the big 5 stories:

#1 - Is The CIA Behind Mexico's Bloody Drug War?

Is the CIA the cause of the bloody border war that is happening right now just south of the US? 23,000 have died and counting. The Central Intelligence Agency has a long history of criminal activity and drug running with roots that go back to the agency's forerunners. The current Mexican drug war that is reeking havoc of the US border is the result of both above-board policies and black-budget shenanigans. From dealings with Lucky Luciano to bringing crack-cocaine to south central Los Angeles to the opium production going on right now in Afghanistan, the CIA has always been the world's drug dealer. Journalist Mike Whitney reports that the evidence of CIA involvement in the drug trade is vast, documented and compelling." Full Story

#2 - Homeland: Drones Coming to Texas

Many may not know it but "drones" have been flying over every border state except Texas. That now changes as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate hearing on Tuesday that unmanned aerial drones will soon fly through Texas skies. The same drones that have killed over 700 Afghans (see below). The reason given was to fight the drug war but the growing presence of a military weapon patrolling domestic skies is sending a chilling to many. Full Story

#3 - Obama's Drone War Killed 700 Afghans in 2009

Of the 44 predator strikes carried out by US drones in the tribal areas of Pakistan over the past 12 months, only five were able to hit their actual targets, killing five key Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders, but at the cost of over 700 innocent civilians.

According to the statistics compiled by Pakistani authorities, the Afghanistan-based US drones killed 708 people in 44 predator attacks targeting the tribal areas between January 1 and December 31, 2009.

For each Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorist killed by US drones, 140 innocent Pakistanis also had to die. Over 90 per cent of those killed in the deadly missile strikes were civilians, claim authorities.

The success percentage for the drone hits during 2009 was hardly 11 per cent. On average, 58 civilians were killed in these attacks every month, 12 persons every week and almost two people every day. Most of the attacks were carried out on the basis of human intelligence, reportedly provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen, who are spying for the US-led allied forces in Afghanistan. Full Story

#4 - Polls Show Growing Support for Repeal of Health Reform

A new national poll shows support for repealing President Obama’s health care reform law has not abated in the month since its passage, and actually ticked up.

“Support for repeal of the recently-passed national health care plan remains strong as most voters believe the law will increase the cost of care, hurt quality and push the federal budget deficit even higher,” said the new release from the polling firm Rasmussen Reports.

Fifty-eight (58) percent of likely voters said they would support an effort to repeal the legislation, as Republicans have given consideration to campaigning on such a promise. Just 38 percent communicated opposition to such an effort.

The percentage who support repeal efforts are up 3 percent from the week just after the bill passed, when President Obama made several campaign-style stops in support of the bill. Full Story

#5 - Death Squads in Afghanistan

It should no longer be a matter of dispute that US Special Forces in Afghanistan are responsible for an increasing number of murders, whether part of targeted extra-judicial killings or the result of bad intelligence. From the attack on a bridal shower in Gardez on February 12, 2010 that killed numerous civilians, including two pregnant women, to the growing list of executions of insurgents in the Kandahar area, Special Forces have become the US military version of death squads.

As noted in an April 25 article in New York Times, the offensive against supposed Taliban forces in Kandahar has already commenced, with the "opening salvos of the offensive…being carried out in the shadows by Special Operations forces." Full Story

also:
*Financial Reform: GOP Prepared To Abandon Stalling Tactics

*Immigrants fall through the cracks of a broken system

*US puts child soldier on trial

the big story (late edition)

The Coming Energy Burden

Republicans and Democrats, Oil Companies and Environmentalist All for Gas Tax Increase

WASHINGTON - Leading voices in the Senate are considering a new tax on gasoline, as part of an effort to win Republican and oil industry support for the energy and climate bill now idling in Congress.

The tax, which according to early estimates would be in the range of 15 cents a gallon, was conceived with the input of several oil companies, including Shell, BP and Conoco Phillips, and is being championed by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

It is shaping up as a critical but controversial piece in the efforts by Graham, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) to write a climate bill that moderate Republicans could support. Along those lines, the bill will also include an expansion of offshore oil drilling and major new incentives for nuclear power plant construction.

Environmental groups have long advocated gasoline taxes to reduce fossil fuel consumption; the oil industry has spent heavily in recent years to fight taxes that the industry says would harm consumers.

In this case, though, several oil companies are floating the tax plan because it figures to cost them far less than other climate proposals, including a climate bill the House passed last year.

Read more...

*Oil May Rise as US Deliberately Supplies Drop

*Obama’s Green Economy: Made in China

*Alex Jones:Running on empty




earlier:

Destruction of Videotapes Documented in CIA E-mail

Email shows CIA head signed off on destroying tapes showing torturing of detainees

WASHINGTON – Internal CIA e-mails show the former agency head, Porter Goss, agreed with a top aide's 2005 decision to destroy videotapes of the harsh interrogation of a terror suspect, a controversial action that remains the focus of an FBI investigation.

