claire bernish

#Bayer’s Acquisition Offer Could Literally Make #Monsanto Disappear

May 20, 2016 by claire bernish

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(ANTIMEDIA) United States — Bayer has now confirmed a buyout bid for agrichemical giant, Monsanto — the maker of Agent Orange, RoundUp, and genetically-modified crops — otherwise known as one of the most hated companies on the planet.

In a statement, Monsanto said Morgan Stanley & Co. is advising the company financially in the “potential acquisition,” but didn’t comment beyond basic information about what the deal might entail. The merger would combine Bayer and Monsanto into the largest agricultural supplier in the world.

Monsanto has experienced declining sales, particularly of its genetically-modified corn and soybean seeds, arguably as a result of customer backlash over RoundUp being designated a “probable carcinogen” by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer last year. GM corn, soy, cotton, and other RoundUp Ready crops rely on heavy dousings of the glyphosate-based herbicide to control weeds — but farmers have also admitted to using RoundUp to assist in the drying process prior to harvest.

On Tuesday, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine declared genetically engineered crops ‘safe’ for human consumption after a multi-year study, but still noted the benefits of labeling foods containing them. However, one day prior to its declaration, a report cited by EcoWatch revealed extensive connections between the National Academies and biotech companies like Monsanto — which donated millions to the division responsible for the study on the safety of GM food.

Further contaminating Monsanto’s already severely tarnished record of unsafe products, RoundUp has been specifically named the cause of four Nebraska farm workers’ non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in a lawsuit announced this week. In that case and several others, inert ingredients — and not just glyphosate — appear to have contributed to the development of cancer.

According to lawsuit cited by The Intercept, John Sanders, a farm worker from California suing the company for damages after he developed cancer, Monsanto “knew or should have known that RoundUp is more toxic than glyphosate alone and that safety studies of RoundUp, RoundUp’s adjuvants and ‘inert’ ingredients” were necessary.

Monsanto’s notoriety doesn’t end with shady agrichemicals — not by far. In March, the Portland, Oregon, city council voted unanimously to allow the city’s attorney to proceed with a lawsuit against the behemoth company for the contamination of various bodies of water with toxic PCBs. Seattle, Spokane, Berkeley, Oakland, San Diego, and San Jose have similar litigation pending for PCB contamination.

Though the potential buyout of Monsanto by Bayer comes amidst a number of other mergers of chemical industry corporations, it appears to be a move to save the former from its poor performance in the marketplace.

“Monsanto has struggled in recent quarters to deal with slumping corn prices in the U.S., which have reduced demand for its best-selling product: genetically-enhanced corn seeds,” ABC News reported in January. “Farmers are shifting more acres to other crops after surpluses of corn and other crops, including wheat, have squashed commodity prices.”

People have moved away from food potentially chemically soaked with RoundUp, making the world’s bestselling chemical herbicide’s future more uncertain by the day — and the merger with Bayer, which has its own questionable history, a possible business-saving proposition.

It’s likely that if the acquisition is successful, Bayer will completely drop the Monsanto name from its products to get away from the stigma the company has accumulated over the years. This would render it invisible to concerned consumers while retaining its products under a new name.

An entire protest movement called the March Against Monsanto has been built up around the company, with the latest incarnation taking place tomorrow.

This article (Bayer’s Acquisition Offer Could Literally Make Monsanto Disappear) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

We Found a Preview of the 28 Redacted Pages — and It’s a 9/11 Game-Changer

May 18, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — On Tuesday, the New York Times revealed a document published by the National Archives that appears to offer a glimpse into potentially damning information contained in the so-called ‘missing’ 28 pages concerning the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Those 28 pages are “an entire section within the official report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks … Conducted by the House and Senate intelligence committees, its 838-page report was published in December 2002.”

Over the past several weeks, discussion has reignited debate over the need to release the redacted section for several reasons — the most striking being a bill to allow the families of 9/11 victims sue Saudi Arabia over its potential involvement in the attacks. In what cannot be considered a coincidence, also on Tuesday, the Senate voted to approve that exact legislation — called Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — in direct defiance of vows from Pres. Obama that he will summarily veto the bill should it land on his desk.

“I think we easily get the two-thirds override if the president should veto,” stated Sen. Charles Schumer on the bill’s passage.

Separate legislation, which coincides with JASTA — S.B. 1471, Transparency for the Families of 9/11 Victims and Survivors Act of 2015 — would require the president to declassify those currently-redacted pages. This would almost certainly be imperative for JASTA to have the teeth necessary for affected families to pursue justice.

Tuesday’s disclosure from the National Archives appears to show why those families might, indeed, have a justifiable reason to hold the Saudis at least partly responsible for damages — despite its contents only hinting at information potentially contained in the 28 pages.

Former member of the 9/11 Commission, John Lehman, came forward in the past week calling for a new and thorough investigation into Saudi involvement in the attacks. In measured and precise language, Lehman noted that “we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization” — but also stressed “our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.”

Perhaps, as Lehman suggested, the institution of the Saudi government did not play a role; however, as found in the document in the Times, at least a partial connection already stands.

A shady cast of characters are briefly outlined in the document under the heading, “A Brief Overview of Possible Saudi Government Connections to the September 11th attacks” — and simply in context it appears a number of notable associations may have been made.

Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national, encouraged two of the hijackers to move to the San Diego area where he was located. As the document describes:

“Al-Bayoumi has extensive ties to the Saudi Government and many in the local Muslim community in San Diego believed that he was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI believes it is possible that he was an agent of the Saudi government and that he may have been reporting on the local community to Saudi Government officials.”

Osama Bassnan “received considerable funding from Prince Bandar and Princess Haifa, supposedly for his wife’s medical treatments. According to FBI documents, Bassnan is a former employee of the Saudi Government’s Educational Mission in Washington, D.C.”

Though some officials privy to the redacted section have claimed any connection to kingdom officials is tenuous, at best, one solid link already stands. Fahad al-Thumairy, a former diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles, associated himself with al-Bayoumi in San Diego before the revocation of his visa and his subsequent return to Saudi Arabia in May 2003.

In fact, the document lists a pilot for the Saudi royal family who ferried Osama bin Laden back and forth between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during his “exile.” A number of others are listed with less than questionable ties to either the Saudi government, the royal family, or both.

But perhaps most telling are the questions the document appears to be proposing for the investigation — or, more specifically, what seems to be implied in those questions.

“1. How aggressively has the U.S. Government investigated possible ties between the Saudi Government and/or Royal Family and the September 11th attacks?

“2. To what extent have the U.S. Government’s efforts to investigate possible ties between the Saudi Government and/or Royal Family and the September 11th attacks been affected by political, economic, or other considerations?”

On their own, such questions seem basic, obvious, and even mundane as so essential to the investigation to be needless to state — but taken with the details of this outline and the context of what their answers may constitute in those redacted 28 pages, the repercussions become apparent. If, for instance, the U.S. decided not to thoroughly pursue avenues of investigation due to economic interests in Saudi affairs, that would show fealty to another country over the best interests of the victims of those attacks.

Perhaps that murky obstruction is best seen in the document’s discussion of an FBI informant located in San Diego. Buried among other questions, the document asks: “Why did the FBI, Department of Justice, and White House refuse to allow the Joint Inquiry to interview or depose the informant?”

With the firestorm swirling once again around the redacted 28 pages, this basic outline of a document offers a serious glimpse into what might prove to be a fundamental shift in the narrative of 9/11 the U.S. government has spoonfed for over a decade.

As U.S.-Saudi relations have recently deteriorated to an arguable new low, perhaps it remains just a matter of time before we all know the truth.

This article (We Found a Preview of the 28 Redacted Pages — and It’s a 9/11 Game-Changer) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Did the #Nevada Democratic Party Just Steal Another State From #Bernie Sanders?

May 16, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) Nevada — In what might best be described as a minor electoral coup, the Nevada Democratic Party did its utmost to ensure a caucus victory for Hillary Clinton — and it appears they succeeded.

“We need civility in the Democratic Party — civility,” bemoaned Sen. Barbara Boxer to the largely outraged crowd, amid boos and shouts of “recount,” in the Paris hotel in Las Vegas on Saturday. “When you’re booing me, you’re booing Bernie Sanders,” asserted Boxer, a Hillary supporter, fanning the flames. “You know something, I grew up in Brooklyn and I’m not afraid of bullies. I’m for Hillary Clinton because she’s for all of us. So keep yourselves booing and boo yourselves out of the election.”

Boxer’s obstinate fealty to Clinton did nothing to pacify the thousands milling about, jeering — especially when she added, “We had our Nevada Caucus and Hillary Clinton won.”

As Nevada State Democratic Party Chairwoman and member of the national DNC’s Executive Committee, Roberta Lange, stood at the podium before thousands of mostly irate party members, an unidentified woman — as captured in video footage uploaded to Facebook — made a request on behalf of the crowd:

“I am asking you to have a recount. 9:30 was too soon for a preliminary vote. The petition did not get to everyone.”

Many attendees demanded that 64 excluded Sanders delegates, listed in a “minority report,” be allowed to participate. But Lange instead swiftly called for a voice vote to implement a temporary change of party rules on a permanent basis. Then she took it upon herself to affirm the result — which, as video shows the obstreperous reaction, was at least debatable — abruptly adjourned the meeting with an impotent slam of the gavel, and simply walked out, leaving pandemonium in her wake.

Stunned at Lange’s unceremonious departure, the throngs of Sanders devotees screamed incredulously at the now vacant podium, demanding an explanation for what had just taken place. Murmurs showed resolve to wait in the convention room until just democracy could be carried out — to no avail.

Shortly after Lange’s exit, which was followed by other party officials who then had to be escorted by police offstage, hotel security and armed local law enforcement officers appeared at the front of the auditorium.

“I don’t know if anyone can see this,” says Adryenn Ashley, who uploaded video to Facebook as events unfolded. “I don’t know if you can hear this, but there are 20 armed sheriffs here to help them steal the election … They’re saying leave now or else.”

At one point, a Hillary T-shirt-adorned woman even called for Bernie supporters to be ‘arrested.’

As hotel security can be heard on video saying, as officers ushered the outraged attendees from the meeting floor, “it is now in the hands of the attorneys,” and “[p]lease leave peacefully. Please leave, it is not safe here.”

But as one Sanders supporter rightly intoned, “If we do not leave, it becomes a big issue. I’m not leaving.”

Eventually, attendees disbursed — however disenfranchised they felt.

In the aftermath, those aforementioned 64 excluded delegates secured Clinton’s win by 33 — with final tallies on the day at 1,695 attending for Hillary to Sanders’ 1,662.

