy to inform Congressional leaders quickly whenever a member of Congress could be a target of a national security investigation. One reason Mr. Gonzales intervened, the former officials said, was to protect Ms. Harman because they saw her as a valuable administration ally in urging The New York Times not to publish an article about the National Security Agency’s program of wiretapping without warrants. The accounts provided new details about tension between senior C.I.A. officials and the attorney general over what to make of the wiretapped conversations involving Ms. Harman, which the former government officials said first occurred in spring 2005. In the wiretapped conversation, Ms. Harman was overheard agreeing to a request made by an Israeli intelligence operative that she try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for help in securing the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee, former officials said.

Note: For lots more on government corruption from reliable, verifiable sources, click here.

As Manhattan Bus Rolls, Driver Polishes His Pavarotti
2009-04-24, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/nyregion/24driver.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&...

One famous aria after another: the operatic hit parade began as the bus pulled away from the depot, empty. “La donna è mobile” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto” was followed, somewhere on the West Side Highway, by “Nessun dorma” from Puccini’s “Turandot.” The A’s and that high B at the end were thrilling. And then the bus turned onto Clarkson Street, on the way to the first stop on the M8 line. “This is difficult sitting down,” said the driver, Christopher G. Dolan, 51. “You got to be standing up.” Mr. Dolan ... has been a New York City driver for 27 years, starting in the Bronx and then transferring to Manhattan. You never know whom you will meet on a bus — he married one of his passengers. “That’s worth my $2,” said Elaine Smalls, who boarded at Eighth Street and Avenue C. He started as a baritone. On the job one day in 2002 — he was on the M10 then — he picked up a passenger on Eighth Avenue whom he recognized as Vincent La Selva, the artistic director of the New York Grand Opera. “I called him over, which surprised him, being recognized on the bus, and I said, ‘What does somebody have to do to get an audition with you?’ He handed me his card and said, ‘Give me a call.’ ” Mr. Dolan did, and soon he was in Mr. La Selva’s studio, plowing through aria after aria. He remembers what Mr. La Selva told him when he finished: “I love your voice, but you’re not a baritone. Go home and learn to be a tenor and come back.” Mr. Dolan did as he was told: he worked on getting his voice up to a higher tessitura.

Note: To watch a short video of Mr. Dolan singing while driving his bus, click here. For a video of a short recital off the bus, click here.

Reported Suicide Is Latest Shock at Freddie Mac
2009-04-23, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/23freddie.html?partner=rss&emc=rss...

The pressures were already immense when David B. Kellermann was promoted to the top financial position at the mortgage giant Freddie Mac last September. Mr. Kellermann's boss and other top executives were ousted when the Treasury secretary seized Freddie Mac and its sibling company, Fannie Mae; others left on their own and were not replaced. Early on Wednesday, Mr. Kellermann went to the basement of his brick home and hanged himself, according to people familiar with the situation who were not authorized to speak. His body was removed five hours later, through a throng of neighbors, television crews and others. "David was such an honest and humble person," said Tim Bitsberger, Freddie Mac"s treasurer until he left in December. "It just doesn't make sense," Mr. Bitsberger said. The roots and causes of suicide are often unclear. It is not known if Mr. Kellermann succumbed to the pressures of his job. But in the aftermath of his death, it is plain that at Freddie Mac, as at many of the companies in the center of this economic storm, there are forces so strong they can overwhelm almost anyone. Mr. Kellermann ... was at the intersection of some of the most difficult issues facing the company. Mr. Kellermann was also working in a poisonous political atmosphere. He was recently involved in tense conversations with the company's federal regulator over its routine financial disclosures. Freddie Mac executives wanted to emphasize to investors that they believed the company was being run to benefit the government, rather than shareholders.

Note: For a revealing archive of reports on the hidden realities underlying the Wall Street bailout, click here.

Restrain the credit card industry
2009-04-23, San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/22/EDK817761J.DTL

While American consumers have been struggling, credit card companies have been enjoying a field day. Not only are most of them receiving federal bailout money, but they've been jacking up interest rates (there were rate hikes on nearly 25 percent of accounts between 2007 and 2008) and switching the terms of agreements with consumers. Why the rush to gouge consumers in the depths of a recession? In July 2010, the Federal Reserve will impose new, consumer-friendly disclosure and administrative restrictions on the credit card industry. Scrambling to get ahead of the deadline, the card companies have been raising interest rates, slicing credit lines and, in too many cases, simply dumping customers with little rhyme or reason. Defaults and delinquencies have skyrocketed - and consumers are livid. "It's off the charts in terms of their ire about paying higher interest rates, particularly when their money, as they see it, is being given to the banks to prop them up," said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough. Speier's staff says her office has been "flooded" with calls from furious constituents. Speier is ... a co-sponsor of HR627, better known as "The Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights." The bill - which has the support of the Obama administration - would prevent card issuers from raising interest rates without advance notice and end the practice of "double-cycle billing" so that consumers do not have to pay interest on debts they've already paid.

