New ‘Half-Scandal?’ There May Be New Details Of Bin Laden’s Death

Does this mean that bin Laden isn’t dead? No, it just means there is a new report about the circumstances behind his death.

According to Democracy Now!, the new report written by Seymour Hersh for the London Review of Books says the Obama administration gave a false account of the hunting and killing of Osama bin Laden. It is normally claimed that bin Laden was shot dead four years ago this month in a U.S. raid on his compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.

Hersh is an American investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. According to Wikipedia, he is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine. He has also won two National Magazine Awards and is a five-time Polk winner and recipient of the 2004 George Orwell Award.

He first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War.

In his article, Hersh cites interviews with “a retired senior intelligence official” and American sources who “had access to corroborating information,” writes Slate magazine.

Hersh says top Pakistani military leaders knew about the operation and provided key assistance. The U.S. also claimed it helped locate bin Laden by tracking his personal messenger. But Hersh reports a former Pakistani intelligence officer identified his whereabouts in return for the bulk of a $25 million U.S. bounty. Pakistani intelligence was reportedly aware of bin Laden’s location and held him “prisoner” at the Abbottabad compound since 2006.

The White House claimed at the time the U.S. operatives entered from Afghanistan without Pakistan’s knowledge.

Hersh’s article also questions the U.S. account of bin Laden’s shooting, saying there was never a firefight inside the compound and that bin Laden himself wasn’t armed.

A retired American official says U.S. claims of finding information from bin Laden’s computers and documents was a “hoax” to give the false impression he was still operationally important.

Questions were also raised about whether bin Laden was actually buried at sea, as the U.S. claimed.

The White House has denied the accounts given by Seymour Hersh, and the CIA has called the Hersh article “nonsense.”

(Updated article)

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/5/11/headlines

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/05/10/seymour_hersh_in_london_review_of_books_obama_lied_about_bin_laden_raid.html

Bill O’Reilly Talks About His Own Movie As News

TYT Network

Recently, on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox News program “The Factor,” the news O’Reilly talked about was…his own book and movie.

He defended allegations that his book was a “Tea Party version” of Jesus’ life (per the British newspaper The Guardian).

Here is the full paragraph from The Guardian:

“These specials usually put O’Reilly’s patented conservative slant on retellings of history, something that wouldn’t really sit well with Christians. The book fell into this trap, presenting salacious detail about Christ’s death and a Tea Party version of the son of God. Some claimed it was inaccurate (a recent charge against some of O’Reilly’s reporting, too). And the criticism isn’t only coming from the left. The movie was not without controversy among some conservative Christians for another reason: the man cast to play Jesus, Haaz Sleiman, was raised Muslim.”

More:

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/mar/29/going-clear-hbo-killing-jesus-natgeo-controversy

(Updated post)

The Boston Globe: ‘Thank Death Penalty Foes For Firing Squads’

The Boston Globe ran a piece ironically titled “Thank Death Penalty Foes For Firing Squads.”

In a twist of logic, the piece blames death penalty opponents for states quest for more cruel and unusual forms of putting people to death.

Boston Globe:  “This quest for substitutes to lethal injection is the result of a determined campaign by death-penalty opponents to keep pharmaceutical companies from selling the drugs used in executions to state prison systems. But it’s one thing to impede the use of a specific method of executing murderers — even a method that had widely been regarded as the most humane alternative to electrocution or hanging. It’s something quite different, something much more difficult, to overturn the longstanding American consensus that in the most terrible cases of murder, killers should pay with their lives.”

However, there’s one big reason why the United States has a dearth of execution drugs so acute that some states are considering solutions such as firing squads and gas chambers: Europe’s fierce hostility to capital punishment, states Business Insider.

Business Insider states that the phenomenon started nine years ago when the EU banned the export of products used for execution, citing its goal to be the “leading institutional actor and largest donor to the fight against the death penalty.”

According to Amnesty International, 140 countries have abolished the death penalty.

That is the majority.

In 2013, 22 countries around the world were known to have carried out executions and at least 57 to have imposed death sentences.

The Boston Globe seems to blame Europe – and the world – for America turning to firing squads because of a lack of appropriate death penalty drugs.

