Palin Implicated In Ethics Investigation

Palin may have violated ethics laws on legal donations

Associated Press — An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts, in the latest legal distraction for the former vice presidential candidate as she prepares to leave office this week.

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.

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AP NewsBreak: Palin implicated in ethics probe

AP NewsBreak: Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin implicated in ethics investigation of legal defense fund

RACHEL D’ORO
AP News

Jul 21, 2009 16:11 EST

An independent investigator has found evidence that Gov. Sarah Palin may have violated ethics laws by accepting private donations to pay her legal debts, in the latest legal distraction for the former vice presidential candidate as she prepares to leave office this week.

The report obtained by The Associated Press says Palin is securing unwarranted benefits and receiving improper gifts through the Alaska Fund Trust, set up by supporters.

An investigator for the state Personnel Board says in his July 14 report that there is probable cause to believe Palin used or attempted to use her official position for personal gain because she authorized the creation of the trust as the “official” legal defense fund.

MORE HERE

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Evening Jukebox- Viva La Vida

Coldplay – Viva La Vida

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President Carter: Many Children Were Tortured Under Bush

Ralph Lopez | Daily Kos | Thu Jul 16, 2009

“You have the power to hold your leaders accountable.” – President Obama, Ghana, July 14, 2009

While congress says it is gearing up to investigate what is old news, that CIA and Special Ops forces are killing Al Qaeda leaders, a decision of far different gravity is being contemplated by Attorney General Eric Holder.  The new insistence of Congress on its oversight role, conspicuously absent throughout 8 years of Bush, is suddenly rearing its head in the form of questioning a policy which has been in place with no controversy for years.  The U.S. has been hunting and killing Al Qaeda leaders outside of official war zones since 2004, when the New York Times reported that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had signed an order authorizing Special Forces to kill Al Qaeda where they found them.

As recently as September 2008 CBS reported that Special Forces struck Qaeda leadership in Pakistan.

The decision faced by Holder, whether or not to appoint a Special Prosecutor on torture, is of a different gravity altogether.  A weight of evidence keeps building which indicates torture was employed on innocent men, that it didn’t work, and that it didn’t prevent any attacks.  And it gets worse.  Bush’s own FBI Director Robert Mueller recently confirmed to the New York Times what he told Vanity Fair a year ago, that “to [his] knowledge” torture didn’t prevent a single attack.  Former Legendary CIA Director William Colby has said that torture is “ineffective.”

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US Blows up 300 tons of Afghan bagle seeds

Hmm, looks like Monsanto & USAID are making significant progress in bringing about, their signature program, the “Green Revolution”, to Afghasnistan and Pakistan. I can’t help but wonder, though, why they didn’t just compost all those seeds so the soil would be a little easier to spade. Oh well, I suppose that Monsanto knows best..,.) :

CNN

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) — The U.S. military bombed about 300 tons of poppy seeds in a dusty field in southern Afghanistan Tuesday in a dramatic show of force designed to break up the Taliban’s connection to heroin.

The air strike occurred mid-day in Helmand province and was observed by CNN’s Ivan Watson, who is embedded with the U.S. Marines operating in that province.

The military dropped a series of 1,000-pound bombs from planes on the mounds of poppy seeds and then followed with strikes from helicopters.

Tony Wayne, with the U.S. State Department, said the strikes on poppy seeds, that can be used to make opium and heroin, is part of a strategy shift for the military to stop the Taliban and other insurgents from profiting from drugs.

“There is a nexus that needs to be broken between the insurgents and the drug traffickers,” Wayne said. “Also, it is part of winning the hearts and minds of the population because in some cases they are intimidated into growing poppies.”

In a bid to encourage Afghan farmers to swap out their poppy plants for wheat crops the U.S. Agency for International Development has been offering them seeds, fertilizers and improved irrigation.

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U.S. and Israel are threatening Iran

By Paul Craig Roberts | Counterpunch, July 20,  2009

When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Japan did not spend years preparing her public case and demonstrating her deployment of forces for the attack.  Japan did not make a world issue out of her view that the US was denying Japan her role in the Pacific by hindering Japan’s access to raw materials and energy.

Similarly, when Hitler attacked Russia, he did not preface his invasion with endless threats and a public case that blamed the war on England.

These events happened before the PSYOPS era.  Today, America and Israel’s wars of aggression are preceded by years of propaganda and international meetings, so that by the time the attack comes it is an expected event, not a monstrous surprise attack with its connotation of naked aggression.

The US, which has been threatening Iran with attack for years, has passed the job to Israel.  During the third week of July, the American vice president and secretary of state gave Israel the go-ahead.  Israel has made great public disclosure of its warships passing through the Suez Canal on their way to Iran.  “Muslim” Egypt is complicit, offering no objection to Israel’s naval forces on their way to a war crime under the Nuremberg standard that the US imposed on the world.

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• Special Report: Iran Falls to US PSYOPS
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