Note: For a highly revealing archive of reports on the hidden realities underlying the Wall Street bailout, click here.

Brain Wave of The Future
2009-04-23, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR20090422040...

Competing mind-over-matter toys from Mattel and Uncle Milton Industries are coming this fall to a store near you. They are the first "brain-computer interfaces" to enter the consumer mainstream. NeuroSky is in the forefront of turning brain-computer interfaces into cheap, ubiquitous consumer items. It's selling brain-reading hardware and software headsets to all comers -- including Christmas competitors like Mattel's $80 Mindflex and Uncle Milton's $130 Force Trainer, both of which involve levitating a ping-pong-like ball. NeuroSky has its sights set on providing brain-wave sensors for the automotive, health-care and education industries. The prospect for mind controlling matter dates to 1875, when Richard Caton discovered that you could peer into the workings of the brain by detecting its electrical impulses. In 1929 came the first electroencephalograph -- the EEG machine. But hospital EEG machines are expensive, enormous and not good at fine control; plus you have to smear conductive goop on your head -- not a great selling point. Thus, NeuroSky's adaptation is no small thing. They get a single dry sensor to read your bare forehead, no goop, no holes drilled through the skull. They get the device to focus on the correct signals from that extremely noisy brain area, filtering out everything else -- that's their big trick. "It's like being at a crowded party, and picking out one quiet conversation," says Liu. Then they make it small, light and cheap, and deliver it to market.

Note: Don't miss the astonishing video demonstration on the Post website. And remember that the military is generally at least 10 years ahead of industry in any new technologies like this.

Are UFOs real? Famous people who believed
2009-04-22, The Telegraph (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/5201410/Are-UFOs-real-Famous-...

The former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has claimed that aliens exist and their visits are being covered up by the United States government. Mitchell is in good company in his beliefs. Here we highlight 12 other public figures who believe that extraterrestrials may have been visiting our planet over the last 100 years. Jimmy Carter, US President from 1976 to 1980, promised while on the campaign trail that he would make public all documents on UFOs if elected. He said: "I don't laugh at people any more when they say they've seen UFOs. I've seen one myself." General Douglas MacArthur, the Korean and Second World War soldier, said in 1955 that "the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets. The politics of the future will be cosmic, or interplanetary". J Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI from its inception in 1935 to 1972, said of a famous incident when flying saucers were allegedly fired at over Los Angeles in 1942: "We must insist upon full access to disks recovered. For instance, in the LA case the Army grabbed it and would not let us have it for cursory examination." Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a Vatican theologian, said: "Extraterrestrial contact is a real phenomenon. The Vatican is receiving much information about extraterrestrials and their contacts with humans from its embassies in various countries, such as Mexico, Chile and Venezuela." Professor Stephen Hawking: "Of course it is possible that UFO's really do contain aliens as many people believe, and the Government is hushing it up."

Note: For a concise summary of evidence for UFOs and extra-terrestrial visitors presented by many highly-respected and credible former government and military officials, click here.

Aliens exist and UFOs are covered-up by US government, says ex-astronaut
2009-04-22, The Telegraph (One of the U.K.'s leading newspapers)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/space/5198506/Aliens-...

Alien life does exist but the truth is being covered up by the United States government, former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell has claimed. Mr Mitchell, who was part of the 1971 Apollo 14 moon mission, made the claims in a talk to the fifth annual X-Conference – a meeting of those who believe in UFOs and other life forms. He also said he had attempted to investigate the 1947 'Roswell Incident', which some believe was the crash-landing of a UFO, but had been thwarted by military authorities. The former astronaut, 78, said: "We're not alone. Our destiny, in my opinion, and we might as well get started with it, is [to] become a part of the planetary community. ... We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there." Mitchell grew up in Roswell, New Mexico, which some UFO believers maintain was the site of a UFO crash in 1947. He said residents "had been hushed and told not to talk about their experience by military authorities." He claimed he had raised the issue of evidence from local residents with the Pentagon 10 years ago. An unnamed admiral working for the Joint Chiefs of Staff promised to uncover more information for Mitchell but was denied access when he "tried to get into the inner workings of that process." Mitchell claimed the admiral now denies the story. "I urge those who are doubtful: Read the books, read the lore, start to understand what has really been going on. Because there really is no doubt we are being visited," Mitchell said. "The universe that we live in is much more wondrous, exciting, complex and far-reaching than we were ever able to know up to this point in time."