So contentious were the totals that Nevada Democratic convention credentials committee co-chair, Leslie Sexton, claimed the action by the state party rules committee “violates the spirit and values of our state and our nation.” As reported by RealClearPolitics, she continued:

“The credentials minority report is based on the challenge of 64 Sanders delegates. Contrary to the procedures and precedents set by the committee, nearly none of these 64 people were presented with the opportunity to be heard by the committee or to demonstrate that they are registered Democrats. Without the opportunity to be heard, no delegate could be stricken. The actions of the credentials committee violate the spirit of the Nevada state delegate plan which encourages full participation in the delegate process, and it violates the spirit and values of our state and our nation.”

Perhaps Sexton absolutely characterizes the disenfranchisement of the voting public as the primary season rolls on, as state after state reports innumerable complaints from voters. Or perhaps, her statement evidences a larger pattern of usurpation of the vote — as state after state reports mysteriously cleansed voter rolls, registration ballot shortages, inexcusably long lines, and inexplicably under-trained volunteers — who often sport candidate-specific paraphernalia, in direct conflict with established electoral law.

As outrageous as the Nevada State Convention might have seemed, it stands as yet further evidence that votes will be taken by whom the establishment deems pertinent to the narrative. If the DNC touts Hillary Clinton then, voters be damned, she will be their nominee.

With rumors a contested Democratic National Convention may be in the works, it would seem more pertinent than ever to examine how vehemently the establishment guards its go-to candidate — something with which past supporters of Ron Paul have well familiarized themselves.

It now stands virtually impossible to deny — elections are nothing more than a rigged theater of political appeasement.

This article (Did the Nevada Democratic Party Just Steal Another State From Bernie Sanders?) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Marc Nozell. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

You Know Those Missing #Hillary #Emails? #Russia Might Leak 20,000 of Them

May 14, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) Hillary Clinton sits at the center of a raging firestorm concerning her arrangement of a private email account and server set up in her home — from which top secret information may have been deleted. But despite Bernie Sanders’ apparent annoyance with the “damn emails,” the scandal just exponentially intensified, when Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed on Monday that Russia has possession of around 20,000 of Clinton’s emails — leaving open the possibility her deletions might not have been permanent after all.

“There’s a debate going on in the Kremlin between the Foreign Ministry and the Intelligence Services about whether they should release the 20,000 of Mrs. Clinton’s emails that they have hacked into,” Napolitano told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly in an interview for The Kelly File.

[embedded content]

With Clinton’s repeated claims she employed the personal email server only for mundane communications and non-sensitive State matters having been proven outright lies, the deletions of 31,830 emails — in the new context of Napolitano’s statement — have suddenly become remarkably relevant.

As the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s questionable email practices deepens, the question of who had access to what information previously located on the former secretary of state’s server is now more critical than ever.

One such individual, Romanian hacker Guccifer, who was abruptly extradited to the United States, revealed he had easily and repeatedly accessed Clinton’s personal server — and he wasn’t the only one.

“For me, it was easy,” the hacker, whose given name is Marcel Lehel Lazar, exclusively told Fox News; “easy for me, for everybody.”

If Guccifer and Napolitano are right, Russia may, indeed, have possession of highly-sensitive information courtesy of Clinton’s arrogant failure to adhere to the obligation to use a government email account during her tenure as secretary — a situation worsened by the now-mendacious claim no sensitive information had been sent through the personal account.

In fact, if Guccifer is to be believed — as his extradition by the U.S. indicates — news of the Kremlin having obtained potentially top-secret material may be the tip of a gargantuan iceberg. Using a readily available program, the Romanian hacker also claimed he observed “up to 10, like, IPs from other parts of the world” during sessions on Clinton’s personal server. If just one of those unknown parties was connected to Russia, who the other nine might be could be central to the FBI’s decision whether or not to charge Clinton for mishandling classified information.

Adding yet another nail in the coffin case against Hillary on Thursday, the Hill reported conservative watchdog Judicial Watch revealed, pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act request, frustration with technical difficulties in obtaining a secure phone line led the secretary to direct a top aide to abandon the effort and call her without the necessary security in place.

“I give up. Call me on my home [number],” Clinton wrote in a February 2009 email from the newly-released batch — on the also notoriously unsecured server — to then-chief of staff, Cheryl Mills.

Though the email thread contains no confirmation such a call was ever made on the unsecured phone line, it evidences still more of the same flagrant disregard for national security apparently peppering Clinton’s practices during her time at the State Department.

“This drip, drip of new Clinton emails show Hillary Clinton could not care less about the security of her communications,” noted Judicial Watch president, Tom Fitton, in a statement cited by the Hill. “How many other smoking gun emails are Hillary Clinton and her co-conspirators in the Obama administration hiding from the American people?”

For a putative presidential hopeful, Hillary Clinton certainly doesn’t appear to appreciate the imperative for keeping matters of national security obscured from … anyone.

This article (You Know Those Missing Hillary Emails? Russia Might Leak 20,000 of Them) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Jon #Stewart Just Slammed Hillary #Clinton But the Media Ignored It

May 12, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) While it’s hardly shocking that mainstream media targeted Jon Stewart’s latest jab — in which he described Donald Trump as a “man-baby” — the mainstream media establishment mouthpiece virtually ignored his lambasting of Hillary Clinton.

“What I think about Hillary Clinton is, you know … I imagine [her] to be a very bright woman … without the courage of her convictions — ‘cause I’m not even sure what they are,” Stewart told David Axelrod for his podcast, The Axe, to which the audience erupted in applause.

Though the slam represented more than corporate media has managed thus far during the former secretary of state’s troubled run for the presidency, Jon Stewart took the description to a hilarious next level. For reference, Magic Johnson once had a talk show that ultimately failed because … well … witness Stewart’s comparison of Johson to Hillary:

“Magic Johnson was a charming individual, but he wasn’t a talk show host … so, he would sit and he would go, [Stewart affected a flat tone here] ‘Uh, my first guest tonight … my first guest tonight is [with lots of enthusiasm] CHER, everybody!’ But he never seemed authentic and real to his personality. It seemed like he was wearing an outfit designed by someone else for someone else to be someone else, and that is not to say that [Clinton] is not preferable to Donald Trump — because at this point, I would vote for Mr. T over Donald Trump. But I think she will be in big trouble if she can’t find a way, and maybe I’m wrong. Maybe a real person doesn’t exist underneath there. I don’t know.”

Axelrod then asked the former host of the Daily Show about Clinton’s appearance as a guest — and the criticism continued:

[embedded content]

“What was that like?” Axelrod inquired about the former secretary’s interview.

“Really cool,” Stewart deadpanned. “It’s — look, there are politicians who are either rendering their inauthenticity in real enough time to appear authentic, and then their are politicians who render their inauthenticity through — it’s like, when your computer … if you have a Mac and you want to play a Microsoft game on it …”

AXELROD: Yes, yes.

STEWART: … and there’s that weird lag.

AXELROD: Yes. No, I mean …

STEWART: That’s Hillary Clinton.

AXELROD: … that’s a big problem. There’s like a seven-second delay and all the words come out in a perfectly …

STEWART: Right.

AXELROD: … politically calibrated sentence.

STEWART: Right. Now, what gives me hope in that is that there’s a delay, which means she’s somehow fighting something. I’ve seen politicians who don’t have that delay and render their inauthenticity in real time, and that’s when you go, ‘That’s a sociopath.’

So, there you have it. Jon Stewart described Hillary Clinton as inauthentic and not bold enough to follow through on issues she stridently touts — but stopped just short of calling the presidential hopeful a ‘sociopath.’

Jon Stewart speaks ill of Hillary, instantly has his Good Liberal card revoked by hordes of angry Democrats https://t.co/zuW0wmxVK8

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 12, 2016

For the full podcast, visit this link.

This article (Jon Stewart Just Slammed Hillary Clinton But the Media Ignored It) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

#DOJ Employees Investigating Hillary Email Scandal Gave $75K to Her Campaign

May 11, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — In what must be described as a massive conflict of interest, Hillary Clinton has amassed nearly $75,000 in campaign donations from individuals listing their place of employment as “Department of Justice.” Considering Clinton is the subject of a sweeping investigation by the FBI — for which the DoJ will determine whether or not charges will be levied — such donations seem at least somewhat dissonant.

As the Washington Free Beacon reported, of all the presidential hopefuls, Clinton received by far the heftiest sum from DoJ employees — $73,437 total, including 228 individuals contributing the maximum allowable by law, $2,700. On its own, the total could be considered substantial, but as the Free Beacon noted, Clinton’s previous presidential run wasn’t favored as heavily by DoJ employees — in 2008, she raised just $15,930 from 23 contributors.

Hillary’s donations from the Department of Justice completely swamp those of the other candidates, in fact, as Sanders’ total from 51 donors was just $8,900 and Trump garnered an inconsequential $381.

“I’m not surprised in the least to see more evidence that shows the politicization of the Justice Department,” said watchdog group, Citizens United, president David Bossie, in a statement to the Free Beacon. “How can Democrat political appointees fairly investigate someone who is about to become their nominee for president? That’s why last July I called on Attorney General Lynch to appoint an impartial special counsel to investigate the private Clinton email server.

“Today, I renew my call that Attorney General Lynch must appoint a special counsel to determine if Hillary Clinton or her agents broke the law and compromised our national security. This investigation needs to be conducted free of political influence once and for all.”

Critics have previously pointed to Lynch personally donating over $10,000 to Democratic candidates as evidence of her lack of impartiality — and sufficient reason she should not be charged with overseeing the investigation of Clinton’s emails.

As if the DoJ connections to the Clinton investigation weren’t enough, the former secretary has also received a number of hearty contributions from the private prison industry.

As The Intercept reported nearly a year ago, two of Clinton’s top campaign donors are Corrections Corporation of America and the Geo Group — two of the biggest private prison corporations on the planet.

For Clinton to not only claim to follow the letter of the law in the face of evidence to the contrary — in her use of a private email server for official State business — but to also tout her devotion to minorities and social justice, while accepting donations from for-profit prisons, belies the flimsiest of façades.

As usual, Hillary Clinton’s stances run the gamut of personal convenience while flouting the public interest. Though evidence grows stronger by the day that at least one of her many wrongs is deserving of an indictment, the levying of charges remains an open question — if not downright doubtful.

This article (Dept. of Justice Investigating Hillary Email Scandal Gave $75K to Her Campaign) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Marc Nozell. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Hacker #Arrested and Jailed After Exposing Flaws in #Election Website

May 10, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) Lee County, FL — A hacker in Florida exposed security vulnerabilities in one county’s elections web domains so officials could fix the problem — but, instead, he ended up behind bars.

Hacker David Michael Levin, owner of Vanguard Cybersecurity, was arrested on Wednesday after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement received a referral from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office after his apparently misguided attempt to help prevent election fraud by pointing out online vulnerabilities.

