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What the FBI Director Said to Ted Cruz About the IRS Scandal Will Make Obama Really, Really Outraged.

Is NYC ‘Fat-Shaming’ Students? Third-Grader Told She Is Overweight In Letter
By Oulimata Ba | May 23, 2014 01:05 PM EDT

Gwendolyn Williams, a third-grader at P.S. 29, was sent home with a letter that classified her Body Mass Index as “overweight.” (Photo : Twitter)
A New York City third-grader was sent home from school with a note declaring she is “overweight,” the New York Post reported.
At 66 pounds, 9-year-old Gwendolyn Williams is unhealthy according to the weight range the city’s Department of Education follows to classify girls her age. Titled “Fitnessgrams,” the letter said because Williams’ Body Mass Index is 19, she falls “outside of a healthy weight,” according to the letter obtained by the NY Post.
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“I’m 4-foot-1, and 66 pounds, and I’m like what?!” the P.S. 29 student told the newspaper after she received the letter.
“I just don’t think that it’s fair to be called overweight when you’re not really overweight,” the Staten Island girl said.
All students in the city’s public school system received the Fitnessgram, which carry the results of their weight and height that was measured last November.
Williams’ mother complained to the school’s principle about the letter, who told her that students were not supposed to open them.
“My response is, they’re kids. How can you believe they’re not going to open it?” Laura Bruij Williams told the NY Post.
The DOE supported the Fitnessgrams, saying they are “just one indicator…which helps students develop personal goals for lifelong health,” a spokeswoman told the newspaper.
But experts say the BMI reports can inflict damage to a child’s self-esteem.
Chevese Turner, from the Binge Eating Disorder Association, told the NY Post that BMI was created years ago by insurance companies that wanted to rate people’s health in groups instead of individually.
“Dieting, especially for kids, is the gateway drug for eating disorders, and so is the public shaming that can come with this,” Turner said referring to the Fitnessgrams.
“My organization and others believe that BMI report cars have no place coming from schools and can be more harmful than helpful,” Turner said.
In the meantime Gwendolyn, who likes to ride the scooter and plays softball, is not taking the Fitnessgram seriously.
“I know that I’m not overweight, so why should I believe the New York Department of Education?” she told the newspaper.
via Is NYC ‘Fat-Shaming’ Students? Third-Grader Told She Is Overweight In Letter : News : Headlines & Global News.

Activist Post: U2, Bono? Celeb partners with Monsanto, G8, to biowreck African farms with GMOsTuesday, May 29, 2012

U2, Bono? Celeb partners with Monsanto, G8, to biowreck African farms with GMOs

Rady Ananda
Activist Post
At the G8 Summit held two weeks ago at Camp David, President Obama met with private industry and African heads of state to launch the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, a euphemism for monocultured, genetically modified crops and toxic agrochemicals aimed at making poor farmers debt slaves to corporations, while destroying the ecosphere for profit.
And Bono, of the rock group U2, is out shilling for Monsanto on this one.
It’s phase 2 of the Green Revolution. Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia are the first to fall for the deception, with Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso and other African nations lining up for the “Grow Africa Partnership,” under Obama’s “Global Agricultural Development” plan.
In Obama Pitches India Model of GM Genocide to Africa, Scott Creighton writes:

But African civil society wants no part of this latest Monsanto aligned ‘public private partnership.’ Whatever will the progressives do now that their flawless hero has teamed up with their most hated nemesis to exploit an entire continent like they did to India not that long ago?
With a commitment of $3 billion, Obama plans to ‘partner up’ with mega-multinationals like Monsanto, Diageo, Dupont, Cargill, Vodafone, Walmart, Pepsico, Prudential, Syngenta International, and Swiss Re because, as one USAID representative says ‘There are things that only companies can do, like building silos for storage and developing seeds and fertilizers.’

