US Lawmakers Reject Pakistani Calls to End Drone Strikes

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government

20 Mar 2012

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Breaking: Karl Rove buys another state for Mitt Romney and the 1%: CBS News: Romney to win Illinois primary 20 Mar 2012 CBS News projects that Mitt Romney will defeat Rick Santorum and his other rivals to take the Republican presidential primary in Illinois. The estimate is based on early exit poll results and vote totals. With 18 percent of precincts reporting, Romney had 88,870 votes to Santorum's 44,377. Ron Paul was in third with 14,872 and Newt Gingrich in fourth with 10,934.

Printed Ballots Were Too Wide for Scanners in Some Illinois Precincts 20 Mar 2012 Some of the printed ballots in 25 of 110 Illinois jurisdictions were slightly too wide to fit into the optical scanners and will have to be trimmed or hand counted, officials said Tuesday afternoon. The ballot problem threatened to slow the results from some parts of the state Tuesday night. Officials quickly began noticing on Tuesday that some of the ballots filled out by voters did not fit into the scanner - they were too wide, according to Ken Menzel, the deputy general counsel for the Illinois elections board. Mr. Menzel said it was unclear how many ballots were affected... He said it appeared that the ballots were cut unevenly by the vendors who had printed them. [LOL. Gee, I wonder who hired the vendors?]

US Lawmakers Reject Pakistani Calls to End Drone Strikes 20 Mar 2012 American lawmakers are rejecting renewed calls by Pakistan for an end to U.S.-sponsored drone strikes in the country. Tuesday, a Pakistani government commission demanded an end to U.S. military strikes conducted by unmanned, remote-controlled aircraft known as drones. Pakistan has long complained that drone attacks are a violation of national sovereignty.

Pakistan seeks unconditional apology on Nato attack, end to drone attacks 20 Mar 2012 Pakistani lawmakers have opened a debate on the terms of the nation's re-engagement with the United States after ties were all but severed following deadly American air-strikes on Pakistani troops in November. The Joint Session of the Parliament began in Islamabad Tuesday with Chairman Senate Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari in the chair... The panel recommended that "Pakistan should seek an unconditional apology from the US for the unprovoked incident" and said "taxes and other charges must be levied on all goods importing in or transiting through Pakistan". The committee also called for cessation of drone attacks inside the territorial borders of Pakistan and reiterated the country's commitment to the elimination of terrorism and combating extremism.

Military struggles to regulate information on Afghanistan suspect 19 Mar 2012 For nearly a week, the military kept a lid of secrecy over the Army soldier from Joint Base Lewis-McChord suspected of killing 16 Afghan villagers. At the base south of Tacoma, officials cautioned Army families in his unit to stay quiet and admonished the press to respect their privacy. At the Pentagon, senior officials leaked selected details of the soldier's background even as they removed links to public-affairs articles that detailed some of his experiences in Iraq and his involvement in a training exercise in Afghanistan. But as the week wore on, the Defense Department began to lose control of the flow of information about the suspect...

Afghan government questions one-soldier role in massacre 17 Mar 2012 The US soldier who allegedly shot dead 16 Afghan civilians in Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar, have been repatriated to a US military prison at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Sergeant Robert Bales has been accused of opening fire on Afghan civilians on March 11th in Kandahar's Panjwaii district. It has been alleged he entered homes to shoot dead at least 17 people, mostly women and children. Several others were injured in the incident which has recently been under scrutiny by the Afghan parliament. A fact-finding mission in that country has been trying to determine whether other US soldiers were involved.

McCain suggests US not to quit Afghan war 19 Mar 2012 Republican Senator John McCain has suggested that Washington has no intention of leaving Afghanistan -- where it has been waging a so-called war on terror for more than a decade. McCain, a vociferous supporter of a large and long-drawn-out US military presence in Afghanistan, told NBC television's Meet the Press program on Sunday that the occupation of Afghanistan was "succeeding" and Washington should not leave the country. He criticized US President Barack Obama for setting 2014 as the deadline for the American withdrawal.