After spending six hours in jail, where he was held on $15,000 bond, Levin now faces three counts of gaining unauthorized access to a computer, network, or electronic instrument — despite the fact he had not only been doing his job, but also alerted the county to a potentially serious security concern.

To hack the Lee County Elections Office and the Division of Elections in Tallahassee, Levin performed Structured Query Language (SQL) injection attacks — which he documented on video and later uploaded to YouTube. According to the somewhat redacted police report, Levin’s associate, Daniel Sinclair, sent a security report about the SQL vulnerability — including details of the security flaw and a screenshot — to “an employee within the Department of State, Division of Elections.”

That employee then forwarded all the information to Special Agent Christopher Tissot, and the investigation began.

Though superficially, the case appears to be one of an unwelcome security breach despite that it was attempted for otherwise laudable purposes. But some aspects of what led to Levin’s arrest deserve further consideration.

Levin’s associate, Sinclair, is currently running against incumbent Sharon Harrington, Lee County Supervisor of Elections — whose name and password were used in the SQL hack. In the YouTube video about the attack, Levin and Sinclair explain how they obtained data from the elections website, which wasn’t even encrypted.

The possibility Levin chose Harrington’s account to perform the SQL injection as a publicity stunt to make Harrington’s job performance appear untenable must be taken into consideration. That being said, Levin’s foray into the elections data had not been undertaken with the appropriate permission — and because he didn’t alert the authorities as soon as he discovered vulnerabilities, law enforcement is required to be blind to his good intent.

However, in Levin’s defense, the privacy concerns of millions of voters — and any other potential issues with unencrypted and unsecured information — on the official Elections website should perhaps trump the strictures of law. Levin cooperated fully during a raid of his property — during which electronics were confiscated — and has in no way been deceitful regarding the hack.

Considering the sheer volume of complaints so far during the 2016 election cycle, it would seem counterproductive for law enforcement to go after a credentialed individual who obviously has the voting public’s best interests in mind.

With rather overt fraud disenfranchising voters across the country, arresting the one hacker who attempted to help secure elections seems oddly ironic.

This article (Hacker Arrested and Jailed After Exposing Flaws in Election Website) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

The Disastrous #2016 #Election Has Triggered a Third Party Revolution #LP

May 5, 2016 by claire bernish

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — While tumultuous, chaotic, contentious, outrageous, erratic, fraudulent, random, disheartening, and certainly unpredictable, could simultaneously describe this presidential election cycle, perhaps the most unanticipated development surrounds the categorical shunning of the soured, traditional duopoly — despite its previously adamantine grip on American politics.

This year, constant evidence substantiates the people’s collective scream: Enough!

In particular, once Ted Cruz and John Kasich abruptly halted their bids for the nomination this week — sending shockwaves across the already tempestuous election climate — the country’s umbrage against the establishment gained momentum. Again. Third parties and alternative candidates — and not just anti-establishment candidates conniving the system by running on one of the duopoly’s tickets — began blowing up the previously gaining trend in popularity.

In just one example following the sudden void in options for GOP voters, the Libertarian Party experienced massive and atypical interest in their platform — a doubling of applications for new members. More to the point, LP Executive Director Wes Benedict told the Washington Examiner in an email there hadn’t been a recent recruitment push for new members on social media — and surmised the sudden interest must be due to Trump’s unofficial clinching of the Republican nomination.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson noted the surge of interest yesterday on Facebook:

“Of course they are scared of Trump,” Benedict penned. “Trump sounds like an authoritarian. We don’t need a deal-maker. We need more transparency, and a smaller, less intrusive government that provides a level playing field for all and has fewer deals for special interests.”

In the last few months, in fact, once the primary season began in earnest, new donor contributions to the LP skyrocketed — even more so once Trump became the all-but-presumptive GOP nominee.

April 2015, simply for reference, saw 106 new donors to the Libertarian Party; but, as the Examiner noted of statistics Benedict provided, “in February 2016, after Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina held their caucuses and primaries, the LP saw 323 new donors. In March, they had 546 new donors, and in April, after everyone but Trump, Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich had dropped out, the LP signed up 706 new donors.”

Benedict’s conclusion that the LP’s spike in popularity came from, essentially, fear of a Trump presidency, further illustrates the abysmal sentiment regarding establishment politics in the U.S. However polarizing Trump might be, an astonishing approval rate has helped slingshot what many originally wrote off as a publicity stunt into a direct counter-establishment torpedo with the potential to win the White House.

On the flip side, Bernie Sanders similarly continues to garner fanatical support — while his campaign’s very foundation took root by countering establishment rhetoric. Sanders, an Independent running on the Democratic ballot, remains wildly popular despite media suppression of his success and continued election fraud almost certainly employed to obstruct his possible nomination.

Disillusionment and voter disenfranchisement collided in a mid-April Gallup poll, perhaps revealing another underlying motivation in the mass exodus from the traditional political duopoly — just a hair over one-quarter of the U.S., 27 percent, believe the election process currently functions as it should.

Sick of politics-as-usual, the American populace appears to have cleaved chasms in both the traditional Republican and Democratic Parties. Whether more interest in third parties comes now or after November’s election results are final, it’s clear the political climate in this country will never be exactly as it was before 2016.

This article (The Disastrous 2016 Election Has Triggered a Third Party Revolution) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Video: #Hillary Confronted by #Coal Miner Whose Jobs She Vowed to Destroy

May 4, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
May 4, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — Hillary Clinton already has an issue with being truthful, but her latest waffling on coal — and, specifically, coal miners’ livelihoods — has most of the country crying foul.

“Instead of dividing people the way Donald Trump does, let’s reunite around policies that will bring jobs and opportunities to all these undeserved poor communities,” Clinton boasted at a town hall meeting in March — immediately, hypocritically, and even jovially following up with this zinger:

“So, for example, I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean, renewable energy as the key into coal country. Because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

Granted, the chameleon presidential candidate elucidated, however vaguely, that “we don’t want to forget those people” — and she did ultimately apologize for the original remark. But the damage from such a powerful dismissal of the livelihoods of generations of Americans had already been indelibly marked in the hearts of coal mining families — as well as in the minds of members of West Virginia’s Republican Party.

Clinton has been touring West Virginia ahead of the state’s primary — and coal miners clearly can’t let her promise to put them out of work fall by the wayside.

Hillary sat down for a roundtable discussion with local residents on Monday as throngs of protesters could be heard outside, chanting “Go home!” One of the locals, Bo Copley, who recently lost his coal mining job, pleaded with Clinton to explain her statement from March.

“The reason you hear those people out there saying some of the things that they say,” Copley said, noting the loud protesters just outside the room, “is because when you make comments like ‘we’re going to put a lot of coal miners out of jobs,’ these are the kind of people that you’re affecting.”

Copley then thrust a picture of his family in front of an obviously uncomfortable — or possibly bored — Clinton, demanding to know if his family members would “have a future in this state” were she to be elected president.

“What I said was totally out of context from what I meant, because I have been talking about coal country for a very long time,” Clinton asserted during the conversation.

Hillary’s backtracking seems disingenuous at best considering her track record is more replete with mendacity than honesty. As you can see in the following footage, Clinton has more in common with a desperate chameleon than she does with the honest voters she actively attempts to court.

[embedded content]

And, judging by the fully extended middle fingers greeting her in coal country, it seems more and more people realize they’re likely to hear Clinton say just about anything to win votes.

This article (Video: Hillary Confronted by Coal Miner Whose Jobs She Vowed to Destroy) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

#Obama Admin Denies Saying “No Boots on the Ground” in #Syria After Saying It 16 Times | #TRUMP

April 29, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 29, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) United States — What does a government do when it’s caught in a flagrant lie? If you are the U.S. government, you simply tell another lie — and laugh at anyone who tries to call out your hypocrisy.

Setting aside his oft-parroted no-boots-on-the-ground imperative, President Obama announced Monday the U.S. would be quintupling the number of special forces troops deployed to Syria to fight Daesh (the so-called Islamic State). In fact, the announcement was made later on the same day Obama claimed to have “ruled out” the deployment of ground troops.

Though this reneging on stated foreign policy has become somewhat par for the course, State Department spokesman John Kirby not only missed the hypocritical move, he flatly and bafflingly denied the Obama administration’s repeated claim there would be “no boots on the ground.”

In fact, instead of taking responsibility for initiating military maneuvers the public might find displeasing, the Obama administration has developed an apparent affinity for nitpicking semantics.

In a press conference, this farcical denial of reality reached stupefying proportions when Kirby was asked by an Associated Press reporter about this stark reversal of policy. All emphasis has been added to highlight the absurdities.

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“I’m just curious if this is, like, part of some kind of devious grand strategy to say one thing and then do the complete opposite of it,” the reporter queried.

“I just — I don’t see it that way,” Kirby responded. “There was never this ‘no boots on the ground.’ I don’t know where this keeps coming from.”

Pressing the point, the reporter expounded, “For months and months and months, the mantra — from the President and … everyone else in the Administration — has been ‘no boots on the ground,’ and now —”

“That is not true,” Kirby interrupted.

“What?!” the reporter exclaimed — apparently as baffled as the rest of the press, heard murmuring in similar disbelief around the room.

“It’s just not true,” Kirby persisted, appearing almost smug, leaning on the podium. “It’s just not true.”

[embedded content]

Of course, it is true — and Kirby’s semantic gymnastics to justify such a brazen lie added an Orwellian twist to the already Kafkaesque press conference. And that truth is written in black and white — even on the White House website, at least as far back as August 2013, when Obama stated:

“[I]n no event are we considering any kind of military action that would involve boots on the ground; that would involve a long-term campaign.”

On August 31, 2013, Obama asserted from the Rose Garden:

“After careful deliberation, I have decided that the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets … We would not put boots on the ground.”

Then, on September 10, 2013 — once again, as found in print on the White House site — he reiterated:

“First, many of you have asked, won’t this put us on a slippery slope to another war?

“My answer is simple: I will not put American boots on the ground in Syria.”

On September 3, 2013, he again said:

“[The U.S. involvement in Syria] does not involve boots on the ground.”

September 9, 2013, brought the same statement from the president, in an interview with PBS Newshour:

“Tomorrow, I’ll speak to the American people. I’ll explain this is not Iraq; this is not Afghanistan; this is not even Libya. We’re talking about — not boots on the ground.”

Again, Obama repeated on September 7, 2014, as the Intercept noted:

“In Syria, the boots on the ground have to be Syrian.”

Though after the last statement, Obama’s characterization of ‘no boots on the ground’ began a subtle shift in language — evidencing mission creep — he sustained the narrative troops would not be deployed on the ground.

At the White House on February 11, 2015, reported USA Today, Obama remarked:

“The resolution we’ve submitted today does not call for the deployment of U.S. ground combat forces to Iraq or Syria.”

It’s arguable the United States populace could handle an honest statement outlining policy many may not agree with — such as the deployment of boots on the ground — if the plan were forthrightly presented.

