TV News LIES

Few journalists have greater influence on U.S. foreign policy, particularly regarding the Middle East, than New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. But his tortured obit of a column this week on the official end of the neocolonialist disaster that has been the Iraq occupation reminds one that the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner often gets it wrong.

Was the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which he did so much to encourage, a “wise choice”? Friedman hides behind one of his trademark ambiguities: “My answer is twofold: ‘No’ and ‘Maybe, sort of, we’ll see.’ I say ‘no’ because whatever happens in Iraq, even if it becomes Switzerland, we overpaid for it.”

At least four priests, described by lawyers as "whistle-blowers," have come forward hoping to aid in the prosecution of current and former clergy members accused in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia sex-abuse scandal.

However, an archdiocesan policy requiring them to notify church lawyers before talking to law enforcement could stifle the testimony they are willing to give, city prosecutors told a judge Wednesday.

Within an hour of posting this article and linking to the pertinent document, the feds at FBO.gov have pulled the link and implied that it was a classified posting. We believe this was public and of interest to American citizens, taxpayers and peoples of the world and are in the process re-establishing an archive link of the material. Obviously, however, this information is revealing and certain parties do not wish it to be widely known. If you believe this material is important, please archive it and share it with your contacts. In the meantime, here are links to many of the pages: Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5, Page 6, Page 7, Page 8, Page 9, Page 10, Page 11

Barack Obama's Justice Department have done what top attorneys for former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton could never do -- silenced the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana.

The modest medical cannabis dispensary -- which has operated since 1996, making the Fairfax-based pot club the state's oldest -- quietly shut down over the weekend under heavy pressure from federal prosecutors, according to the Marin Independent Journal.

Four years after the banking system nearly collapsed from reckless mortgage lending, federal prosecutors have stayed on the sidelines, even as judges around the country are pointing fingers at possible wrongdoing.

The government also hasn't brought any prosecutions for dubious foreclosure practices deployed since 2007 by big banks and other mortgage-servicing companies.

The Israeli military, already bracing for what could be the most devastating war in the Middle East, is also girding for a looming confrontation with Jewish extremists, mainly hard-liners from the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Extremists from ultra-Orthodox settler groups, who say God gave the region to the children of Abraham for all time, have been increasingly active in recent months.

By the time authorities busted a fake AIDS clinic in Miami, it had bilked Medicare of more than $4.5 million. Still, the man behind the scheme remained far ahead of the agents pursuing him.

Michel De Jesus Huarte, a 40-year-old Cuban-American, hadn't simply avoided arrest. He had hatched a plan to steal millions more from Medicare by forming at least 29 other shell companies - paper-only firms with no real operations. Each time, he would keep his name out of any corporate records. Other people - some paid by Huarte, some whose identities had been stolen - would be listed in incorporation papers.

A federal judge was not swayed by the last-ditch attempt from an Army veteran with extensive ties to white supremacists to change his guilty plea in a plot to bomb a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade.

Kevin Harpham said in court he only agreed to plead guilty to planting a bomb filled with poison-laced shrapnel along the downtown Spokane parade route to avoid a possible life sentence, telling the judge: "I am not guilty of the acts that I am accused of and that I plead guilty to."