Note: For a powerful summary of evidence of UFOs presented by highly respected military and government officials, including Edgar Mitchell, click here.

Report Gives New Detail on Approval of Brutal Techniques
2009-04-22, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22report.html?partner=rss&emc=r...

A newly declassified Congressional report released Tuesday outlined the most detailed evidence yet that the military’s use of harsh interrogation methods on terrorism suspects was approved at high levels of the Bush administration. The report focused solely on interrogations carried out by the military, not those conducted by the Central Intelligence Agency at its secret prisons overseas. It rejected claims by former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others that Pentagon policies played no role in harsh treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq or other military facilities. The 232-page report, the product of an 18-month inquiry, was approved on Nov. 20 by the Senate Armed Services Committee, but has since been under Pentagon review for declassification. Some of the findings were made public in a Dec. 12 article in The New York Times. The Senate report documented how some of the techniques used by the military at prisons in Afghanistan and at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq — stripping detainees, placing them in “stress positions” or depriving them of sleep — originated in a military program known as Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape, or SERE. According to the Senate investigation, a military behavioral scientist and a colleague who had witnessed SERE training proposed its use at Guantánamo in October 2002, as pressure was rising “to get ‘tougher’ with detainee interrogations.” Officers there sought authorization, and Mr. Rumsfeld approved 15 interrogation techniques.

Note: For many revealing reports on the horrific realities of the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, click here.

In Adopting Harsh Tactics, No Look at Past Use
2009-04-22, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/us/politics/22detain.html?partner=rss&emc=r...

The program began with Central Intelligence Agency leaders in the grip of an alluring idea: They could get tough in terrorist interrogations without risking legal trouble by adopting a set of methods used on Americans during military training. How could that be torture? In a series of high-level meetings in 2002, without a single dissent from cabinet members or lawmakers, the United States for the first time officially embraced the brutal methods of interrogation it had always condemned. This extraordinary consensus was possible, an examination by The New York Times shows, largely because no one involved — not the top two C.I.A. officials who were pushing the program, not the senior aides to President George W. Bush, not the leaders of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees — investigated the gruesome origins of the techniques they were approving with little debate. According to several former top officials involved in the discussions seven years ago, they did not know that the military training program, called SERE, for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, had been created decades earlier to give American pilots and soldiers a sample of the torture methods used by Communists in the Korean War, methods that had wrung false confessions from Americans. Even George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director who insisted that the agency had thoroughly researched its proposal and pressed it on other officials, did not examine the history of the most shocking method, the near-drowning technique known as waterboarding.

Note: For powerful revelations of the realities behind the fake "war on terror", click here.

Chrysler rejects new loan over exec pay limits
2009-04-21, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/04/21/chrysler.loan/

Chrysler turned down additional government funding this month because executives at the troubled auto manufacturer could not agree to new government-mandated limits on executive pay, according to a source familiar with the matter. An official with Chrysler Financial told CNN that the loan was turned down because the company "has determined that it has adequate private capital funding to cover the short-term needs of our dealers and customers and as such, no additional TARP funding is necessary at this time." The official also said that company executives "have not been presented with any new demands with regard to executive compensation." Chrysler already borrowed $1.5 billion from the Treasury under the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, but those loans were made under less strict regulations pertaining to executive compensation. The Washington Post, which first reported the story online Monday, said the amount of the loan Chrysler rejected was $750 million. A Treasury department spokesman declined to confirm the loan rejection, but told CNN that the administration's Auto Task Force continues to monitor the financing situations for Chrysler and General Motors. "This is an issue that Chrysler and its stakeholders will need to address as part of this process," the spokesman said.

Note: The reason many banks are giving back government loans is very likely also because of executive pay limits. The limits were reported in a NY Times article on Feb. 14, 2009. Not long after came the first news that banks were considering returning the bailout money. Do you think these top execs are more interested in their own paychecks or the health of the company? For a highly revealing archive of reports on the hidden realities underlying the Wall Street bailout, click here.

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