But for Obama and other officials to repeatedly claim as much, and to then have the State Department act as if the people, themselves, have collectively lost their minds when pointing out the mendacious gaffe, is downright laughable — if not profoundly insulting.

It has become clear the United States mission to fight Daesh — with the secondary goal to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — will involve boots on the ground. But it’s questionable whether the Obama administration with ever manage to admit to as much.

This article (Obama Admin Denies Saying “No Boots on the Ground” in Syria After Saying It 16 Times) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Afghanistan Matters. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Watch #Comedian Rip #US Government Over 9/11 and 28 Pages in Under 4 Minutes

April 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) While President Obama recently vowed to veto a bill offering families of victims of 9/11 the chance to seek justice from foreign governments that may be complicit, outrage largely centered on the families — for the most part ignoring what the veto intimated. Though designed to lift immunity from the litigation traditionally provided to parties culpable in terror attacks — specifically, attacks on U.S. soil, and specifically in this case, Saudi Arabia — the bill could feasibly expose the U.S. to the same.

And therein lies the problem. Because, as Lee Camp wryly highlighted on Redacted Tonight recently, the United States government nefariously meddles in global affairs — often employing terroristic tactics or direct acts of terrorism for hegemonic, imperialistic goals.

[embedded content]

To wit, Camp’s critique of U.S. violent hegemony includes a rundown of 30 examples — a telling figure in itself — but his list constitutes an exceedingly limited overview of the stultifying hubris of American foreign policy, past and present. Is there any doubt why Obama and a bipartisan Congress sought to withhold potential justice for loved ones of victims from September 11, 2001?

Sure, the Saudis threatened to yank three-quarters of a trillion dollars in U.S. assets from the already fragile economy should Obama pass the bill — but, in consideration of the aforementioned meddling, this political and economic blackmail appears an awfully convenient excuse for a veto.

As indicated in the length of the following far-from-complete list, the number of violent interventions the United States government would have to explain makes apparent Obama’s desire to veto this bill.

This article (Watch Comedian Rip US Government Over 9/11 and 28 Pages in Under 4 Minutes) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

#Cop Saves a Man From #Suicide, Somehow Igniting Serious Debate on Social Media

April 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 27, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Riverdale, NJ — In a swift and valiant move, a New Jersey police officer rushed to tackle a man who attempted to end his life by jumping from a highway overpass bridge on Monday.

Sgt. Greg Bogert, an 18-year veteran of the Riverdale Police Department, responded to multiple 911 calls concerning a man in apparent distress who had been wandering in and out of traffic on I-287. “When I first got the call at about 11:30 Monday morning, it was about a man walking back and forth, looking at the edge of the bridge and jumping in front of vehicles,” Bogert explained, according to NorthJersey.com.

“I could kind of tell he was trying to commit suicide,” Bogert continued. “I didn’t want to spook him, so I cracked the door to my car open and started to get out slowly.”

Though Bogert said he attempted to verbally persuade the distraught man not to jump, telling him, “Don’t do it, don’t do it,” the unidentified man ignored the pleas — and as can be seen on dashcam footage released by the department, suddenly took drastic measures.

Without warning, the man sprinted toward the edge barricade with the obvious intent to jump, “and I took off after him,” Bogert said. “He had one leg up and over, and he was trying to get the other leg up when I grabbed him.” Bogert’s lightning reaction saved the man from a split-second decision.

Lt. James MacIntosh noted in a press release cited by NorthJersey.com that before his attempt to jump over the edge, the man had yelled, “My family is dead. I just want to die.”

After Bogert eventually calmed the man down enough to load him into an ambulance, he was taken to a hospital for evaluation and observation.

Though the majority of discussions surrounding Bogert’s move commended his actions, there has been some debate about the unidentified man’s right to do with his life — and death — as he saw fit. And perhaps Bogert interfered with his right to bodily liberty, not just in preventing the man’s suicide, but in the mandated psychiatric evaluation that will restrict his freedom even further.

While this critique certainly bears consideration, as one commenter keenly noted, the hospital evaluation — and Bogert’s speedy intervention — could ostensibly act as a stay for him to consider if suicide is, indeed, the route he truly wishes to take. Perhaps if he had thoroughly considered and acted to take his own life while in his own home — and not in a public setting in such a drastic manner — outrage over Bogert’s move might be more clear-cut.

Bogert claimed police did learn the man’s family was unharmed, despite what he had said before attempting the jump.

In the end, Bogert’s expeditious tackle — whether you feel it was heroic or otherwise — gave a distraught man another chance to consider an abrupt and likely hastily made decision. For once, at least, the debate involves a cop preserving — rather than ending — another human being’s life. Perhaps, that in itself should be worth celebrating.

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This article (Cop Saves a Man From Suicide, Somehow Igniting Serious Debate on Social Media) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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This Woman Woke Up To An #Unidentified #Cop Creepily Sitting on Her 4-Year-Old’s Bed

April 27, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 26, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Ontario, Canada — If you woke to find someone in your four-year-old daughter’s bedroom who refused to identify themselves to you or explain their presence in your house, what would you do? In the case of Cheryl Yurkowski — who lives in Ontario, Canada — you attempt to defend your child, your home, and yourself.

Cheryl’s ordeal began after having an argument with her husband and his mother at a restaurant. Tired from the disagreement and wishing to avoid further conflict with the intoxicated man, she left separately to go home and go to bed. Not realizing his wife had already arrived at home and was asleep, Cheryl’s husband began yelling on a phone call — but his raised voice concerned neighbors, who then summoned the Kawartha Lakes Police.

Cheryl explained what happened next, from her perspective, in a self-made video and subsequent interview with Larken Rose:

“I woke up to my four-year-old daughter crying in her room. I was wrapped in a blanket, and I went to go see why she was crying — and lo and behold, I walked right into a female police officer. She did not identify herself; and she was then sitting next to my child, touching her … hair. So I said, ‘Get out of my house. You have no warrant to be here. Who let you in? Nobody let you in. Get out — get the fuck away from my child; get the fuck out of my house.’”

Since Sergeant Janette Drew and Officer Mark Ryan Donaldson didn’t bother to identify themselves, Cheryl understandably acted as any mother would in such a situation — she went on the defensive. In an interview with Anti-Media, she described her immediate thoughts upon awakening to strangers in her home:

“What the fuck are they doing here? How did they get in? Why are they touching my child and asking her questions? Who called them?”

Cheryl readily admitted to using profanities to address the officers; but, instead of explaining to her why they were there in the first place — and acting as if she had no right to free speech, even in her own home — Drew took drastic measures.

“She then slammed me into the wall, in front of my four-year-old daughter, in my daughter’s room,” Cheryl recalled, adding she then flipped off the lights to try to avoid having her daughter witness violence against her mother. And violence there was.

After Cheryl was shoved into the wall, the physical altercation escalated — by the cops’ own doing. Drew, while attempting to arrest Cheryl for defending herself in her home, yanked the young mother’s arm out of its socket and slammed her to the ground. Drew then sat on her, forcing her bad arm behind her back — “She was squeezing so hard, that I heard my shoulder pop,” she explained — but would not let go despite Cheryl’s repeated requests through screams of pain.

With no choice left to defend herself from the searing pain, Cheryl bit the officer — who immediately released her grip — as she had been taught to do in self-defense courses.

But this seemed to enrage the officers, as Donaldson took Drew’s former position on top of Cheryl — wrapping his hands around her neck and choking her, to the point, she described, “my eyes were rolling in the back of my head. And I was gargling [sic] for air — and I almost went unconscious. So, they almost killed me — all in front of my four-year-old daughter who [had] crept up the stairs. She saw all of this — and that is the worst part about it,” she said, nearly in tears. “My daughter almost saw her mom get killed by police officers.”

Once the officers ultimately loaded Cheryl into the back of their squad car, hitting her head against the window in the process, Donaldson turned to face her with his fist aimed at her face, and as she explained, he said, “I will personally make sure you never see your fucking child again,” repeating the threat “three or four times.”

There are several telling details that should be highlighted in this incident. Cheryl emphasized in the interview with Anti-Media that she has “NO criminal record,” the officers came to her house to essentially ensure the safety of the residents, and the officers — not Cheryl — escalated the situation in their refusal to identify themselves or explain their presence in her home. Later, she explained, the officers lied about a number of details in the incident — and completely left out Donaldson’s nasty threats.

But perhaps the worst part about the whole ordeal is that Cheryl now faces charges for defending herself against unidentified-at-the-time strangers in her home — including threats to a ‘peace’ officer, resisting arrest, and assault causing bodily harm. She explained they’re seeking to lock her in jail both before and after trial — and she could end up spending three to five years behind bars.

Her next court date is set for Thursday the 28th, though she plans to ask for an adjournment, or extension, as she attempts to have the inexplicable charges thrown out. Cheryl has been fortunate to have her mother intervene on her daughter’s behalf to prevent her from being taken by child services.

Though what she endured could hardly be called an isolated incident, Cheryl still emphasized the need to defend yourself and your family from any act of aggression — and said she would do the same if presented with a similar situation. The police, after all, had been dispatched to check on people’s welfare in a domestic disturbance and nearly killed the person whose safety might have been at stake — all in front of a four-year-old little girl.

Anti-Media would like to thank Cheryl Yurkowski for taking time to discuss what happened to her.

To hear Cheryl’s story in full from her own mouth, make sure to tune in to AntiMedia radio tonight at 11pm est/ 8pm pst.

This article (This Woman Woke Up To An Unidentified Cop Creepily Sitting on Her 4-Year-Old’s Bed) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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On the 30th Anniversary of #Chernobyl, Here’s What We Are Still Not Being Told

April 26, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 26, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) On the 30th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear catastrophe yet, a new report shows radioactive contamination from the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl in Ukraine still lingers in startlingly large amounts across the border in neighboring Belarus.

In an exclusive report by the Associated Press, fresh milk from a Belarusian dairy farm contained a radioactive isotope, traceable to the Chernobyl disaster, at “levels 10 times higher than the nation’s food safety limits” — thirty years after the accident occurred.

Though the AP turned to a laboratory to test the milk, dairy farmer Nikolai Chubenok called the results “impossible.”

“There is no danger,” Chubenok asserted to AP journalists at his farm, just 28 miles from the site of the 1986 explosion and meltdown. “How can you be afraid of radiation?”

Though Chubenok and the Belarusian government — itself notoriously authoritarian and intent on denying the dangers still present — might insist on the area’s safety, other reports from doctors and scientists paint the landscape in a vastly different light.

Belarusian milk, though indicative, is inadequate in illustrating the astronomical devastation of the Chernobyl legacy.

In 1996, ten years after the explosions, meltdown, and raging nuclear fires at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimated the disaster had spewed “400 times more radioactive material into the Earth’s atmosphere than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.”