U.S. Exempts Japan, 10 EU Nations From Iran Oil Sanctions 20 Jan 2012 The Obama administration won't impose sanctions on Japan and 10 European Union nations that have "significantly" cut back their imports of Iranian oil this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. The U.S. didn't grant exemptions today to China, the top importer of Iranian crude in the first half of last year, or to India and South Korea, the No. 3 and No. 4 buyers, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Army threatens to fire whistleblower for talking to McClatchy 19 Mar 2012 The military's embattled crime lab is trying to fire an outspoken whistleblower who's spotlighted its problems. Earlier this month, the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Laboratory warned its firearms branch chief, Donald Mikko, in a memo of its plans to fire him, in part for talking to a McClatchy reporter. As part of an internal investigation, Mikko was interrogated for about four hours and questioned about his contacts with McClatchy, according to his attorney Peter Lown. The Army Criminal Investigation Command, which oversees the lab, launched the inquiry after McClatchy published a story late last year about the lab losing evidence.

Israel Ministry Of Defence in CLG website logs --CLG Sunshine Project update 19 Mar 2012 The Israel Ministry Of Defence accessed the CLG website on 19 March. From the CLG website logs: 195.160.240.11 -- [19/Mar/2012:03:11:17 -0400] "GET /More-half-RAF-drone-strikes-Afghanistan-not-reported-publicly HTTP/1.1" 11.mod.gov.il ptr. (etc.) 195.160.240.11 - 195.160.240.0/22 - Israel Ministry Of Defence - MOD-AS Israel Ministry Of Defence. [See also: CLG Sunshine Project.]

Heads Up: NORAD Conducting Calibration Flights Beginning Tuesday [Let's hope they don't 'go live,' as they did on 9/11.] 20 Mar 2012 The North American Aerospace Defense Commend will conduct calibration flights beginning Tuesday, March 20, and ending Friday, March 23, in the D.C. area. The flights are said to enhance NORAD response capability, and will take place from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. throughout the rest of the week. NORAD says four small radio controlled models and four Light Sport Air crafts between 150 and 3000 feet above ground level in patterns. The radio controlled models will only fly in restricted airspace near Quantico.

Missouri National Guard sergeant tied to Nazism is fired --'Although he lost his state position, Wooten is still a National Guard member.' 18 Mar 2012 Former co-workers say Nathan Wooten is a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi who had a portrait of Adolf Hitler in his living room, tried to recruit others to the cause and named his son after a notorious leader of the German SS. Until last week, Wooten also was a Missouri National Guard sergeant whose full-time state job was serving as part of a state military honor guard that pays last respects at the funerals of Missouri veterans, many of whom fought against Hitler in World War II. On Friday, as the Post-Dispatch was about to publish a story about the state's lack of action on co-workers' complaints filed against Wooten nearly a year ago, a Missouri National Guard spokeswoman notified the newspaper that Wooten had been fired from his state job.

Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness (whitehouse.gov) 16 Mar 2012 Sec. 201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities. (a) The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads: (1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer; (2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy; (3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources; (4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation; (5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and (6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.

Job seekers getting asked for Facebook passwords 20 Mar 2012 In their efforts to vet applicants, some companies and government agencies are going beyond merely glancing at a person's social networking profiles and instead asking to log in as the user to have a look around. "It's akin to requiring someone's house keys," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former federal prosecutor who calls it "an egregious privacy violation." Questions have been raised about the legality of the practice, which is also the focus of proposed legislation in Illinois and Maryland that would forbid public agencies from asking for access to social networks.

Polish police confiscate $100 million in fake US treasury bonds 20 Mar 2012 The Polish police say they have confiscated counterfeit US treasury bonds worth 100 million dollars. "Yesterday afternoon agents of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau apprehended an international group consisting of eight people... This group attempted to put counterfeit US treasury bonds worth 100 million US dollars on the market here in Poland," Poland's Central Anti-Corruption Bureau (CBA) said in a statement issued on Monday. "This is the largest operation ever of its kind in Poland and involves the largest amount of US treasury bonds," the CBA added.

