Military PsyOps Used on Senators, Record Wall Street Pay, Court Shields Vaccine Makers
Revealing News Articles
February 28, 2011
Dear friends,
Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on the US military's use of a psychological operations (PsyOps) campaign on US senators to expand the war in Afghanistan, record Wall Street pay in 2010, the Supreme Court's decision shielding vaccine makers from liabilities, and more. Each excerpt is taken verbatim from the major media website listed at the link provided. If any link fails to function, click here. The most important sentences are highlighted for those with limited time. By choosing to educate ourselves and to spread the word, we can and will build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Tod Fletcher and Fred Burks for PEERS and WantToKnow.info
Special note: For a five-minute film showing startling evidence by respected researchers that fluoride used in water is dangerous and can kill cells, click here. For an incisive article in Rolling Stone titled "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?" click here. For a very cute 8-minute film about an ET child who rebels against a conformist planet, click here. For a Purdue University professor's letter to the US Secretary of Agriculture on extremely high miscarriage rates associated with GM crops among farm animals, click here. For a two-minute video of a jet caught in the act of spraying chemtrails by nearby private jet, click here.
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Military to investigate claim that psy-ops team was used to influence U.S. senators
February 24, 2011, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/24/AR2011022405327.html
The top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan intends to order an investigation into whether a three-star general responsible for training Afghan security forces inappropriately used members of a psychological operations team to influence visiting U.S. senators into providing more funding for the war. The U.S. command in Kabul issued a statement Thursday saying Gen. David H. Petraeus "is preparing to order an investigation to determine the facts and circumstances surrounding the issue." The investigation stems from an article published ... on the Web site of Rolling Stone magazine alleging that Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, the head of the U.S. and NATO training operation for Afghan forces, used an "information operations" team to "manipulate visiting American senators" and other visitors, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen. The article is based on the claims of a lieutenant colonel who served on a psychological operations team in Afghanistan last year and who alleges he was subjected to retribution when he resisted the assignment.
Note: To read Rolling Stone's fascinating report on how the US military used a secret program to pressure Senators to support the war, click here.
On Street, Pay Vaults to Record Altitude
February 2, 2011, Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704124504576118421859347048-search.html
When it comes to paychecks, Wall Street's law of gravity is back in full force: What goes down must come back up. In 2010, total compensation and benefits at publicly traded Wall Street banks and securities firms hit a record of $135 billion, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal. The total is up 5.7% from $128 billion in combined compensation and benefits by the same companies in 2009. At 25 large financial firms that have reported full-year results, revenue rose to $417 billion, another all-time high. "Things are shifting back to where they were before," said J. Robert Brown, a law professor at the University of Denver who studies compensation and corporate-governance issues. Buried in the numbers, though, are signs of how Wall Street's pay culture is bending in response to pressure from regulators and shareholders. Last year, deferred compensation made up as much as half of total pay, up from about a third previously, estimates Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates Inc., a New York pay consultant. Banks and securities firms are deferring a larger percentage of compensation than they used to, trying to counter criticism that yearly cash bonuses encourage unwise risk-taking by executives, traders and other employees aiming for a big payday.
Note: For the NY State Comptroller's analysis of Wall Street bonuses in 2010, click here and here.
Supreme Court shields vaccine makers from lawsuits
February 22, 2011, Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/sc-dc-0223-court-vaccines-20110223,0,1732649.story
The Supreme Court on [February 22] shielded the nation's vaccine makers from being sued by parents who say their children suffered severe side effects from the drugs. By a 6-2 vote, the court upheld a federal law that offers compensation to these victims but closes the courthouse door to lawsuits. Justice Antonin Scalia said the high court majority agreed with Congress that these side effects were "unavoidable" when a vaccine is given to millions of children. If the drug makers could be sued and forced to pay huge claims for devastating injuries, the vaccine industry could be wiped out, he said. The American Academy of Pediatrics applauded the decision. The ruling was a defeat for the parents of Hannah Bruesewitz, who as a child was given a standard vaccination for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. She later suffered a series of seizures and delayed development. Her parents sought compensation for her injuries, but their claim was turned down. They then sued the drug maker in a Pennsylvania court, contending that the vaccine was defectively designed. A judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled they were barred from suing, and the Supreme Court affirmed that judgment.
Note: For powerful evidence that childhood vaccines are much less effective than is generally believed, click here.