Lichens and mushrooms so thoroughly absorbed this radioactivity, in particular radioactive cesium, that reindeer over 1,000 miles away in Norway — where the meat is eaten — remain unfit for human consumption. Wormwood Forest, near the accident site, stands as an eerie monument of contamination with dead trees turned ginger-colored. Mass evacuations of humans from the areas surrounding Chernobyl naturally led to an explosion in wildlife numbers in species such as boars and wolves. And, as scientists discovered in 2011, birds displayed 5 percent smaller brains than average due to radioactivity lingering in the atmosphere.

Estimating the total number of human casualties resulting from the spectacularly failed foray into nuclear energy has largely been an exercise in futility. Greenpeace estimated ten years ago the total number of cancer cases resulting from Chernobyl would top 250,000 — with around 93,000 of those being fatal. Based on a Belarusian study, Greenpeace surmised 60,000 people had perished in Russia and potentially an additional 140,000 in the Ukraine and Belarus would die directly as a result of Chernobyl radioactive contamination. That study challenged the lowball estimate of 4,000 total deaths proffered by the United Nations in 2005 — a figure eventually abandoned once it realized “unacceptable uncertainties” made quantifying fatalities too tricky.

As Timothy A. Mousseau wrote for U.S. News & World Report, “in the past decade population biologists have made considerable progress in documenting how radioactivity affects plants, animals, and microbes […]

“Our studies provide new fundamental insights about consequences of chronic, multigenerational exposure to low-dose ionizing radiation … The cumulative effects of these injuries result in lower population sizes and reduced biodiversity in high-radiation areas.

“Radiation exposure has caused genetic damage and increased mutation rates in many organisms in the Chernobyl region. So far, we have found little convincing evidence that many organisms there are evolving to become more resistant to radiation.”

In myriad ways, the Chernobyl catastrophe earned the distinction of being a darkly pivotal moment in history — not only did world perception of nuclear power drastically change, but an unsuccessful attempt by government to downplay the extent of the accident is widely believed to have cemented the downfall of the Soviet regime.

Though the devastation at Fukushima often earns comparisons to Chernobyl, the latter still stands dubiously as the worst civic nuclear calamity in history. Thirty years after Chernobyl became a household name, its impacts are still experienced on an eye-opening scale.

Perhaps, when considering both Chernobyl and Fukushima, it’s imperative we ask whether risks of potentially devastating consequences resultant of human error or technical failure could possibly be worth our continued attempts to harness nuclear energy — particularly when advances in solar and wind could make the long-term ‘experiment’ technologically and critically obsolete.

This article (On the 30th Anniversary of Chernobyl, Here’s What We Are Still Not Being Told) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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Here’s A Rundown of #Election #Fraud in the 2016 Presidential Race So Far #feelthebern

April 25, 2016 by claire bernish

Op-ed by Claire Bernish
April 25, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Supporting an anti-establishment candidate, as the 2016 election cycle has thus proven, at best amounts to little more than a maddening exercise in futility. Yet, droves continue flocking to the polls, ignoring that fixing a corrupt, authoritarian system by validating it through participating in its carrot-on-a-string illusion will somehow — this time — all work out for the greater good.

Though participation through voting might offer the feeling of power and control — as well as comfort in the illusion — the establishment maintains a thorough stranglehold on the current system, by design. If you’re still unconvinced, consider the evidence thus far — some blatant, some subtle — found in virtually every primary and caucus this year.

Iowa

To grasp how arbitrarily the popular vote can be manipulated to fit the establishment’s intended outcome, the Iowa caucus would be a good place to start. As if insufficiently trained volunteer staff, voter confusion, inadequate voter registration forms, and general disorganization weren’t telling in themselves, in multiple locations the awarding of delegates came down to coin tosses — literally.

While described as “the closest Democratic caucus in Iowa history” by the state’s Democratic Party, according to Salon, apparently the same Party felt the need to give Hillary Clinton an advantageous edge. One of Bernie Sanders’ delegates was sneakily awarded to Clinton amidst the confusion, but the Iowa Democratic Party didn’t bother to inform the precinct secretary it had done so. It then refused, despite the somewhat suspect happenings, to perform an audit.

“What happened Monday night at the caucuses was a debacle, period,” The Des Moines Register penned in an editorial afterward. “Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy, and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.”

Nevada

Though Nevada didn’t have to resort to its deck-of-cards method to figure the awarding of delegates — as Iowa had done with its coin tosses — that didn’t stop anecdotal picture and video evidence from proving rampant issues and possible fraud.

Inexcusably hours-long lines, a lack of paper ballots, and poorly trained elections workers meant general disenfranchisement pervaded caucus locations. The situation so outraged voters, it was characterized a “fiasco.” Those who did manage to procure a ballot discovered Clinton propaganda in plain sight; though electioneering is prohibited at polling locations, one Reddit user posted a photo of a sign-in sheet emblazoned with the Hillary for Nevada logo at the top. Asked for an explanation, the poll worker handing out the not-at-all neutral sign-in claimed it was “for the democratic party,” US Uncut reported.

Worse, a Twitter user discovered Hillary supporters allowed to caucus without registering, to which a precinct volunteer offered the rather effrontery explanation that they’d be permitted to register after casting a ballot — and it was all captured on video.

[embedded content]

Worse still, another Reddit user claimed a poll volunteer registering new Democratic voters automatically marked them as favoring Clinton — and not only seemed stubbornly hesitant to correct the error, but later appeared working for the “Hillary group’s tables.”

Chaos in the Republican caucus mirrored that in the Democratic event, including reports of ballot mismanagement; one was allowed to fall to the floor and was ripped up by a volunteer unsure of its validity. Another witness tweeted “some guy voted for trump twice.” Caucus volunteers, who are required to forego campaign gear, sported Trump paraphernalia and, as another Twitter user claimed, were “Actively bullying folks. Not checking IDs.”

Super Tuesday

Super Tuesday’s primaries and caucuses offered no relief to the election madness, as Colorado and Massachusetts, in particular, similarly devolved into messy embarrassments.

Polling sites for the Democratic caucus in Colorado seemed to arbitrarily switch locations, voters were turned away upon arrival, volunteers were unprepared, and, in one case, a private residence intended to be a caucus location met voters with a locked door.

So marred by troubles was the situation in Colorado, one Twitter user asserted, “I honestly cannot say enough negative things about the caucus system. Disorganized, undemocratic, just generally bad. Primary please!” Another voter summarily tweeted, “The caucus process in Colorado is bullshit!” Indeed, after the debacle, swaths of voters called for a return to the primary system, which had been in place until 2002.

Massachusetts saw an appearance by Bill Clinton, who took advantage of the opportunity to electioneer for Hillary, both inside and outside polling locations in a likely illegal violation of state law. So egregious and unusual was the situation, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin told the New York Times his office “had to remind some of our poll workers that even a president can’t go inside and work a polling place. He can go in, but he can’t approach voters.”

A petition created afterward calling for Bill Clinton’s arrest and prosecution has since garnered over 127,000 signatures.

While not fraudulent, the Republican Party garnered its own firestorm of criticism by eliminating the popular vote from the nominating process — much to the ire of Trump supporters. As the Denver Post explained:

“Colorado GOP leaders canceled the party’s presidential straw poll in August to avoid binding its delegates to a candidate who may not survive until the Republican National Convention in July.

“Instead, Republicans selected national delegates through the caucus process, a move that put the election of national delegates in the hands of party insiders and activists — leaving roughly 90 percent of the more than 1 million Republican voters on the sidelines.”

“The people of Colorado,” Trump, in part, proclaimed afterward on Twitter, “had their vote taken away from them by the phony politicians.” Later, Trump expounded further, declaring in an interview, “The system is rigged. It’s crooked.”

To wit, the Colorado GOP hubristically boasted on Twitter, “We did it. #NeverTrump” — but likely realized the potentially damning repercussions of its candor and swiftly deleted the tweet.

Arizona

“We’ve received complaints throughout the whole day of lifelong Democrats showing up to the polls and being told they are either independent or have no party affiliations,” stated Arizona Democratic Party spokesman Enrique Gutierrez, according to the Phoenix New Times.

Though locations across Arizona experienced massive voter turnout — which, as in many states before, overwhelmed grievously unprepared volunteers — Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, reported average wait times of up to 90 minutes. Long waits had been anticipated, to an extent, as Maricopa County Recorder Helen Purcell had drastically cut the total number of polling places from 200 four years ago to just 60 — questionably citing expected low voter turnout for the reduction.

To grasp the magnitude of difficulty this presented, one person tweeted, “Most counties I surveyed had enough polls for 2.5K or fewer voters per site. Maricopa County? 20,833 voters per polling site.” A local NBC affiliate reporter also noted on Twitter:

“Consider: 2012 primary had 300,000 voters and 200 polling places. 2016 primary has estimated 800,000 voters at 60 polling places.”

In predominantly Latino neighborhoods, that consolidation of polling sites was exponentially magnified — so few polling sites were available to Phoenix’ nearly 41 percent Latino population, even politicians publicly rebuked Purcell’s cuts.

“In my district, there is only one polling place,” Democratic State Senator Martin Quezada noted in a written statement, cited by AZCentral.com. “In my neighboring district, LD 30, there are no polling places.”

New York

In what could only be dubbed a farce, so copious were the complaints lodged about the New York City primary, city Comptroller Scott Stringer announced the Board of Elections would be the subject of an audit — hours before the close of polling. In fact, before voting even commenced, over 126,000 voters had been wholly purged from the records.

Diplomatically describing “widespread reports of poll site problems and irregularities,” Stringer wrote in a letter to New York City Board of Elections (BOE) Director Michael J. Ryan:

“Voters across the city have complained about poll workers erroneously redirecting them to different poll sites, poll workers unable to operate voting machines, poll workers unable to produce the correct party ballot for an individual voter, and poll workers giving conflicting information.

“Of particular concern are numerous allegations of widespread removal of eligible voters from voter-registration rolls, as well as instances of incorrect party affiliations on individual registration records. These errors have conspired to bar first time and longtime voters from exercising their fundamental democratic right.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio swiftly backed the call for an audit, and despite repeated denials from Ryan any major issues had tarnished the day, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman claimed his office had received “by far the largest volume of complaints” from any election since 2011, according to Politico. Both the comptroller’s and attorney general’s offices began investigations following the debacle.

A top official for the NYC BOE has since been suspended without pay and an internal investigation has been launched over discrepancies in voter records and purging of voter rolls in Brooklyn.

✱✱✱

This list is woefully incomplete — Ohio is now investigating its primary, and Sanders managed to lose Wyoming, despite winning by a margin of 12 percent; this article didn’t even delve into superdelegates. Even so, the pattern of suspicious activity before, during, and after elections presents clear evidence many have not been willing to admit.

