How The CDC Really Spends Your Tax Dollars

October 27, 2011

Natural News

By Christina Luisa

Recently the research, practices and spending habits of The Center for Disease Control (CDC) have been under harsh scrutiny, and with good reason. Video and story coverage on CBS proves that the CDC is utterly corrupt, spending YOUR tax dollars in ways that will blow your mind.

Watch the video here and see where your money really goes: (http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=61B80…)

Although the CDC’s main mission is supposed to be to prevent disease, a shocking investigation from Congress claims the profiteering agency has been squandering hundreds of millions of your tax dollars on Hollywood scripts, posh fitness clubs and amenities, parties and more.

The CDC uses tax dollars to push propaganda on Hollywood.

The candid scrutiny of the CDC budget begins in Hollywood, where the agency reportedly pays a liaison to help TV dramas and soap operas write “accurate medical plots.” That’s right folks, that means the CDC actually pushes its propaganda onto Hollywood scripts. This service is completely free of charge to Tinseltown tycoons, all thanks to the generosity of $1.7 million of your tax dollars. Talk about a SERIOUS waste of taxpayer dollars!

Outlandish spending first exposed in a Congressional report: “CDC Off-Center”
In 2007 Senator Tom Coburn issued a report, titled CDC Off-Center, which cites an outrageous amount of improper spending on multiple non-disease related expenses. All the while, the agency continues to be unable to explain exactly how they are doing their job of preventing disease.

The CBS special report on Coburn’s investigation claims that even back in 2008 the CDC was asking the U.S. Government for an ADDITIONAL billion dollars to add to its $10 billion dollar budget. Clearly it plans to continue finding ways to exploit the hard-earned money of taxpayers — in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with disease prevention.

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

‘Rogue Websites’ Bill Creates Chinese-Style Ban List

October 27, 2011

Prison Planet

By Paul Joseph Watson

The newly introduced ‘rogue websites’ bill that has attracted bi-partisan support in the House will force Internet Service Providers to create a list of banned websites and prevent their users from accessing the sites, creating a Chinese-style ‘ban list’ that could easily be abused to silence free speech.

“US lawmakers introduced a bill on Wednesday that would give US authorities more tools to crack down on websites accused of piracy of movies, television shows and music and the sale of counterfeit goods,” reports AFP.

“The Stop Online Piracy Act has received bipartisan support in the House of Representatives and is the House version of a bill introduced in the Senate in May known as the Theft of Intellectual Property Act or Protect IP Act.”

Although the legislation is primarily aimed at foreign websites, it could just as easily be applied to all .com domains.

The most chilling part of the legislation makes it clear that this is about empowering the federal government to create a blacklist of banned websites.

“A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name’s Internet Protocol address,” states the bill.

The only difference between this system and the draconian measures currently in place in countries like Iran, China and North Korea, is that the ISP’s would be mandated to enforce the ban list, rather than the websites being blocked via a centralized government hub.

Note that the website only has to be “accused” of doing something the government deems unlawful to be blacklisted, there is no legal process whatsoever.

Click here for the full report from Prison Planet.

Find Out More About The Amazing Nutrient CoQ10

October 27, 2011

Natural News

By Paul Fassa

Coenzyme Q10, known as CoQ10, is highly regarded as a super antioxidant. But is it for real? CoQ10 gets a lot of good press, but it’s not cheap. So to buy and try or not to buy and try is the question. Not all supplements live up to their reputation, and not all supplements are right for everyone. Let’s examine CoQ10 a bit.

What it is and isn’t
CoQ10 is not a magic bullet. It is an important compound that our bodies produce, but production declines as we age. It functions best in conjunction with a decent diet and other quality supplements. Foods such as organic organ meats, oily fish, spinach, peanuts, and whole grains provide some CoQ10.

It likes to lodge in the parts of our cells that produce energy, and is instrumental for producing the molecule adenosine-5-triphosphate (ATP). ATP is a major source of cellular energy, and it’s involved with several metabolic processes within the cell, including protein production.