American who sparked diplomatic crisis over Lahore shooting was CIA spy
February 20, 2011, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/20/us-raymond-davis-lahore-cia
The American who shot dead two men in Lahore, triggering a diplomatic crisis between Pakistan and the US, is a CIA agent who was on assignment at the time. Raymond Davis has been the subject of widespread speculation since he opened fire with a semi-automatic Glock pistol on the two men who had pulled up in front of his car at a red light on 25 January. Pakistani authorities charged him with murder, but the Obama administration has insisted he is an "administrative and technical official" attached to its Lahore consulate and has diplomatic immunity. Based on interviews in the US and Pakistan, the Guardian can confirm that the 36-year-old former special forces soldier is employed by the CIA. "It's beyond a shadow of a doubt," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official. Washington's case is hobbled by its resounding silence on Davis's role. He served in the US special forces for 10 years before leaving in 2003 to become a security contractor. A senior Pakistani official said he believed Davis had worked with Xe, the firm formerly known as Blackwater. Pakistani suspicions about Davis's role were stoked by the equipment police confiscated from his car: an unlicensed pistol, a long-range radio, a GPS device, an infrared torch and a camera with pictures of buildings around Lahore.
Note: For further details on Raymond Davis' work for the CIA and Blackwater Corp., click here. Discussing the two Pakistanis killed by Davis, an ABC News blog states, "Pakistani government officials have told ABC News that the two were working for that country's intelligence agency, Inter-Service Intelligence, and were also conducting surveillance." Click here for that article.
U.S. Gov't Software Creates 'Fake People' to Spread Message via Social Networking
February 19, 2011, Fox News
http://nation.foxnews.com/culture/2011/02/19/us-gov-t-software-creates-fake-people...
The US government is offering private intelligence companies contracts to create software to manage "fake people" on social media sites. Private security firms employeed by the government have used the accounts to create the illusion of consensus on controversial issues. The contract calls for the development of "Persona Management Software" which would help the user create and manage a variety of distinct fake profiles online. According to the contract, the software would "protect the identity of government agencies" by employing a number of false signals to convince users that the poster is in fact a real person. A single user could manage unique background information and status updates for up to 10 fake people from a single computer. The software enables the government to shield its identity through a number of different methods including the ability to assign unique IP addresses to each persona and the ability to make it appear as though the user is posting from other locations around the world. The document describes how they would 'friend' real people on Facebook as a way to convey government messages.
Note: To read the government contract for "Persona Management" software, click here.
Deaths of baby dolphins worry scientists
February 24, 2011, CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/02/24/gulf.dolphins/index.html
Baby bottlenose dolphins are washing up dead in record numbers on the shores of Alabama and Mississippi, alarming scientists and a federal agency charged with monitoring the health of the Gulf of Mexico. Moby Solangi, the executive director of the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies (IMMS) in Gulfport, Mississippi, said ... he's never seen such high death numbers. "I've worked with marine mammals for 30 years, and this is the first time we've seen such a high number of calves," he said. "It's alarming." At least 24 baby dolphins have washed up on the shores of the two states since the beginning of the year -- more than ten times the normal rate. Also, six older dolphins died.
Note: For many reports from major media sources on the threats to marine mammals, click here.
Scientist Finds Bottom Of Gulf Still Oily, Dead
February 20, 2011, NPR/Associated Press
http://www.npr.org/2011/02/20/133912491/scientist-finds-bottom-of-gulf-still-oily-dead
Oil from the BP spill remains stuck on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, according to a top scientist's video and slides that she says demonstrate the oil isn't degrading as hoped and has decimated life on parts of the sea floor. That report is at odds with a recent report by the BP spill compensation czar that said nearly all will be well by 2012. At a science conference in Washington Saturday, marine scientist Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia aired early results of her December submarine dives around the BP spill site. She went to places she had visited in the summer and expected the oil and residue from oil-munching microbes would be gone by then. It wasn't. "There's some sort of a bottleneck we have yet to identify for why this stuff doesn't seem to be degrading," Joye told the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference in Washington.
Cellphone study shows one-hour exposure changes brain activity
February 22, 2011, Washington Post
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2011/02/cell_phone_study_shows_1_hour.html
Scientists at the National Institute of Health on [February 22] released a study that showed 50 minutes of cellphone use could alter the activity of the part of the brain closest to a cellphone antenna. The study was led by Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Her research shows that those people exposed to 50 minutes of cellphone radio frequencies saw an increased brain glucose metabolism in the region closest to the antenna. "The dramatic increase in use of cellular telephones has generated concern about possible negative effects of radiofrequency signals delivered to the brain," JAMA wrote in background material on the study's release. "However, whether acute cellphone exposure affects the human brain is unclear." Public-interest groups say the regulatory agencies haven't updated guidelines on cellphone health in more than one decade. And the rapid adoption of cellphones -- 290 million in the U.S. -- call for greater protections, particularly among children who have thinner skulls and ears than adult cellphone users.
Note: For key health reports from reliable sources, click here.