The Boston Globe:

“But the last American manufacturer of the drug halted production in 2011, and a European embargo on exporting the needed drugs for use in executions made it impossible to get them from overseas. Some states, forced to improvise as their inventory dwindled, turned to unnamed compounding pharmacies, or they formulated new, largely untested, lethal-injection protocols. In some instances, such as the bungled execution of Oklahoma murderer-rapist Clayton Lockett last year, the results have been gruesome and disturbing.”

In the words of Larry Flynt, who was shot by Joseph Paul Franklin in 1978, “…a government that forbids killing among its citizens should not be in the business of killing people itself.”

More here:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html#ixzz3UlvvE6AT

http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-lethal-injection-drug-crisis-starts-in-europe-2014-2#ixzz3UlteKEHc

Albuquerque Community Tribunal Puts APD On Trial: DailyLobo.com

On the one-year anniversary of homeless camper James Boyd’s death at the hands of the Albuquerque Police Department, activists and community members gathered in a dusty downtown warehouse in search of a little street justice, states DailyLobo.com.

Activist group “ABQJustice,” with help from other community groups, held the Albuquerque People’s Tribunal on Police Brutality on Saturday.

The event, which was open to the public, featured the results of a six-month-long, street-level investigation of “prejudice and racial bias” in the APD.

American Studies professor and ABQJustice member David Correia helped do the investigation and present the group’s findings at the tribunal.

“I thought it was good,” Correia said. “There’s really two pieces: there’s this report, which we’ve spent six months doing, with dozens and dozens of interviews with people on the street; then, this tribunal is an opportunity to make a preliminary presentation of our findings, trying to ask these panelists to help us figure out what we really need to do to resolve these problems that we’ve identified.”

The group said that the DOJ’s investigation only looked at a two-year period of police violence, and did not address racial biases and other systemic prejudice in the police force.

More here

(Updated post)

Is Argentina In The Midst Of A Full-Blown Meltdown?

Recently, The Week wrote an article entitled “Argentina is in the Midst of a Full-Blown Meltdown.”  Lets’s take a look at the situation.

In January, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman, 51, made accusations that top Argentine officials, including President Fernandez de Kirchner, had conspired with Iran to cover up responsibility for a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center.  That bombing killed 85 people and injured hundreds.

Nisman claimed the bombing was part of a deal that would supply Iranian oil to Argentina.

Mr. Nisman’s body was discovered on January 18th of this year at his home.  It was the day before he was to testify before lawmakers about those accusations.  His door on the 13th floor had been locked from the inside, and a gun with a spent cartridge was found on the floor near his body. There was no suicide note, though it had the appearance of a suicide.

Mr. Nisman had drafted a warrant for the arrest of Argentina’s president – Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner – and had accused her of trying to shield Iranian officials from responsibility in the 1994 bombing, the lead investigator into his death said.

In February, a few days before a speech given by the president, a federal judge, Daniel Rafecas, threw out allegations that Ms. Fernández de Kirchner and her officials had obstructed an investigation into the terror attack, states the Economist.

Recently, the BBC reported that the family of the deceased Argentine prosecutor Nisman had independent tests conducted that show that Nisman was murdered, according to family members.

At a news conference, Mr Nisman’s ex-wife said the findings ruled out theories of accident or suicide.

Sandra Arroyo Salgado, Mr Nisman’s ex-wife, said a team of experts had made their conclusions based on reports from a post-mortem examination and forensic evidence.

Ms Arroyo Salgado, who is also a federal judge, added that her report was at “the disposal of the prosecutor and judge” involved with the official investigation into Mr. Nisman’s death, states the BBC.

Despite telling journalists the report’s conclusions, Arroyo Salgado has not released the full details of the document.

The family report concludes:

1.)  There were no spasms in Mr Nisman’s right hand, suggesting he had not shot himself

2.)  Additionally, no gunpowder residue was found on his hands

3.)  The prosecutor had been shot in the back of the head

4.)  Mr Nisman’s body had been moved to the bathroom once he was shot

5.)  The prosecutor was apparently not drunk at the time

More here

(Updated post)

Does Fox News Justify Killing Animals?