Leveson inquiry: NotW hired special forces to track police 19 Mar 2012 The News of the World hired former special forces soldiers to follow a police surveillance team tracking a suspect in the 2006 Ipswich prostitute murders, the Leveson Inquiry heard today. Dave Harrison, a retired officer with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca), said the newspaper jeopardised the official investigation into the killings. He told the inquiry: "If our surveillance had been weakened by having to try and avoid other surveillance teams looking for us, if we had lost the subject, he may have gone and committed further murders because we were dealing with something else." In December 2006, Suffolk Police asked Soca to provide surveillance officers to follow suspects in the then-unsolved murders of five women working as prostitutes in Ipswich, the hearing was told.

Fukushima Face Decades of Tainted Crops 18 Mar 2012 Farmers in Japan's Fukushima face years of additional losses as consumers continue to doubt the safety of produce from the region devastated a year ago by nuclear fallout, which may taint crops for decades. Almost 100,000 farmers lost about 58 billion yen ($694 million) by March 1, or 25 percent of production, according to JA, the country's biggest agricultural group. Inadequate testing by the government of rice, milk and fish from the region has prompted consumers to leave them on supermarket shelves and instead select produce from other regions or from overseas.

Dutch Authorities Detect Bird Flu at Turkey Farm in Limburg 18 Mar 2012 Dutch authorities will cull 42,7000 fowl today after a variant of the H5 avian influenza was found at a turkey farm in Kelpen-Oler in Limburg, the Netherlands. Authorities are investigating whether the strain is low or highly pathogenic, the government said in a statement last night. [See: CLG's Flu 'Oddities'.]

Cleaning tool disconnects in Keystone oil pipeline --Part of 'pig' pops off in pipeline 19 Mar 2012 Part of a pipeline cleaning tool disconnected within TransCanada Corp's Canada-to-United States Keystone oil pipeline, but the incident was not affecting the line's operation or flow rate, the company said on Monday. TransCanada was using the inline tool, known in industry coin as a "pig", as part of normal maintenance when the piece broke off, spokesman Terry Cunha said. The pipeline is currently moving 500,000 barrels a day, down from its capacity of 591,000, he said. It does not normally operate at full capacity rates.

Chevron executives barred from leaving Brazil over spill 17 Mar 2012 A Brazilian court on Saturday barred 17 executives from Chevron and Transocean from leaving Brazil, pending criminal charges related to a high-profile oil spill last November. A federal judge in Rio de Janeiro state granted a request from prosecutors who are pressing for charges against both firms, a spokesman for prosecutor Eduardo Oliveira said in a phone interview. George Buck, who heads Chevron's Brazil unit, and the other 16 executives must turn in their passports to the police within 24 hours, the spokesman said. [Awesome!]

Fla. grand jury to investigate shooting of unarmed teen 20 Mar 2012 Florida State Attorney Norm Wolfinger said Tuesday his office will convene a grand jury in central Florida to investigate the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager who was killed Feb. 26 in a gated community by a neighborhood watch captain [sociopath]. Mr. Wolfinger, in a statement, said he shared the desire of the family of the slain youth, Trayvon Martin, and the community to accurately collect and evaluate all the facts surrounding what he described as "the tragic death" of the teenager. He said the Seminole County, Fla., grand jury will be called into session in the matter on April 10.

U.S. Department of Justice, FBI and FDLE to probe Trayvon Martin killing --Mounting pressure in Trayvon Martin case succeeds in prompting a federal probe 19 Mar 2012 The U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the FBI will investigate the killing of Miami Gardens teenager Trayvon Martin by a neighborhood watch volunteer, the department announced late Monday. The federal and state agencies are intervening in what attorneys call a botched investigation into the killing of the Michael Krop Senior High School student, who was killed Feb. 26 in Sanford, a town of 55,000 just north of Orlando.

FBI eyes case where unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin killed in gated community 19 Mar 2012 The FBI said on Sunday they were in contact with local police investigating the killing of a black teenager last month by a neighborhood watch volunteer in a gated Florida community, an incident that has raised alarm among civil rights leaders. On Feb. 26, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed as he walked through a gated neighborhood, where he was visiting family. George Zimmerman, 28, who is white, has said he shot Martin in self-defense. Police in Sanford, Florida, about 32 km north of Orlando, have not charged Zimmerman.

ENDS

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