TV News LIES

The cost of U.S. military intervention in Libya has cost American taxpayers an estimated $896 million through July 31, the Pentagon said today.

The price tag includes the amounts for daily military operations, munitions used in the operation and humanitarian assistance for the Libyan people.  

The U.S. has also promised $25 million in non-lethal aid to the Libyan Transitional National Council, half of which the Defense Department has already on MRE’s (military lingo for Meals, Ready to Eat).

Clint Curtis is a United States computer programmer, ex employee of NASA, ExxonMobil, etc., who worked for Yang Enterprises (YEI) in Oviedo, Florida until February 2001. He is notable chiefly for making a series of "whistleblower" allegations about his former employer and about Republican Congressman Tom Feeney, including an allegation that in 2000, Feeney and Yang Enterprises requested Curtis's assistance in a scheme to steal votes by inserting fraudulent code into touch screen voting systems.

Curtis specifically alleged that: At the behest of Rep. Tom Feeney, in September 2000, he was asked to write a program for a touchscreen voting machine that would make it possible to change the results of an election undetectably. This technology, Curtis explained, could also be used in any electronic tabulation machine or scanner. Curtis assumed initially that this effort was aimed at detecting Democratic fraud, but later learned that it was intended to benefit the Republican Party.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch personally told one of his former tabloid editors to have someone followed, according to a documentary that aired Monday night on Australian TV.

Ita Buttrose, former editor-in-chief of Sydney’s The Daily Telegraph, told ABC’s Australian Story that Murdoch instructed her to have a subject tailed because legitimate reporting techniques were not producing the desired results.

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.

In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks.

Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein has hired high-profile Washington defense attorney Reid Weingarten, according to a government source, as the Justice Department continues to investigate the bank.

Blankfein, 56, is in his sixth year at the helm of the largest U.S. investment bank, which has spent two years fending off accusations of conflicts of interest and fraud.

As markets convulsed in September 2008, Morgan Stanley (MS) Treasurer David Wong briefed the Federal Reserve on a “dark” scenario in which the U.S. firm would need at least $10 billion of emergency loans from the central bank.

It got 10 times darker by month’s end. Morgan Stanley borrowed $107.3 billion, the most of any bank, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News using information released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests, related court orders and an act of Congress.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski announced the elimination of 83 outdated and obsolete agency rules on Monday, including the controversial Fairness Doctrine.

“The elimination of the obsolete Fairness Doctrine regulations will remove an unnecessary distraction. As I have said, striking this from our books ensures there can be no mistake that what has long been a dead letter remains dead," Genachowski said in a statement.

Chanting “Yes we can,” about 65 protesters held a third consecutive day of sit-in protests in front of the White House on Monday morning, calling for the Obama administration to block approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada.

The demonstration lasted 19 minutes before the U.S. Park Police issued a final dispersal order and began making arrests just before 11:30 a.m. Seven protesters left before being arrested. Meanwhile, 65 more demonstrators arrested Saturday prepared to be released from jail Monday afternoon.