Of course, that’s an outrageous lie. Private citizens have been building their own silos for centuries. But it’s true that only the biowreck engineers will foist patented seeds and toxic chemicals on Africa.
Creighton continues:

Bono says that there has to be a ‘public private partnership’ in order to get this done and that they are going to be using the ideas of the African people and farmers. Really? This is what the African farmers say to that…

‘We request that: – governments, FAO, the G8, the World Bank and the GAFSP reconsider their promotion of Public/Private Partnerships which, as they are now conceived, are not suitable instruments to support the family farms which are the very basis of African food security and sovereignty.’ African Civil Society Organizations

I wonder if that could be any clearer. They don’t WANT the public private partnerships involved in this process…. It’s not enough that huge mega-corporations are bleeding the nations of Africa dry by sucking the valuable mineral resources out of their hills. No. As Bono says about the development in Africa:

‘They’re future consumers for the United States. The president is talkingbusiness. This is good. It’s a whole new development paradigm today. The old donor/recipient relationship… it’s over.’

Volatility chimed in:

The history of corporate agriculture and its ‘Green Revolution’ is a perfect example of the unfulfilled promises, and therefore proven lies, of corporatism. What was the Green Revolution? With a huge one-off injection of fossil fuels, and building upon ten thousand years of agronomy, corporate agriculture temporarily increased yields within the monoculture framework.

But, in the Green Revolution, writes Volatility:

Non GMO Heirloom Seed Bank

The soil is stripped of all nutrition and zombified by ever-increasing applications of synthetic fertilizer. Monoculture is ever more dependent on the increasing application of ever more toxic herbicides and pesticides. Deployment of GMOs escalates these vulnerabilities. Factory farms can exist only with ever increasing use of antibiotics. All these systems are extremely tenuous, vulnerable, not robust, not resilient. They’re all guaranteed to collapse. Hermetic monoculture, and industrial agriculture as such, is one big hothouse flower which requires perfect conditions to survive….

[T]he Green Revolution was a scam to use cheap fossil fuels to increase monocrop yield, drive tens of millions off the land, and use the stolen land and food to render food temporarily artificially cheap for Western consumerism.

Like with Monsanto’s Bt cotton deployed in India, at first yields improved and farmers profited. Now, however, according to a leaked Advisory from the Minister of Agriculture obtained by the Hindustan Times last month:

Cotton farmers are in a deep crisis since shifting to Bt cotton…. In fact cost of cotton cultivation has jumped…due to rising costs of pesticides. Total Bt cotton production in the last five years has reduced.

The Advisory definitively links farmer suicides to debt-enslavement enabled by the synthetic food model spawned by Monsanto, Dupont and other ecocidal corporations: “The spate of farmer suicides in 2011-12 has been particularly severe among Bt cotton farmers.”
That’s not all the harm wrought by the petrochemical synthetic ag industry, as this 2012 superweed map by the University of Wisconsin shows:

Over half of US states are now plagued by agrochemically-induced superweeds.  An industry sponsored study of pesticide use predicts that by 2016, nearly a billion pounds of these toxic chemicals will be poured on US soils.
Insects have also developed resistance. As reported last August, “The Western rootworm beetle – one of the most serious threats to corn – has developed resistance to Monsanto’s Bt-corn, and entire crops are being lost.”
In March, two dozen corn entomologists warned regulators that the only way to defeat growing insect resistance to genetically modified corn is to plant non-GMO seed. “Increasing pesticide use or buffer zone size will not solve the growing problem of rootworm resistance to corn genetically modified.”
But if that doesn’t deter African farmers, these petrochemicals have also been linked to human birth defects. Where “Roundup Ready soy is being cultivated on a massive scale,” reports Dr. Mercola, “widespread reports exist of immediate illness defects from massive glyphosate spraying operations.”
In fact, “Monsanto, Philip Morris and other U.S. tobacco giants knowingly poisoned Argentinean tobacco farmers with pesticides,” reports Courthouse News Service, “causing ‘devastating birth defects’ in their children, dozens of workers claim in court.”
The Bt toxin used to engineer cotton and corn also kills human kidney cells, reports Dr Eva Sirinathsinghji, and the drift from aerial application of Roundup prompted the Mississippi Rice Council to sound a national alarm over genetic damage to natural rice, calling for severely restricted aerial application.
Newly emergent pathogens have appeared, reports Dr. Don M. Huber, a plant pathologist who coordinates the Emergent Diseases and Pathogens committee of the American Phytopathological Society, as part of the USDA National Plant Disease Recovery System. Last year, his team discovered a “self-replicating, micro-fungal virus-sized organism which may be causing spontaneous abortions in livestock, sudden death syndrome in Monsanto’s Roundup Ready soy, and wilt in Monsanto’s RR corn.”
Huber’s warning to the USDA to halt GM crop approvals, and specifically, genetically modified alfalfa, was not only ignored, but two months ago, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack hastened the approval process for genetically engineered crops.
“The new rules will cut the time needed to approve biotech crops in half,” reports Dr. Mercola, “from an average of three years, to about 13 months for new versions of already existing crop technologies, and about 16 months for brand new technologies.”
Obama’s Global Agricultural Development plan conspires with multinational corporations to foist these ecological and human health costs onto the public while siphoning the profits. As Creighton says, “Socialized costs, privatized profits. All in the name doing good and saving the people of Africa.”
Let’s hope these “public/private partnerships” are met with firm resistance by African farmers, as supported by this Declaration from a group of African civil society organizations.  The last thing Planet Earth and all its organisms need is more toxic industrial chemicals.
cc Creative Commons. This work may be reproduced in whole or in part as long as the original URL and author name are included.
You can help support this information by voting on Reddit HERE.
Rady Ananda is an investigative reporter and researcher in the areas of health, environment, politics, and civil liberties.  Her two websites, Food Freedom and COTO Report are essential reading.
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It’s not just the IRS. A second federal agency is facing a probe and accusations of political bias over its alleged targeting of conservative groups. The allegations concern the Environmental Protection Agency, which is being accused of trying to charge conservative groups fees while largely exempting liberal groups. The fees applied to Freedom of Information Act requests — allegedly, the EPA waived them for liberal groups far more often than it did for conservative ones. The allegations are under investigation by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is also holding hearings on the Internal Revenue Service targeting of conservative groups. “I don’t think it is fair at all. It is not fair to the American taxpayer — the American taxpayer should expect and demand that the EPA treats everyone equally in regard to these requests,” said Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee. “This cannot be tolerated. As we see more federal agencies with this kind of bias, it is and should be a concern for all of us.” Research by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank, claims that the political bias is routine when it comes to deciding which groups are charged fees. Christopher Horner, senior fellow at CEI, said liberal groups have their fees for documents waived about 90 percent of the time, in contrast with conservative groups that it claims are denied fee waivers about 90 percent of the time. “The idea is to throw hurdles in our way,” charged Horner, who says he decided to look into the fee structure after the EPA repeatedly turned down his group for waivers. “In 20 cases of ours, since the beginning of last year, we were expressly denied, or denied by them simply refusing to respond, in 18 out of 20 cases,” said Horner, explaining that the batting percentage for fees waived in favor of liberal groups is overwhelming. “Earth Justice was batting 17 out of 19, the Sierra Club was the worst, at 70 percent granted, 11 out of 15. You add up some other groups and we found that 75 out of 82 groups granted, because these are the groups that the EPA has decided are the favored groups.” Read more via Fox News…
http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/breaking-epa-also-faces-probe-over-targeting-of-conservative-groups

31 Ways Turmeric Protects Against The Post-Industrial ‘Chemical Apocalypse’
Posted on: Tuesday, May 20th 2014 at 8:00 pm
Written By: Sayer Ji, Founder

Living in a post-industrial world awash in toxic chemicals this ancient healing spice may be the ultimate answer to regaining your health.

In a world increasingly saturated through with known cancer-causing toxicants, folks are understandably growing despondent.  Thousands of petrochemicals are now found not only in our body care products, foods, and water and air, but also our bodies where they accumulate over time. Some of these chemicals are potent endocrine disrupters and even in exceedingly small concentrations can alter and disrupt a wide range of hormonally driven processes within our bodies.

An accumulating body of research now indicates that this class of chemicals — endocrine disrupters — challenges the conventional toxicological view that ‘the dose makes the poison,’ with smaller concentrations having disproportionately higher toxicity than was first anticipated when pre-approval toxicological risk assessments were first performed on them.

Roundup herbicide’s main ingredient glyphosate, for instance, was recently found in a cell study to have estrogenic (and potentially carcinogenic) activity in the infinitesimal parts-per-trillion concentration range. This is all the more disturbing when you consider that the EPA is acting more like cheerleaders and less like regulators to Big Agra on the issue of how much we can be exposed to.

