TV News LIES

An increasingly popular bumper sticker reads, "Guns Don't Kill People -- RELIGION Kills People!" In light of recent events I would add religion kills young people: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender young people.

Perhaps not directly, though. And religion is certainly not the only source of anti-gay sentiment in the culture. But it's hard to deny that religious voices denouncing LGBT people contribute to the atmosphere in which violence against LGBT people and bullying of LGBT youth can flourish.

General Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during parts of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has a new memoir out that contains this significant-seeming story: Back in the late 1990s, Shelton says a member of Clinton's cabinet asked him to allow Saddam Hussein to shoot down an American plane over Iraq as a pretext for starting a war. The way Shelton tells the story, this was a serious request.

Remember, the context here is the Clinton Administration's years of trying to overthrow Saddam -- including in a little-remembered 1996 CIA coup attempt. In December 1998 (most likely after the request was made to Shelton), Clinton bombed Iraq for four days in Operation Desert Fox, which Clinton said was a response to Saddam's lack of cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Several New Yorkers witnessed an unusual sight Wednesday afternoon when several shiny objects were seen flying high above the streets of Manhattan. The NYPD and Federal Aviation Administration say around 1:30 p.m., they received calls from many people who saw the objects hovering over Chelsea.

Many people took to Twitter to talk about the unidenified flying objects sighting and posted videos and photos of the bizarre event. Some believed the objects were balloons, however, officials have not confirmed what the objects were.

More than half of Chicago's Roman Catholic parishes have had a priest accused of sexually abusing a child working there at some point, according to a study released today that was quickly questioned by the Chicago Archdiocese.

In some cases, multiple priests accused of misconduct worked at the same church, according to the study, conducted by reform groups Voice of the Faithful, African American Advocates for Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

After promptly ruling out a bomb, other Redditors helped correctly identify the black device as a Guardian ST820 – a GPS-tracking unit made by Cobham and used exclusively by the army and law enforcement. According to the poster, the friend’s (now dead) father had ties to the Muslim religious community and was the subject of quite a bit of FBI interest. That interest also extended to the son, who has supposedly been on an FBI watchlist since last year.

Amid raucous political debate over tax cuts for the rich and who owns most of America's wealth, university researchers have found at least one reason why we suffer such bruising public policy stalemates in this country.

When it comes to wealth inequity in the United States, we just don't know what we're talking about.