The documents show that, despite Goss' apparent agreement, CIA officials almost immediately began worrying they'd done something wrong. The e-mails also indicate that President George W. Bush's White House counsel, Harriet Miers, hadn't been informed of the tapes' destruction and was "livid" to find out later.

The videos showed CIA interrogators using waterboarding, a simulated drowning technique that's widely considered torture, on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaydah. The videos showed that interrogators did not follow the waterboarding procedures authorized by the Bush administration, the documents indicate.

Jose Rodriguez, the agency's top clandestine officer, worried the 92 tapes would be "devastating" to the CIA if they ever surfaced, the documents show. He approved the destruction of the tapes.

Rodriguez told Goss and others he "felt it was extremely important to destroy the tapes and that if there was any heat, he would take it," according to a November 2005 e-mail.

Goss, according to the e-mail, laughed and said he'd be the one to take the heat.

The e-mail then states: "PG, however, agreed with the decision."

Read more...

CoOlDiGgY news (late edition)

CASHING IN

House Staffer Who Helped Write Bank Reform Rules Gets Job As Bank Lobbyist

When the House worked on financial regulatory reform legislation last year, 16 of the Financial Services Committee staffers -- 12 of them Democrats -- assisting in that effort had previously worked as federally-registered lobbyists.

One of them is now heading back to K Street.

Peter Roberson helped write legislation intended to regulate credit-default swaps and other over-the-counter financial products, reported Bloomberg's Matthew Leising in breaking the news of Roberson's turn through the revolving door. He is now going to work for Intercontinental Exchange Inc. as a lobbyist. The company owns the world's biggest CDS clearinghouse that will be regulated by the rules that Roberson had a major hand in writing.

Read more...

*Man Arrested for Threatening the Life of Congressman Eric Cantor. VIDEO



*Putin vows to destroy group behind attacks

*Biometric Scans for Traffic Stops

*Saturday mail may soon be a memory

*President Sarkozy Of France Says Europe And America Must Come Up With New Answers

*Use of Taser on Pregnant Woman Not Unconstitutional, Court Rules

*U.S. take if it sells its Citi stake to settle cost of bailout: $8 billion

*China Rushes To Bomb Its Clouds As Rice Prices Spike 10% In A Month

earlier:

CIA Report: Public Apathy Makes Endless Wars Possible

A revealing PDF from WikiLeaks reveals that the CIA plays on public apathy

The report is discussing apathy among the French and German people to their countries' involvement in the war in Afghanistan, but the same is true to the apathy of Americans towards the Iraq and other wars as well.

Read more...

*Alleged militia members indicted for plotting attack on police

*Jobless Rate Rose in 27 States in February; Four Hit Records

*Obama Sets Sights on Merging Mexico and US?

*US Regularly Kills Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints

*ICE officials set quotas to deport more illegal immigrants

*Next Power Grab: Cap-and-Trade

*Don’t Be Fooled: Republicans Love Government Enforced Healthcare

*Law enforcers pursue possible causes of Moscow bombings

the big story (late edition)

US and UK Move Close to Losing AAA Credit Rating

A lose in rating means more of a percentage of GDP that goes to pay higher interest rates on debt. Is Austerity far behind?

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and the U.K. have moved “substantially” closer to losing their AAA credit ratings as the cost of servicing their debt rose, according to Moody’s Investors Service.

The governments of the two economies must balance bringing down their debt burdens without damaging growth by removing fiscal stimulus too quickly, Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of sovereign risk at Moody’s in London, said in a telephone interview.

Under the ratings company’s so-called baseline scenario, the U.S. will spend more on debt service as a percentage of revenue this year than any other top-rated country except the U.K., and will be the biggest spender from 2011 to 2013, Moody’s said today in a report.

“We expect the situation to further deteriorate in terms of the key ratings metrics before they start stabilizing,” Cailleteau said. “This story is not going to stop at the end of the year. There is inertia in the deterioration of credit metrics.”

Read more...

earlier:

Contractors Tied to Effort to Track and Kill Militants

From left: Michael D. Furlong, the official who was said to have hired private contractors to track militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan; Robert Young Pelton, a contractor; Duane Clarridge, a former C.I.A. official; and Eason Jordan, a former television news executive.

Defense Department investigates the use of mercs to hunt and kill suspected insurgents in Afghanistan and Pakistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.

The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information was then sent to military units and intelligence officials for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the officials said.

While it has been widely reported that the C.I.A. and the military are attacking operatives of Al Qaeda and others through unmanned, remote-controlled drone strikes, some American officials say they became troubled that Mr. Furlong seemed to be running an off-the-books spy operation. The officials say they are not sure who condoned and supervised his work.

It is generally considered illegal for the military to hire contractors to act as covert spies. Officials said Mr. Furlong’s secret network might have been improperly financed by diverting money from a program designed to merely gather information about the region.

Read more...