Parabens, a preservative found in most mainstream body care products and even some foods, was found in human breast tumor samples at concentrations and activity levels even higher than the natural estrogen concentrations normally found there, indicating that synthetic chemicals with hormone-like activity may now be eclipsing the activity of our own natural hormones in the post-industrial nightmare we have created for ourselves.

Bisphenol A (BPA), another chemical used in a wide range of plastics, thermal printer paper, and paper currencies around the world, is also now found in concernedly high concentrations within the human body. All the more reason why a new study indicating that there may be a natural way to mitigate the adverse effects of exposure to this chemical is so promising.

Published in the journal Phytotherapy Research and titled, “Curcumin Modulates miR-19/PTEN/AKT/p53 Axis to Suppress Bisphenol A-induced MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Proliferation,” researchers found that the primary polyphenol in turmeric known as curcumin – the golden hued phytocompound which has been the subject of over 5,000 published studies – is capable of reversing the BPA induced activation of cancer causing (oncogenic) pathways within cells exposed to the chemical.  The researchers believe that, “Findings from this study could provide new insights into the molecular mechanisms by which BPA exerts its breast-cancer-promoting effect as well as its target intervention.”

In an ideal world, we could avoid exposure to the chemicals and therefore go without protective supplements or food extracts by eating clean, preservative and chemical-free food.  But the situation is getting worse not better. USDA certified organic food, for instance, includes a sizable list of exceptions to the ‘chemical free’ standard we have grown accustomed to expecting from organic food.  The non-GMO project, while admirable, generates a false sense of consumer security by implying that non-GMO certified food is also pesticide and agrochemical free, which it often is not. In a world of uncertainty about the most important thing you can do to ensure your health – good, clean, healing food – we must take precaution, and turmeric (and its polyphenol curcumin) may just be the world’s most important herb when it comes to reducing the risk of harm from the battery of modern day chemical, radiation, electromagnetic, and infectious exposures – not to mention stress induced adverse physiological changes.

At Greenmedinfo.com we have dedicated a good portion of our time indexing research on the many ways that turmeric and curcumin can protect and in some cases recover our health. You can visit our turmeric research page for a list of no less than 600 health conditions that have been studied to possibly benefit from its consumption. The list is so impressive that we have theorized that if there is an intelligent design within Nature, and if certain species of plants are ideally suited to benefit certain animal species, turmeric may very well be an embodiment of compassion.  At the very least turmeric must be recognized as an embodiment of profound intelligence, as it possesses the ability to modulate over 170 distinct physiological processes within the body in a way that can ameliorate physical suffering.

For a brief snapshot of the ways in which turmeric protect against chemical and/or toxin exposure, take a look at the experimentally verified forms of protection it offers against the following toxic substances:

• Acetametaphen (Tylenol) Toxicity
• Acrylonitrate Toxicity
• Acrylamide Toxicity
• Aflatoxin Toxicity
• Alcohol Toxicity
• Antibiotic Toxicity
• Arsenic Toxicity
• Benzene Toxicity
• Benzo[a]pyrene-induced Toxicity
• Cadmium Toxicity
• Chemotherapy-Induced Toxicity
• Cortisone Toxicity
• Dioxin Toxicity
• Drug-Induced Toxicity (various)
• Fluoride Toxicity
• Heterocyclic Amine Toxicity
• HIV Drug Toxicity
• Iron Toxicity
• Lead Toxicity
• Lipopolysaccharide (Bacterial) Toxicity
• Malathion Toxicity
• Mercury ToxicityMethanol Toxicity
• Naphtalene Toxicity
• Nicotine/Tobacco Toxicity
• Nitrite Toxicity
• NSAID Toxicity
• Pesticide Toxicity
• Phthalate Toxicity

via 31 Ways Turmeric Protects Against The Post-Industrial ‘Chemical.