Your vote — if you’re able to jump enough hurdles to cast it — doesn’t matter. But worst of all, this farce of an election simply amounts to a theater of illusion, designed to distract people who might otherwise realize the change they seek through politicians could best be implemented by all of us, now, without needing to validate the very system of our modern-day enslavement.

This article (Here’s A Rundown of Election Fraud in the 2016 Presidential Race So Far) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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New Report Proves US #Law Enforcement Preparing for #Rioting on a National Scale

April 22, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 22, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Fascism doesn’t often sweep in overnight and take over some hapless nation’s government; rather, it gradually seeps into the cultural fabric — as is quietly taking place all around the globe, evidenced by an upsurge in sales of riot equipment that has gone largely unnoticed.

A new report from analysts with industry research group, Sandler Research, forecasts the Global Riot Control System Market for the next four years — but beyond a burgeoning market to parallel the expanding global police state, it appears world governments are also keenly aware of civilian discontent. Sandler predicts the market will have an annual growth of 3.5 percent, and makes a telling juxtaposition, emphases added, involving the United States:

“Law enforcement agencies around the world are the biggest market for riot control systems. This market is expected to generate revenues of over USD 3.5 billion by the end of 2020. Countries such as the U.S., Iran, Egypt, Russia, China, and Thailand have started procuring riot control equipment and are investing heavily in [non-lethal weapons]. Moreover, special vehicles that are equipped with water cannon and reservoirs have been designed for security personnel, for use in areas of conflict to handle large crowds and demonstration. Demand for such equipment is expected to rise during the next few years.”

Note the last sentence in its truncated time frame.

Specifically, the analysts continue:

“In North America, the prominent markets are Canada and the U.S. and law enforcement agencies in these nations are best equipped with the upgraded weapons. The militarization of the police department and other law enforcement agencies in the Americas has encouraged the use of advanced riot control equipment.”

While swaths of the country debate the finer points of which lesser evil should take the helm of the corporate plutocracy, various U.S. law enforcement agencies have been gearing up for the virtually inevitable unrest both during and following those elections.

Militarized police forces have become de rigueur, even in the nation’s smallest towns — but arming law enforcement with the weapons of war, rather than protecting civilians, has birthed a chasm of distrust and animosity on both sides. It isn’t as if this equipment is being produced by a marketplace intent on keeping civilians safe from an ostensible outside threat.

As the report, which does not offer a breakdown of specific agencies it might be referring to (though may in its body which can be purchased for $2,500 here), definitively states:

“Law enforcement agencies use riot control systems to maintain the public order and safety and to enforce laws. They are used to disperse, control, and arrest people involved in riots and protests. Riot control systems include lethal and non-lethal weapons (NWLs), body-worn cameras, armored vehicles, and communications systems.”

As if released in conjunction with one another, a report by Lloyd’s intones the necessity of preparedness as mass civil unrest can not only spark without prior warning, but flare outward, unpredictably — what the insurer calls “Political Violence Contagion.” According to the report, instances of political violence “contagion (pandemics) have become more frequent, and the contagion effect ever more rapid and impactful.”

Considering massive worldwide demonstrations in the U.S. and elsewhere — as people finally grasp how corrupt governments actually are — it becomes apparent in these reports the politicians and their enforcement agencies comprehend the greatest threat to their power. As caucuses and primaries fall into chaos — and the City of Cleveland gears up for the Republican National Convention — voters and nonvoters alike harbor greater disillusionment than ever before.

Cleveland, whose police are currently under federal oversight following a Department of Justice probe that found a general pattern of brutality, plans to spend around $20 million to beef up security measures for the RNC. While part of the sum will focus on training, personnel expenditures, and the like, Vox reported 40 percent will be earmarked for “equipment and supplies” — including, in part, 2,000 sets of full-body riot gear. Additionally, if not ominously, the city “has put out bids for, among other things, 24 sets of ballistic body armor, 300 patrol bikes, and more than 3.7 miles of interlocking steel barriers, all of which can be used to curtail protestors,” according to Vox.

Together, the reports paint a dire prediction — not as much for its illustration of a world in chaos, but for its intimation authoritarian actors may act aggressively to quash even positive and peaceful change by the rest of us.

This article (New Report Proves US Law Enforcement Preparing for Rioting on a National Scale) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

The Video That Could Bring Down #Hillary #Clinton’s Campaign

April 20, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 20, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) After New York’s stunningly disorganized and questionable primary results proved, yet again, our elections are rigged to ensure establishment darling Hillary Clinton garners the Democratic nomination, a new video from Abby Martin’s Empire Files could topple Clinton’s entire campaign.

Evidence of said rigging isn’t difficult to find — it’s written directly into the electoral process in superdelegates, whose 700 “unpledged” votes remain uncommitted to a candidate until the nomination. This is “to ensure nominees are hand-picked party insiders,” as Martin explains in the video.

“The single vote of a superdelegate is worth thousands of ours,” Martin notes. “Many of these people are current and former members of Congress, and dozens more are literally corporate lobbyists working on behalf of every industry from healthcare to private prisons.”

In fact, the employment of superdelegates was initiated precisely for situations when the people’s choice doesn’t align with the establishment’s — such as the current overwhelming popularity of Bernie Sanders.

But the web of corporate media executives and insiders contributing directly to Hillary Clinton’s campaign couldn’t possibly explain the extreme bias, lack of criticism, and virtual media blackout on Sanders’ success, right? And her campaign, dripping with corporate lobbying cash, wouldn’t concern the American voting public, even though lobbyists literally act as superdelegates — would it?

Watch Empire Files: Abby Martin Exposes What Hillary Clinton Really Represents to see the proof the establishment doesn’t want you to discover.

[embedded content]

This article (The Video That Could Bring Down Hillary Clinton’s Campaign) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. Image credit: Gage Skidmore. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Primary Chaos: #NY #Elections Face Audit After 126,000 Mysteriously Denied Right to Vote

April 19, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish

April 19, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Amid further reports of numerous problems with today’s primary election — including reports of some 126,000 voters purged from the rolls — New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer announced on Tuesday he will be auditing the city’s Board of Elections.

“There is nothing more sacred in our nation than the right to vote, yet election after election, reports come in of people who were inexplicably purged from the polls,” the Comptroller stated. “The people of New York City have lost confidence that the Board of Elections can effectively administer elections and we intend to find out why the BOE is so consistently disorganized, chaotic and inefficient.”

Stringer was so alarmed, he penned a letter to NYC BOE Director Michael J. Ryan about the audit, noting his “deep concern over widespread reports of poll site problems and irregularities” — and demanded the BOE provide viable explanations for each.

Stringer’s concerns were echoed by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this afternoon, who issued a statement cited by Politico about the ongoing turmoil and outrage:

“It has been reported to us from voters and voting rights monitors that voting lists in Brooklyn contain numerous errors, including the purging of entire buildings and blocks of voters from the voting lists. I am calling on the Board of Elections to reverse that purge and update the lists again using Central, not Brooklyn borough, Board of Election staff.”

In fact, a spokesman for State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman claimed his office has already received “by far the largest volume of complaints” from any election since 2011, Politico reported.

In concurrence with Stringer’s audit announcement, de Blasio added:

“We will hold the BOE commissioners responsible for ensuring that the Board and its borough officers properly conduct the election process to assure that voters are not disenfranchised. The perception that voters may have been disenfranchised undermines the integrity of the entire electoral process and must be fixed.”

Despite these telling public statements from officials, Ryan told the Observer:

“I bristle at the suggestion that some folks might be making that there are widespread problems. We’re just not seeing it.” He added the snafus occurring Tuesday were “what we typically see during elections.”

Ryan did mention he’d been away from his office most of the day, yet repeatedly rebuffed suggestions the voluminous number of reports were anything out of the ordinary for an election.

“Comptrollers audit agencies, that’s why comptrollers are there,” Ryan told the Observer about Stringer’s intent to audit. “If Comptroller Stringer believe that it is a worthy use of his agency resources to investigate the Board of Elections, we’re no different than any other city agency.”

With voters increasingly irate over inexplicable difficulties in simply casting a primary vote, we may be in for quite the ride in November.

This article (Primary Chaos: NY Elections Face Audit After 126,000 Mysteriously Denied Right to Vote) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Hillary #Clinton Linked to Company Being Sued over #Flint Water Crisis

April 15, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
April 15, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Adding to a mounting list of scandals under the family’s belt, the Clintons have now been tied to the Flint water crisis. As the Daily Caller reports, a top executive of the same agency facing multiple lawsuits for its role in poisoning the children of Flint also has ties to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and provides free PR for the Clinton Global Initiative.

Pete Wentz, Ron Brynaert explains in the Daily Caller, is the executive director of APCO Worldwide’s Chicago branch and also serves as spokesperson for Lockwood, Andrews & Newnam Inc. (LAN) — the engineering firm named in several lawsuits “alleging gross negligence, professional negligence and battery for alleged lead poisoning of 50 children in Flint over the last two years.”

Additionally, APCO Worldwide has contributed as much as $50,000 to and worked closely with the Clinton Foundation — itself the subject of criticism for alleged ties to Hillary’s campaign.

LAN, Brynaert says, is listed in at least nine of the rapidly-growing lawsuits over the Flint water crisis because the firm was “hired to oversee a refit of the city’s nearly century-old Water Treatment Plant when Flint separated from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department in April 2014.”

“LAN provided these specific services in a responsible and appropriate manner in accordance with industry standards,” Wentz reportedly stated at the beginning of February.

In an 116-page report issued in March, the task force examining the Flint water crisis slammed the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) as the “cause” of the crisis and, “[m]oreover, when confronted with evidence of its failures,” said it “responded publicly through formal communications with a degree of intransigence and belligerence that has no place in government.”

In addition to MDEQ, that report targeted emergency managers, who “made key decisions that contributed to the crisis, from the use of Flint River to delays in reconnecting to DWSD [the Detroit Water and Sewage Department] once water quality problems were encountered.”

Though it attempted to contact LAN for its cooperation in the investigation, the Detroit Free Press says the task force was unable to obtain an interview and lacked power for a subpoena — but had previously placed blame for the lead contamination on the city and MDEQ and rebuffed any intimations of its own involvement.

According to one source, Houston-based LAN, “which has Michigan offices in Flint and Lansing, has made more than $3.5 million on various city contract awards since preparing an analysis in 2011 for then-Mayor Dayne Walling about using the Flint River as a water source.

“[One potential class action] lawsuit alleges the company knew that river water needed anti-corrosion treatment chemicals, didn’t require them and didn’t evaluate water coming out of the tap before completing the switch to river water.”

Speaking on behalf of LAN, Wentz stated flatly: “We believe that this lawsuit has no merit and will vigorously defend our position in court.”