Hiding Details of Dubious Deal, U.S. Invokes National Security
February 20, 2011, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/us/politics/20data.html
For eight years, government officials turned to Dennis Montgomery, a California computer programmer, for eye-popping technology that he said could catch terrorists. Now, federal officials want nothing to do with him and are going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that his dealings with Washington stay secret. The Justice Department, which in the last few months has gotten protective orders from two federal judges keeping details of the technology out of court, says it is guarding state secrets that would threaten national security if disclosed. But others involved in the case say that what the government is trying to avoid is public embarrassment over evidence that Mr. Montgomery bamboozled federal officials. A onetime biomedical technician with a penchant for gambling, Mr. Montgomery is at the center of a tale that features terrorism scares, secret White House briefings, backing from prominent Republicans, backdoor deal-making and fantastic-sounding computer technology. Mr. Montgomery and his associates received more than $20 million in government contracts by claiming that software he had developed could help stop Al Qaeda's next attack on the United States. But the technology appears to have been a hoax, and a series of government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the Air Force, repeatedly missed the warning signs, the records and interviews show.
Note: For lots more on government corruption from reliable sources, click here.
Schools use GPS to track students who skip
February 18, 2011, MSNBC
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/02/18/6081656-schools-use-gps-to-track-students-who-skip
Skipping class, though frowned upon, is practically a rite of passage for young teens, but thanks to an elaborate system involving GPS being used by some school districts, it is practically being eliminated completely. The Orange County Register reports that the Anaheim Union High School District in California is currently participating in a pilot program which involves using a combination of Global Positioning System technology, automated telephone reminders, and one-on-one coaching to cut down on truancy. It's similar to programs being used in Baltimore and San Antonio. Basically any students in the seventh- or eighth-grade who have four or more unexcused absences over the course of a school year can be put into the Anaheim program. They will be assigned a GPS tracking device about the size of a cell phone, and they'll need to use it regularly, the newspaper said. It's worth noting that while this anti-truancy program is very elaborate and almost invasive, it is [promoted as] optional. Students and their parents are offered the chance to voluntarily participate in the "monitoring as a way to avoid continuation school or prosecution with a potential stay in juvenile hall." On top of that, parents would also be avoiding the $2,000 fine that can come from turning a blind eye to truancy if a school district chooses to pursue the issue.
Note: For other revealing media articles on microchips being used to invade privacy, click here. To better understand a program of elements within the power elite to microchip the entire population, click here.
WikiLeaks' stepchildren
January 6, 2011, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/01/04/f-forbes-wikileaks-stepchildren.html
As leak enthusiasts go, few resemble Julian Assange less than Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The wide-eyed and softspoken German left WikiLeaks in September to start his own leak-focused organization known as OpenLeaks. Like its parent organization, OpenLeaks will solicit secret documents from leakers in government and business. But instead of publishing the leaks on its site – a strategy that has made WikiLeaks the target of cyber- and legal attacks since it began posting a quarter-million secret cables from the U.S. State Department last month – OpenLeaks will function as a secure tip box that passes leaked files on to whatever media outlet or NGO the leaker chooses. OpenLeaks is just one of a bumper crop of WikiLeaks-inspired sites popping up across the globe, borrowing various pieces of the original site's model of anonymous submissions and online publishing. That's good news for WikiLeaks, too, as Assange himself said in an interview last month. "The supply of leaks is very large," he said. "It's helpful for us to have more people in this industry. It's protective to us." In the long term, Domscheit-Berg argues, WikiLeaks' greatest impact may not be any particular document release but the entire movement of second-generation sites like OpenLeaks that it has spawned.
A Nobel Peace Prize winner finds spiritual values in planting trees
January 24, 2011, Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/making-a-difference/2011/0124/A-Nobel-Peace-Prize-winner...
On a visit to Japan, Wangari Maathai learned the story of the hummingbird and the forest fire. While the other animals run in fear or hang their heads in despair, the hummingbird flies above the fire time and again, releasing a few drops of water from its tiny beak. "Why do you bother?" the other animals shout at the hummingbird. "I'm doing the best that I can," the hummingbird replies. "It's such a beautiful story," Ms. Maathai says, thinking of the immensity of the world's environmental problems. "There is always something we can do with our little beak like the little hummingbird." In 2004 Maathai was honored with a Nobel Peace Prize for her work founding the Green Belt Movement, which enlists villagers, and especially women, to improve their local environment. Since then, she's concluded that people's values are what motivate them. If the values are good ones, good actions will follow. Hence it's importance for people to tap their spiritual traditions for guidance in caring for the environment, she says. "If you don't have good values, you'll embrace vices," she says. And if we give in to the vices, "We destroy ourselves. We destroy the environment. If we can embrace [good] values, we also heal ourselves. And in the process we heal the environment." That's the message of her new book, Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World.