http://youtu.be/_xynie9k5So

http://youtu.be/pl8uxT0lUsQ

Pregnant Women Should Take Iodine Supplement: Docs

Monday, 26 May 2014 10:35 AM

Pregnant women should take an iodine supplement to protect the brain development of their babies, according to the leading U.S. group of pediatricians.
Iodine, which the body can get from iodide, is needed to make the thyroid hormones that are required for children’s brain development before and after birth.
“Women who are childbearing age need to pay attention to this topic as well, because about half of the pregnancies in the U.S. are unplanned,” Dr. Jerome Paulson said.
“Women in the early part of the pregnancy may not realize they’re pregnant.”
Paulson is the chairperson of the American Academy of Pediatrics Council on Environmental Health, which authored the policy statement. He is also a pediatrician at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
The recommendations were published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday.
People typically get the iodine they need from table salt, which in the U.S. is fortified with iodide. Eating processed foods exposes Americans to salt that is not iodized, however.
The Council writes that past research has suggested about one-third of pregnant women in the U.S. are marginally iodine deficient. Also, only about 15 percent of women take a supplement containing an adequate amount of iodide.
The American Thyroid Association and the National Academy of Sciences suggest pregnant and breastfeeding women get 290 micrograms of iodide per day.
Women may need to take a supplement with 150 micrograms of iodide to reach that recommended level, but most prenatal and lactation vitamins contain less, according to the Council.
“Breastfeeding mothers should take a supplement that includes at least 150 micrograms of iodide and use iodized table salt,” the Council writes.
Additionally, the Council says women may need to be tested for iodine deficiency if they are vegan or don’t eat fish.
“Obviously iodine is critical to the fetal and child brain,” Dr. Loralei Thornburg said. “Therefore having a diet that’s rich in iodine is critical.”
Thornburg was not involved in making the new recommendation. She is a high-risk pregnancy expert at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.
“Although many women are largely iodine deficient, most women do get iodine in the (form) of food,” she told Reuters Health. “This isn’t something women should freak out about just yet.”
Thornburg said the ideal amount of iodide supplementation depends on how much of the compound women already get from their diets.
The Council says a pregnant or lactating woman’s combined iodide intake should be between 290 and 1100 micrograms per day. Specifically, it should be in the form of potassium iodide.
“This is something that’s fairly routine,” Paulson said. “I think what we’re saying is people need to pay attention to the details of what they’re doing, but not radically change their behavior.”
The authors also suggest pregnant or lactating women avoid nitrate, found in contaminated well water, and thiocyanate, which is usually found in cigarette smoke and certain vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage. The two chemicals can disrupt the ability of iodine to be processed into hormones. However, women rarely eat enough of the vegetables for thiocyanate levels from those sources to be concerning, they note.
Finally, the Council recommends that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proceed with appropriate regulation of perchlorate in waterways. Perchlorate, which is a chemical used in rocket fuels and explosives, can disrupt the body’s use of iodine to make thyroid hormones.
“I think people can have some control over their exposure to tobacco smoke, but they may not even be aware of the perchlorate or other chemicals in the water,” Paulson said.
The Council also writes that there is some inconsistency between the iodide on the label of supplements and their actual content. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should “do what is necessary to allow consumers to identify and use iodide supplements with confidence” if the industry’s actions are insufficient, it adds.
© 2014 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/Health-News/iodine-pregnancy-supplement/2014/05/26/id/573346#ixzz32rFjIrRA
Alert: What Is Your Risk for a Heart Attack? Find Out Now

MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGE TO VETERANS: GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS YOU THE ENEMY

Veterans are props to be rolled out on Memorial Day as homage is paid to the state and its endless wars

Memorial Day Message to Veterans

by KURT NIMMO | INFOWARS.COM | MAY 26, 2014

Earlier today, Obama appeared at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery for a photo op. From The Washington Post:

Obama, aided by a soldier in uniform, rested the large wreath on a stand a few minutes after 11 a.m. Monday. The president adjusted the wreath, stepped back and bowed his head in silence for a few moments. Afterward, an Army bugler played taps.

Later he appeared at the cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater to read from a script. “We’re in a pivotal moment. Our troops are coming home. By the end of this year, our war in Afghanistan will finally come to an end,” he recited.
“These Americans have done their duty. They ask nothing more than that our country does ours, for now and the decades to come,” Obama said.
But, as the VA scandal and countless other examples reveal, the government considers veterans as little more than third class citizens, props to be rolled out on Memorial Day as homage is ritually paid to the state and its endless wars.
The booboisie, as H. L. Mencken described the forever gullible and easily bamboozled American public, were practically knocking down the gates to get in to witness this annual worship of state violence:

Before the ceremony, a large number of people were turned away from the cemetery’s entrances by security personnel who said that the event was at capacity.