Both Wentz’ and APCO’s connections with LAN appear to be somewhat murky, as the former doesn’t list the latter as a client on its website, the Caller pointed out; and Wentz lists APCO, not LAN, as his employer on LinkedIn — despite his acting as LAN spokesman.

While the link between APCO, LAN, and Hillary Clinton might appear somewhat murky on surface examination, it’s worth noting it stands as yet another instance of Hillary Clinton’s hypocrisy.

“I was so angry. I was outraged and I know you must feel exactly the same,” Clinton said of the Flint contamination in early February, calling the contamination with lead and governmental culpability “immoral.”

She added, “Repairing trust is as important as repairing pipes.”

Perhaps Hillary Clinton should take her own advice.

This article (Hillary Clinton Linked to Company Being Sued over Flint Water Crisis) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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This Viral #Green 4/20 #Moon Meme Is Everything That’s Wrong with the Internet

April 11, 2016 by claire bernish

One wonders about the education system…a funny joke that takes on a life of its own.

Claire Bernish
April 11, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Apparently, the internet can’t take a joke. After weathering an increasingly cynical and cantankerous general populace on April Fool’s Day, a friend of mine crafted a satirical meme about a Green Moon ostensibly occurring on April 20 — but once the meme began to go viral, it quickly became clear the joke had gone, well, laughably awry. Along with the image of an intensely green-tinted moon, the meme reads:

“On April 20th 2016 several planets are going to align which will cause the Earth’s moon to appear green for about 90 minutes. This phenomenon is known as ‘Green Moon’ and only happens once every 420 years. Please share this event.”

Intended as satire for what’s known by cannabis enthusiasts as Weed Day, the internet, for the most part, missed the obvious reference — though that didn’t entirely surprise the meme’s creator, Johnny Liberty (yes, that’s an obvious pseudonym, but in light of the topic at hand, I feel it must be said).

What began as a request from his brother for a cannabis-themed green moon meme — in the same vein as common memes heralding Blood Moons, Pink Moons, and the like — turned into a humorous challenge when he jokingly suggested I share it to see how many people would be fooled.

I bet him it would take three minutes for someone to take it seriously — it took twelve — but that wasn’t the end of it. Not by far.

Without rhyme or reason, the meme went viral. Incredibly viral. Posted in the evening on April 2, in just five hours the meme had been shared from my personal Facebook profile over 900 times. When it hit the eleven-hour mark, the number had jumped to over 2,300 and was growing exponentially — with a rather embarrassing number of people taking it seriously.

In fact, we were so astonished at its ‘success’ rate, Johnny opted to post the Green Moon on a Facebook page with millions of followers — just to see what would happen. In eight days, the meme had accumulated more than 10,000 shares from my timeline and well over 400,000 from the large page — but even that wasn’t the end of it.

To our mutual bewilderment, the Green Moon meme became the subject of ostensible debunking by the mainstream media. Yahoo News, International Business Times, CNet, Inquisitr, Mic, and others have now all printed articles supposedly hoax-slaying the meme that was never a hoax to begin with. Though some of those outlets appeared to grasp the funny, the fact a joke meme necessitated such articles is a terribly troubling commentary far beyond people’s gullibility. All joking aside, it unintentionally turned the meme into a telling social experiment.

“I can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it,” Johnny told me, laughing, when I interviewed him for this article. When he created the cannabis-themed meme, he hadn’t been aware of an unrelated moon meme arbitrarily claiming the moon will turn green on May 29, which had been posted by a Facebook user on March 25 — though we both learned of that meme when people posted its debunking by Snopes on the cannabis version.

Incidentally, Snopes has since included the April 20 date from Johnny’s meme in its post about Green Moons, but failed in its research by assuming it was simply another derivation of the post with the May 29 date.

“You know, I made the moon meme right in the wake of that whole April Fool’s thing, and The Free Thought Project, Anti-Media, and several outlets put out joke stories — and people were very, very mad. There was a lot of anger in response to the April Fool’s jokes,” he explained. Past experience with a mathematically-inaccurate meme going incredibly viral and satirical April Fool’s Day articles being shared tens of thousands of times appeared to prove, he explained, that people will share anything — without even reading an article or critically considering information presented in a meme.

Asked whether he views this more as a symptom of the so-called dumbing down of our society or just unadulterated laziness, Johnny theorized:

“In my opinion … there’s a part of this that’s just intellectual laziness. A lot of people watch television, and they get information just spoon-fed to them — so they see a meme or they see a headline” that catches their eye, and people will blindly share it “without doing any independent research, whatsoever; and that’s got to change, as a society.”

People, he lamented, seem to have lost the drive to bother with researching information for themselves — and that’s likely due to the education system’s emphasis on regurgitating information and agenda-driven corporate media’s regimented, governmental narrative.

“I made [the Green Moon meme] so it would be blatantly obvious it was a joke,” he continued. “I could not have made it any more obvious it was a joke.” Johnny said he even captioned the meme on the large Facebook page, “Seems legit,” and included three laughing, tear-faced emojis for emphasis — but the top comment, itself garnering over 1,000 likes, was made by someone who had taken the meme seriously.

“I find it incredibly funny that this joke, my little joke — which maybe took me five minutes to throw together — turned into a pretty hilarious social experiment,” Johnny said.

Mic thought itself clever with its theory on the motivation for his meme, saying, “Perhaps out of preemptive excitement, a Weed Day partaker got high and decided to spread an astronomical rumor about the moon turning green on April 20 — as if the cosmos wanted to vicariously celebrate the wonders of marijuana with us.”

When I asked Johnny to comment on this notion, he stated, er, bluntly, “Why does there always have to be some deep-seated reasoning? Don’t people just tell jokes anymore?”

‘Nope,’ the internet apparently replied.

This article (This Viral Green 4/20 Moon Meme Is Everything That’s Wrong with the Internet) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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#Snowden: #Brussels Attack AND #Boston Bombing Could Have Been Stopped

March 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Edward Snowden proffered a rather damning criticism of international intelligence during a lecture last week, arguing the terror attacks in Belgium were entirely preventable and could have been stopped. As Snowden explained:

“In all the talk of Brussels, there’s a story that just recently broke, which I’m not sure has gotten the same play as the others, which is that the attack was preventable; and it was preventable through traditional means, not mass surveillance. An allied intelligence service — in this case, in Turkey — warned Belgium that this individual was a criminal, that they were involved in terrorist activities, and this individual turned out to be one of the suicide bombers.”

As Snowden noted during the University of Arizona panel discussion, which also included Professor Noam Chomsky and journalist Glenn Greenwald, these reports surfaced almost immediately after the attacks claiming Belgian and other intelligence forces had been notified of the potential danger this individual posed. In fact, an exclusive, though unverified report by Haaretz claimed “The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.”

But what stands as a matter of crucial importance is that we’ve witnessed, yet again, not only a failure by intel to act on credible information, but a further example of the uselessness of mass surveillance to thwart any attack. It wasn’t surveillance that gave Belgian intelligence its information, rather, it had been Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan sounding the alarm. Turkey had previously deported one of the attackers as a “foreign terrorist fighter” — and Turkish officials notified the Belgian embassy in Ankara they had done so.

“In the United States, we have the same thing, in the Boston Marathon bombings. We were explicitly warned by foreign intelligence services that one of the brothers [who] was involved in the bombings would be engaged in that kind of activity,” Snowden added.

In fact, it was Russian intelligence that alerted the FBI about about Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s links to militant Muslim terrorist groups; but the ostensibly inept U.S. intelligence community failed to do anything — due to a spelling error in his name. Whether that was actually the case or something darker might have been afoot remains unclear, but the point is the same: even when the appropriate governmental agencies have the information necessary to stop a terrorist attack, they fail to do so — every time.

Tsarnaev had been investigated, and in June 2011, the FBI concluded he had “no links to terrorism,” NBC News noted. In September, according to the Independent, “Russia’s FSB sent a cable to the CIA restating their initial warning, and a second note on Tsarnaev was entered on the TECS [U.S. Customs and Border Protection database] system, but his name was misspelled ‘Tsarnayev.’”

A few months later, he was in ‘terror training’ in Dagestan after passing through Moscow. When he returned to the U.S. via New York’s JFK Airport, his name triggered an alert but, due to the misspelling, he wasn’t considered a top priority among the “100 other names on a ‘Hot List’ of people traveling through JFK that day.”

It appears the same fumbling took place surrounding the Brussels attacks: two of the brothers involved, Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui, “were listed as a potential terror threat in U.S. databases,” NBC News reported, citing unnamed and unverified U.S. officials. Congressional committees have now requested to know which databases, for how long, and “whether and how the information was shared.”

Despite these multiple intelligence blunders concerning individuals known to be dangerous, politicians immediately proposed even further truncations of civilian liberties, both in Europe and the United States. In an interview with Democracy Now, Glenn Greenwald discussed the implications:

“I think it’s really important to note a couple of things about Brussels. Number one is, the Brussels attack is now the fourth straight attack, after Boston, the Charlie Hebdo massacre, and then the Paris attacks, where siblings, brothers, were at the heart of the planning. And just like in those three previous attacks that I just referenced, the attacks were carried out by people who live in the same communities, who live very close to one another, and who almost certainly met in person in order to plan them. And yet, the exploitive mindset of Western politicians is to say, every time there’s a successful attack carried out, it means we need to wage war on encryption, we need greater surveillance, we need more police in these communities. But the reality is … none of that will actually help detect the attack.”

Indeed, it appears such crackdowns — including Cruz’ and Trump’s call for patrolling Muslim neighborhoods and Clinton’s insistence on increased surveillance and police forces — serve, instead, to fuel resentment, which ultimately breeds more terrorist activities. Greenwald explained the most facile solution to terrorism by noting what drives it. For “15 years,” he said, the United States “has been declaring itself at war and bombing multiple countries and then acts surprised when people want to come and attack us back.

“And so I think, more than saying we need more intelligence and more surveillance and wage war on encryption and more bombing campaigns, we need to be asking whether there are things that we can be doing that reduce the incentive for people to kill us … and especially the support infrastructure that they get because of the anti-American and anti-European sentiment that gets generated when we engage in all of this violence in the world.”

Snowden, Greenwald, and myriad experts continue to warn of how this cycle not only creates more terrorists, but, almost by design, seems meant to make pliable the populace for increasing infringements on privacy rights. Ultimately — and perhaps because — these attacks were preventable by traditional means, and yet still were allowed to happen, we must be more suspicious than ever of programs initiated under the pretense of increasing security.

This article (Snowden: Brussels Attack AND Boston Bombing Could Have Been Stopped) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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3 Cops Shot by #Gun Traced Back to Recently-Fired #Chicago Cop

March 28, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 28, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Chicago, Illinois — A gun used by a suspect who died in a shootout, in which three officers from the Chicago Police Department were wounded, has been traced to a surprising source: a former Lake County sheriff’s deputy.