Key Articles From Years Past
Bankers jailed, sued as Iceland seeks culprits for crisis
May 13, 2010, Daily Telegraph (Australia)/AFP
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/breaking-news/bankers-jailed...
More than a year and a half after Iceland's major banks failed, all but sinking the country's economy, police have begun rounding up a number of top bankers while other former executives and owners face a $US2 billion ($2.24 billion) lawsuit. Since Iceland's three largest banks - Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir - collapsed in late 2008, their former executives and owners have largely been living untroubled lives abroad. But the publication last month of a parliamentary inquiry into the island nation's profound financial and economic crisis signalled a turning of the tide, laying much of the blame for the downfall on the former bank heads who had taken "inappropriate loans from the banks" they worked for. Overnight, the administrators of Glitnir's liquidation announced they had filed a $US2 billion lawsuit in a New York court against former large shareholders and executives for alleged fraud. "I think this lawsuit is without precedence in Iceland," Steinunn Gudbjartsdottir, who chairs Glitnir's so-called winding-up board, told reporters in Reykjavik. The bank also said it was "taking action against its former auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for facilitating and helping to conceal the fraudulent transactions engineered by [its principal shareholder] and his associates, which ultimately led to the bank's collapse in October 2008."
Note: Yet American and British bankers who played a major role in the economic collapse are getting record pay. For an incisive article in Rolling Stone titled "Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?" click here. For key reports on financial fraud from major media sources, click here.
Pennsylvania rocked by 'jailing kids for cash' scandal
February 23, 2009, CNN
http://articles.cnn.com/2009-02-23/justice/pennsylvania.corrupt.judges...
At a friend's sleepover more than a year ago, 14-year-old Phillip Swartley pocketed change from unlocked vehicles in the neighborhood to buy chips and soft drinks. The cops caught him. There was no need for an attorney, said Phillip's mother, Amy Swartley, who thought at most, the judge would slap her son with a fine or community service. But she was shocked to find her eighth-grader handcuffed and shackled in the courtroom and sentenced to a youth detention center. Then, he was shipped to a boarding school for troubled teens for nine months. The justice system in Luzerne County, in the heart of Pennsylvania's struggling coal country, has also fallen prey to corruption. The county has been rocked by a kickback scandal involving two elected judges who essentially jailed kids for cash. Many of the children had appeared before judges without a lawyer. The nonprofit Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia said Phillip is one of at least 5,000 children over the past five years who appeared before former Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella. Ciavarella pleaded guilty earlier this month to federal criminal charges of fraud and other tax charges, according to the U.S. attorney's office. Former Luzerne County Senior Judge Michael Conahan also pleaded guilty to the same charges. The two secretly received more than $2.6 million, prosecutors said.
Note: Yet another example of corruption in the legal system. Sadly, federal officers of high rank are often as easily overcome by greed as the average person.
Katie Couric's Notebook: Bottled Water
December 3, 2008, CBS News
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-500803_162-4646553-500803.html
Take a walk down the street or through the park and you'll see them – people of all ages toting bottles of water. Last year, Americans drank nine billion gallons out of those little plastic bottles. Sure, it's healthier than soda, but all that plastic is just as bad for the environment, creating an estimated 1.5 million tons of waste each year. So, more and more places are banning bottled water. Washington University in St. Louis will end almost all sales by the end of this semester. San Francisco declared it a no-no in city offices last year. Other local governments may do the same. Some brands, including Coca-Cola's Dasani and Pepsi's Aquafina, come from the tap – and supporters of these measures argue you're better off just filling a reusable container at the water fountain for free. A cheap, calorie-free alternative that doesn't hurt the environment. Now, I'll drink to that.
Note: For a powerful six-minute trailer to the movie "Tapped," which exposes the many scams around bottled water, click here. For more on this, click here.
BeliefWatch: Reincarnate
August 15, 2007, Newsweek Magazine
http://www.newsweek.com/2007/08/15/beliefwatch-reincarnate.html
In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation." But beyond the irony lies China's true motive: to cut off the influence of the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader, and to quell the region's Buddhist religious establishment more than 50 years after China invaded the small Himalayan country. By barring any Buddhist monk living outside China from seeking reincarnation, the law effectively gives Chinese authorities the power to choose the next Dalai Lama, whose soul, by tradition, is reborn as a new human to continue the work of relieving suffering. "It will be a very hot issue," says Paul Harrison, a Buddhism scholar at Stanford. "The Dalai Lama has been the prime symbol of unity and national identity in Tibet, and so it's quite likely the battle for his incarnation will be a lot more important than the others."
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