When the government is not praising veterans for their “service” in foreign wars of conquest and other illegal activity driven primarily by the financial elite – see Smedley Butler, below – it spends a lot of time demonizing veterans as enemies of the state:

 

Over 60% of US drone targets in Pakistan are homes – research

Published time: May 25, 2014 11:19
Edited time: May 26, 2014 08:30
Pakistan Houses Drone Targets

Northrop Grumman / Bob Brown / Handout via Reuters
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Conflict, Drones, Human rights, Military,Pakistan, Politics, USA, Violence
The CIA has been bombing Pakistan’s domestic buildings more than any other targets over the past decade of the drone war launched by the US, says the latest research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
Almost two thirds, or over 60 percent, of all US drone strikes in Pakistan targeted domestic buildings,says joint research conducted by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), a London-based non-profit news group, along with Forensic Architecture, a research unit based at Goldsmiths University, London, and Situ Research in New York.
The authors of the paper analyzed thousands of media reports, witness testimonies and field investigations to obtain the data on drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata).
According to the study, at least 132 houses have been destroyed in more than 380 strikes over the past decade with at least 222 civilians being among the 1,500 or more people killed.
“On average, 6.2 people and 0.9 reported civilians died per strike on domestic buildings,” says the paper, adding that these numbers may be conservative because the Bureau “has found the deaths of women are dramatically underreported.”
The seclusion of women and children in the country which orders them to spend more time indoors make them more vulnerable to drone strikes, according to the BIJ’s ‘Naming the Dead’ project.
Women and children are less likely to be seen “by [a] drone operator monitoring the structure,” says Susan Schuppli, senior research fellow at Forensic Architecture and the project coordinator.
The paper adds that domestic buildings are more likely to be attacked at night compared with in the afternoon.
“Strikes that took place in the evening, when families are likely to be at home and gathered together, were particularly deadly,” says the paper.
Civilians usually avoid going out at night as Pakistani Taliban militants do not allow them to leave their homes without reason, Mansur Mahsud, director of Islamabad-based organization the Fata Research Center, told BIJ.
The report says that when drones attack the target they usually call it a “compound,” and often a“militant compound.” However, they are often domestic spaces.
“One compound is used by many families, like brothers and first cousins, although every family has their own portion or space in the compound…Normally you will find 20-25 people living in one compound, and in some cases you will find more than 50,” adds Mahsud.
The study also showed that on average more civilians die when a building is hit by a drone than when a vehicle is targeted.
However, despite rising proportion of strikes on houses, there haven’t been any reports of civilian casualties in the past 18 months.
According to Mahsud, this is because the locals host militants as their guests less frequently.
Now, with the threats of drone attack, when militants come to stay, civilians usually leave, he adds.
Meanwhile, the study found that the highest number of casualties are reported after the attacks on mosques and madrassas (religious school or college for the study of the Islamic religion).
“At least eight strikes have hit mosques or madrassas …On average, at least 17 people and 12.4 civilians are reported killed for each religious building hit in the strikes,” says the report.
Overall, at least 417 civilians – and possibly as many as 957 – have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, adds BIJ’s data which was also presented in an interactive online map, titled Where the Drones Strike, showing the location and targets of each strike.
The report says that US drones have been hitting Pakistan since June, 2004, however, the attacks largely increased since 2010 when 128 strikes killed at least 751 people, of whom 84 were civilians.
Meanwhile, a US official told BIJ that “US counterterrorism operations are precise, lawful, and effective”and that the country only “targets terrorists who pose a continuing and imminent threat to the American people.”

image from TBIJ.com
“Any suggestion otherwise is flat wrong. Furthermore, before any strike is taken, there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured – the highest standard we can set,” he added.
President Barack Obama’s drone program hit its five-year anniversary in January. Earlier in 2014 BIJ announced that, at least 2,400 people across the Middle East have been killed by drones.
Even critics admit that many of those may have been militants, although the strikes have unleashed unimaginable devastation on civilians and their families – particularly in Pakistan, where drones have greatly contributed to anti-American sentiment.
The civilian deaths from US drone attacks in Pakistan have become a significant stumbling block in bilateral relations. Pakistan recently asked Washington to limit the amount of drone attacks in the country as the government enters into negotiations with the Pakistani Taliban.