Now, Chicago police are scrambling to figure out how the gun owned by the unnamed former deputy — who was, incidentally, fired from his law enforcement position last Friday — ended up in the hands of convicted felon, Lamar Harris.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

“Multiple law enforcement sources confirmed that authorities investigating the shooting have traced the weapon that wounded the three officers back to the deputy.”

Rich Bruno, vice president of the Illinois Council of Police, the union representing the three injured officers, the deputy had been placed on leave two days prior to being terminated. Because the firing occurred while the 27-year-old deputy was still within the mandatory twelve-month probationary period for new officers, Lake County was not required to disclose a reason.

Though Bruno told the Tribune that to “the best of [his] knowledge” the gun had been “reported stolen,” the deputy told investigators he didn’t even realize his gun was missing, according to an unnamed law enforcement source.

Interestingly, the unidentified former deputy appears to have a bit of a checkered history in law enforcement. The Tribune explained:

“State records show that the officer who initially purchased the handgun later used by Harris worked for the Chicago Police Department from June 2013 to January [2016], and multiple law enforcement sources said he worked at least part of that time in the Harrison District where the shooting occurred. He started working for the Lake County sheriff’s highway patrol division Jan. 11, the undersheriff said.

“Prior to joining the Chicago force, the man served as a reserve officer for the Lake Geneva, Wis., department for about two months in spring 2013, according to department officials. He was still in a training phase and had limited, if any, experience on the street before he was hired by the Chicago force.”

On March 14, three Chicago officers observed a man, later identified as Harris, and a woman acting suspiciously, and approached them to investigate. Harris immediately fled the scene on foot, firing the gun in question as he ran — and hitting all three officers.

“One officer was shot in the back, another in the foot, and a third in the chest,” where it struck the officer’s bulletproof vest, according to authorities cited by the Herald-News.

One of the three officers managed to fatally shoot Harris in the exchange, and the dubious firearm was found in his possession. The woman, who reportedly also fled but was uninvolved in the exchange of gunfire, was later questioned by police and released without charge.

Now that the owner of the gun has been identified, though not publicly, its path from a recently-fired officer to the hands of man who had been arrested at least 40 times takes on paramount importance.

Police officials refused to comment on both the circumstances surrounding the deputy’s termination, as well as if he played any role in the shooting incident.

This article (3 Cops Shot by Gun Traced Back to Recently-Fired Chicago Cop) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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CLAIM: Governments Had Prior Knowledge of #Brussels Attack, Did Nothing

March 24, 2016 by claire bernish

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Claire Bernish
March 24, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Brussels, Belgium — A startling allegation concerning Brussels emerged on Wednesday: according to Haaretz, Belgian and Western intelligence agencies had “advance and precise” knowledge about the attacks, which claimed at least 31 lives. Haaretz reported:
“The security services knew, with a high degree of certainty, that attacks were planned in the very near future for the airport and, apparently, for the subway as well.”

Though the news outlet does not reveal its sources’ names, the allegation mirrors similar reports that authorities knew attacks were imminent.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had warned on Friday that terror attacks in Europe would likely be forthcoming, specifically naming Brussels as a possible location.

“There is no reason why the bomb that exploded in Ankara cannot explode in Brussels, in any other European city,” Erdoğan stated during a speech to commemorate a famous World War I battle in Canakkale. It should be noted it’s possible he mentioned Brussels to make an analogy, as Ankara is Turkey’s capital city and Brussels is the de facto capital of the E.U.

Regardless, mounting reports indicate a number of strange coincidences surrounding the Brussels attacks.

“One of the attackers in Brussels is an individual we detained in Gaziantep in June 2015 and deported,” stated Erdoğan, who did not name the specific attacker in question. “We reported the deportation to the Belgian Embassy in Ankara on July 14, 2015, but he was later set free.”

He added, “Despite our warnings that this person was a foreign terrorist fighter, Belgium could not establish any links with terrorism.”
An unnamed official from the Turkish president’s office later claimed the deported attacker was Ibrahim El Bakraoui.

Ibrahim and his brother Khalid El Bakraoui have been named by Belgian authorities for carrying out the airport attack with a third attacker, Najim Laachraoui, who remains the subject of an extensive manhunt. Laachraoui could be seen accompanying the two brothers in airport surveillance footage, but managed to flee the scene after the bombs went off. According to Haaretz, Laachraoui “created the explosives vests used by the bombers” — and thus bears particular concern for authorities.

Erdoğan has waged an aggressive, relentless, and often controversial battle with the Kurds, who are seeking to establish an independent state. After the attacks in Brussels, Erdoğan — who has been accused of working in concert with Daesh (ISIL) — attempted to appear sympathetic with the victims in a written statement:

“The heinous attacks in Brussels have reiterated that terror cannot be a method of struggle for freedom, and once again underlined the need for the common struggle against all types of terror.”

This article (Governments Had Prior Knowledge of Brussels Attack, Did Nothing) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

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From theantimedia.org Team

We Throw so Much #Plastic into the #Ocean That Now We’re Literally Eating It

March 21, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 21, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) Recent reports of a phenomenal quantity of plastic inundating the world’s oceans are alarming enough — but another aspect of the problem should snap everyone to attention: humans ultimately consume that plastic.

According to Plastic Oceans, this pollution and its effects are “an environmental catastrophe of our own making.” Indeed, humans produce in excess of 300 million tons of plastic each year — “equivalent to the combined weight of all adult humans on earth” — and nearly “half of this we use just once [and] then throw it away.”

Further, the perceived conveniences of tossing items into the garbage is pure illusion.

“There is no ‘away’ because plastic is so permanent and so indestructible,” said Sir David Attenborough, according to Plastic Oceans. “When you cast it into the ocean … it does not go away.”

For the benefits plastic originally appeared to offer, the untold number of products now made of or contained in plastic has created an environmental and health nightmare arguably unlike any other.

In 2015, the BBC reported eight million tons of plastic — enough to cover “an area 34 times the size of New York’s Manhattan Island to ankle depth” — finds its way to the planet’s oceans every year. Such a quantification of our plastic waste was finally possible thanks to a study published in Science Magazine and presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

“The quantity entering the ocean is equal to about five plastic grocery bags full of plastic for every foot of coastline in the world,” Dr. Jenna Jambeck, study lead author from the University of Georgia, told the BBC. Study researchers caution the findings and quantifications are a middle ground, as plastic — despite its indestructible traits — can still break down into smaller pieces and particles.

A more recent study by the World Economic Forum estimated the world’s oceans will contain more plastic than fish by 2050 — in part because a “staggering” 32 percent of plastic packaging “escapes collections systems.” Even so, only 5 percent of plastics are effectively recycled — making the WEF’s prediction for the use of plastic to double in the next 20 years even more dire.

Truthout noted recent “estimates indicate that upwards of 8 million tons of plastic are added to the planet’s oceans every year, the equivalent of a dumptruck full of plastic every minute. That is enough plastic to have led one scientist to estimate that people who consume average amounts of seafood are ingesting approximately 11,000 particles of plastic every year.”

Unless we turn to alternative and less toxic means for producing plastics — such as hemp — our failures in recycling will, indeed, come back to haunt us. As phytoplankton populations drop and overfishing remains an issue, marine plastic pollution simply compounds a massive catastrophe.

This article (We Throw so Much Plastic into the Ocean That Now We’re Literally Eating It) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team

Ex-CIA Official Says Obama Doesn’t Follow Through on Promises Out of Fear of CIA

March 14, 2016 by claire bernish

Claire Bernish
March 14, 2016

(ANTIMEDIA) AcTVism Munich recently interviewed former CIA analyst-turned-activist, Ray McGovern, whose steadfast anti-torture stance led him to return his Intelligence Commendation Medal in 2006 — when the CIA sought official inclusion of torture in its methodology.

AcTVism’s Zain Raza asked McGovern to describe what led to his decision to return the medal.

“It was a time when the director of the CIA was openly pleading for an exception to legislation being drafted by Senator John McCain, prohibiting U.S. government officials from torturing people,” McGovern explained, noting he was aware torture had been practiced during CIA operations in Latin America. “But this was the first time the CIA was openly advocating for permission to be able to torture … and that seemed to me so abhorrent that I wanted to disassociate myself from the CIA for the first time since 1963 — because I didn’t want to be associated in any way, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture.”

McGovern also described Europe’s role in the torture campaign and his opinion on whether President Obama had followed through on campaign promises to hold officials accountable for their actions.

“The role of our ‘allies,’ in my view, is a scandal. Fifty-three other countries cooperated in the kidnapping — extraordinary rendition — of suspected terrorists to black sites, where they were administered ‘enhanced interrogation techniques … which, by the way, is a direct, literal translation of verschärfte Vernehmung, right out of the Gestapo manual. I have the manual, and the sad thing is that many of the techniques are exactly the same — with a few ‘enhancements’ by the U.S. since World War II. So the role of our European allies and others has just, really, disappointed me greatly.

“Now, why President Obama … decided not to hold the torturers accountable is another very sad story,” McGovern continued, saying the president “is afraid” of the CIA. “I never thought I would hear myself saying that the President of the United States is afraid of the CIA, but he is. He’s afraid of the NSA, as well.”

McGovern says this is evident because National Intelligence Director James Clapper, who lied under oath in a Senate hearing, and Director of the CIA John Brennan, who hacked computers involved in the Senate committee overseeing him, both remain on the job to this day.

“You know, it’s hard to say this,” he continued, “but I suspect that Obama is afraid either of blackmail potential or even worse; and he has referred to the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. … saying, ‘Don’t you remember what happened to Dr. King?’”

Discussing the NSA’s overreach and domestic spying, as well as general tacit acceptance of surveillance by people in both the U.S. and Germany, McGovern warned against passivity. He strongly emphasized the need to protect against the gradual ebbing of liberties and human rights, comparing such programs to those of the Gestapo.

“This is terribly, terribly dangerous territory,” McGovern said. “And the passiveness, you know, the apathy, that’s not responsible citizenship. When I’m asked why am I an activist, I say, ‘well, that’s the rent that I pay for living on this planet,’ okay? … To the degree we pretend to be a democracy, we have a corresponding duty to be activists enough to prevent our human rights from being infringed upon.”

McGovern also discussed Edward Snowden, whom he met in Russia, and dispelled some myths and rumors surrounding the whistleblower many call a hero.

AcTVism Munich’s interview can be seen in full below, or at the link here. The independent media site has previously conducted interviews with Glenn Greenwald, Noam Chomsky, and many others, which are available in multiple languages. AcTVism Much relies heavily on crowdsourcing to fund such endeavors, which you can help by donating here.

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This article (Ex-CIA Official Says Obama Doesn’t Follow Through on Promises Out of Fear of CIA) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Claire Bernish and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email edits@theantimedia.org.

From theantimedia.org Team