The Trews

Kendall Jones is a 19-year-old cheerleader from Texas and she kills large game for sport.

She’s had her eye on the “Big Five” (the African lion, African elephant, Cape buffalo, African leopard, and White/Black rhinoceros) since she was nine. She killed her first white rhino when she was 13.

According to Slate, she poses with the animals she kills, beaming, jauntily pony-tailed, sometimes straddling dead lions or cuddling dead leopards.

Russell Brand’s The Trews examines Fox News’ reactions to Jones, whose hunting pictures went viral last year.

More:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/07/10/kendall_jones_the_texas_cheerleader_and_big_game_hunter_makes_people_very.html

The ‘Last Meal:’ A Grotesque Tradition?

Death Row inmates who are next in line for execution typically get a “last meal” just prior to the execution – perhaps to savor their last moments as they look forward to their impending death?

The first woman scheduled to be executed in Georgia since 1945 placed an order for her last meal earlier this week, according to the Huffington Post.

Kelly Renee Gissendaner has been on death row since 2008 after being convicted of a plot to murder her husband. She’s set to die by lethal injection on Feb. 25.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Gissendaner’s meal is also seemingly grotesque:

…cornbread, buttermilk, two [Burger King] Whoppers with cheese and all the trimmings, two large orders of French fries, cherry vanilla ice cream, popcorn and lemonade. She also wants a salad with boiled eggs, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, carrots and cheese to be topped with Paul Newman buttermilk dressing.

Eddie Ray Routh

The Lip TV

Eddie Ray Routh, the confessed killer of “American Sniper” Chris Kyle and another man (Chad Littlefield), is discussed by The Lip TV. They look at his confession and his defense of PTSD-based insanity, as the prosecution has rested in his trial. The Lip TV talks to Jack Downing and Mike Cavalluzzi about the murder.

(Video is 43 minutes long.)

Awkward: On Same Day As Sydney Shooting, Mass Shooter Kills Six Near Philadelphia

On the same day as the Sydney hostage crisis, there was a mass shooting at Philadelphia where 6 people were killed.

However, the media seemed to give less coverage to the shooting at Philadelphia – even though more people were killed at Philadelphia.

TYT video.

Brazilian Man Confesses To Killing 39

According to the BBC, a security guard in Brazil is said to have confessed to 39 killings but had no particular motive and knew none of his victims, as Wyre Davies reports.  The Brazilian police have arrested him and say that the murders occurred over a three-year period.

He was arrested in the central Brazilian city of Goiania by a special police team investigating the murders.

The IB Times states:

“Police said that Gomes da Rocha approached his alleged victims on a motorbike with his face hidden, and that he often demanded valuables from his victims before shooting them and leaving without their possessions. He was arrested Tuesday, after being stopped by police for having a fake number plate on his motorcycle. This led to a search of the home he shared with his mother, where police discovered a .38 revolver, which is thought to be the weapon used in the murders. Gomes da Rocha reportedly confessed to the killings while in custody.”

The BBC:  “(Police) said Thiago Henrique Gomes da Rocha – who approached his alleged victims on a motorbike with his face hidden – was cold but driven by rage.  Police said he often demanded valuables from his victims before shooting them with a .38 handgun and leaving without their possessions.  Police said the 26-year-old man targeted homeless people, women and homosexuals.”

A police official who had been present at the interrogations told a Brazilian TV channel the killer called his victims by the numbers 1 to 39.  “We have been shocked by his coldness,” the official said.

He never knew those he targeted, police said, and acted out of an inner “fury” that he felt “against everything”, which only subsided when he committed murder.  Police said he would feel remorse after killings, which fueled his anger more.

According to Mail Online, the man had a certain way of killing:  Prostitutes were stabbed. Homeless men were shot. Gays he choked.

Mail Online:  “And young women — the victims he came to savor killing the most — he would shoot in the chest.”

The alleged suspect had also described accurately the locations of each murder and the emotions he had felt at the time, and police said he fired on his victims while cruising the streets.

Investigators said they were sifting through evidence, including closed-circuit TV footage, and had seized weapons and stolen license plates from his grandmother’s home.