Widow Claims Veterans’ Hospital Police Beat Her Husband to Death

By ROBERT KAHN
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SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) – After waiting for 4 hours for dialysis with a shunt in his arm, a veteran told a Veterans Administration hospital he was leaving, whereupon VA police beat the hell out of him and stomped on his carotid artery, giving him a stroke that killed him, and they lied to his wife about it, the widow claims in court.
Norma Montano sued the United States of America in Federal Court, for the death of her husband of 44 years, Jonathan Montano. The Montanos’ son and daughter also are plaintiffs.
The lawsuit comes as veterans hospitals nationwide are under investigation for lying about wait times to which they subjected patients. News reports have not yet linked the long waits to any deaths. Norma Montano does not attribute her husband’s death to the long wait, but to the needless beating.
Jonathan Montano died on June 11, 2011, after VA police brutalized him at the VA hospital in Loma Linda on May 25 that year, his widow claims in the lawsuit.
Jonathan, who was 65, had a shunt put in his arm by the VA hospital staff that day, and waited with his wife for treatment “for approximately four hours, without being treated,” Norma Montano says in the complaint.
“This greatly frustrated Jonathan Montano, who then decided that he didn’t want to wait any longer at the VA Hospital in Loma Linda and decided to leave the hospital and to go to the VA Hospital in Long Beach,” the complaint states.
Jonathan told his wife to get the car to take him to Long Beach. As she went to get it, her husband “was told by the nursing staff not to leave the hospital,” the complaint states.
It continues: “Jonathan Montana told the nurse that he was leaving and was going to the VA Hospital in Long Beach, California, [and that] he wanted to leave the needle apparatus in his arm, so they wouldn’t have to put a new one in at the Long Beach VA Hospital.
“In response to Jonathan Montano’s attempt to leave the VA Hospital in Loma Linda, California, the nursing staff called VA Police Department to stop Jonathan Montano from leaving the hospital.
“The summoned VA Police Department police officers then stopped Jonathan Montano from leaving the VA Hospital in Loma Linda, by tackling him to the floor, slamming his head on the floor, and kneeing and stomping on his neck, and otherwise brutalizing and restraining him.
“This kneeing and stomping on his neck by the VA Police Department police officers caused the dissection of his carotid artery, that resulted in immediate (or very soon thereafter) blood clotting, which resulted in [his] suffering a stroke. Moreover, the brutalization of Jonathan Montano resulted in him suffering other serious physical injuries, and associated physical, mental and emotional pain, suffering and distress.” (Parentheses in complaint.)
Norma Montano, wondering why her husband had not come to the car, went inside to look for him. Inside the hospital, she says, “she was told by a member of the nursing staff that Jonathan Montano suffered a stroke,” and was in the emergency department.
When she sought him there, “she was told by the emergency room doctor that her husband had fallen down and suffered a stroke, an untrue statement,” she says in the complaint.
It continues: “Later on, one of the nurses at the VA Hospital in Loma Linda took Norma Montano aside, and told her that her husband didn’t fall, but was slammed to the ground by the VA Police, that Norma Montano was being lied to, and that it wasn’t right what the VA Police did to Jonathan Montano.
“On June 11, 2011, Jonathan Montano died from the stroke(s) that he suffered from being slammed to the floor and having his neck stomped on / pinned to the floor at the VA Hospital in Loma Linda on May 25, 2011.”
She claims the VA police brutalized her husband without any reasonable suspicion that there was “criminality afoot” or that he had committed a crime.
She seeks damages and punitive damages for wrongful death, assault and battery, false imprisonment, constitutional violations, negligence, loss of consortium and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
She is represented by Jerry L. Steering, of Newport Beach.

http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/peace-and-prosperity/2014/may/26/walter-block%92s-libertarian-journey-booing-ayn-rand-and-playing-risk-with-murray-rothbard.aspx

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23885-dead-babies-and-utahs-carbon-bomb