TV News LIES

Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 case said Tuesday that the Pentagon prosecutor is backing away from a national security doctrine that reflexively gags anything the accused 9/11 plotters say to anyone at Guantánamo.

At issue is the controversial theory of “presumptive classification.” Because the accused 9/11 conspirators were held for years in secret custody by the CIA, and are now confined to a secret prison at Guantánamo, anything they say starts off classified as a national security secret.

They are facing a death-penalty trial at the Guantánamo war court, and their defense lawyers have argued that the interpretation has straight-jacketed their trial preparation.

Hundreds of thousands of active oil and gas wells go without government inspection in any given year, and fines for regulatory violations are too small to change drilling company behavior, according to an energy watchdog group's review of regulation and enforcement activities in six states.

The 124-page report, released Tuesday by the Oil & Gas Accountability Project at Earthworks, an environmental and public health advocacy group based in Washington, examined well inspection data, violations, enforcement actions and penalties in Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Professors funded by the shale gas industry have produced influential research supporting the industry at major institutions including Penn State University and the University of Texas at Austin and don’t always disclose where the money is coming from.

There’s a growing backlash against the practice. State University of New York trustees last week ordered a review of the University at Buffalo’s shale gas institute after faculty members complained that authors of a controversial report were tied to the industry.

In a study (PDF) published Monday, the group takes Fox News and The Wall Street Journal‘s editorial page to task for consistently misleading their audience on climate change.

Data collected over six months showed that Fox News was the worst offender on climate issues between the two, allowing misleading statements to permeate “93 percent” of its broadcasts on the subject from February to July 2012. The Journal‘s editorial page did not fare much better, however: the Union said “81 percent” of their climate coverage from August 2011 to July 2012 was “misleading.”

Uruguay is preparing to legalize abortion, a groundbreaking move in Latin America where no country except Cuba has made abortions accessible to all women during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Compromises made to get the measure through Congress disappointed both sides of the abortion debate, who gathered in protest. Once through Uruguay's lower house, the measure would go back to the Senate for approval of changes, but President José Mujica has said he will allow it to become law.

Far more civilians have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas than U.S. counter-terrorism officials have acknowledged, a new study by human rights researchers at Stanford University and New York University contends.

The report, "Living Under Drones," also concludes that the classified CIA program has not made America any safer and instead has turned the Pakistani public against U.S. policy in the volatile region. It recommends that the Obama administration reevaluate the program to make it more transparent and accountable, and to prove compliance with international law.

I thought it was an Onion story that Mitt Romney thinks airplanes should have roll down windows in the passenger cabin. Screen doors in the submarine, moon landings were faked and that sort of thing, but it's true.

His remarks were prompted by the dancing horse lady's scary experience on a campaign flight last week when the cabin filled with smoke briefly.

In March 2011, a devastating earthquake and tsunami set off a partial meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant on Japan's coast. A recent study led by European researchers found Fukushima is not alone, as 22 other plants around the world may be similarly susceptible to destructive tsunami waves, with most of them in east and southeast regions of Asia.