Beside its antioxidant capabilities, which scavenge damaging free radicals that cause cellular damage, it appears able to repair oxidative damage. CoQ10 prevents problematic blood clotting. All these qualities have made it a favorite for increasing cardiovascular health and for preventing heart diseases or recovering rapidly from heart problems.

In addition to hundreds of reports from Japanese doctors on CoQ10′s positive effects with heart patients, Dr. Denton Cooley found that most of his heart disease patients were CoQ10 deficient. His finding corroborates discoveries from Karl Folker, Ph.D, who had originally researched CoQ10 in the west.

For athletic types or those who are involved in strenuous activities, CoQ10 offers rapid recovery times from spent energy and muscular stress as well as additional energy too for competing athletically or completing arduous physical tasks.

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

Are Vitamin Deficiences Causing Our Teeth To Rot?

October 27, 2011

Food Matters

By Andrew W. Saul, PhD

Cavities and gum diseases are not often regarded as serious diseases, yet they are epidemic throughout our society, from the youngest of children to the oldest of senior citizens. Research more than suggests that the same good nutrition that prevents cavities and gum diseases may also prevent other illnesses.

Dental caries and gum pathology are frequently associated with serious chronic health problems. Multiple independent studies published after 1990 document this. Cavities are associated with poor mental health [1-4]. Elderly individuals with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease had an average of 7.8 teeth with fillings vs. an average of only 2.7 fillings for elderly individuals without dementia [1]. It is likely that the toxic heavy metal mercury, which makes up half of every amalgam filling, is a contributing factor.

A recent authoritative review showed a clear association between cavities and heart diseases [5]. More importantly, this same study showed that people with poor oral health, on average, lead shorter lives. The association between cavities and diabetes is also a subject of active, ongoing research [6-8]. Connections between heart disease, diabetes, and dental decay have been suspected for decades. Many of the scientists who called attention to this have proposed that diets high in sugar and refined carbohydrates were the common cause of these diseases [9-15].

Dental diseases, mental diseases, heart disease, infectious respiratory diseases, and heart disease are all at least partially caused by common failures in metabolism. Such failures are inevitable when there is a deficiency of essential nutrients, particularly vitamins D, C, and niacin.

There is especially strong evidence for a relationship between vitamin D deficiency and cavities. Dozens of studies were conducted in the 1930′s and 1940′s [16-27]. More than 90% of the studies concluded that supplementing children with vitamin D prevents cavities. Particularly impressive was a study published in 1941 demonstrated the preventative affect of “massive” doses of vitamin D [28]. And yet no subsequent studies in the scientific literature suggested a need to follow up and repeat this work.

Click here for the full report from Food Matters.

Vaccine Study Reveals Influenza Vaccines Only Prevent The Flu In 1.5 Out Of 100 Adults

October 27, 2011

Natural News

By Mike Adams

A new scientific study published in The Lancet reveals that influenza vaccines only prevent influenza in 1.5 out of every 100 adults who are injected with the flu vaccine. Yet, predictably, this report is being touted by the quack science community, the vaccine-pushing CDC and the scientifically-inept mainstream media as proof that “flu vaccines are 60% effective!”

This absurd claim was repeated across the mainstream media over the past few days, with all sorts of sloppy reporting that didn’t even bother to read the study itself (as usual).

NaturalNews continues to earn a reputation for actually READING these “scientific” studies and then reporting what they really reveal, not what some vaccine-pushing CDC bureaucrat wants them to say. So we purchased the PDF file from The Lancet and read this study to get the real story.

The “60% effectiveness” claim is a total lie – here’s why
What we found is that the “60% effectiveness” claim is utterly absurd and highly misleading. For starters, most people think that “60% effectiveness” means that for every 100 people injected with the flu shot, 60 of them won’t get the flu!

Thus, the “60% effectiveness” claim implies that getting a flu shot has about a 6 in 10 chance of preventing you from getting the flu.

This is utterly false.

In reality — and this is spelled out right in Figure 2 of the study itself, which is entitled, “Efficacy and effectiveness of influenza vaccines: a systematic review and meta-analysis” — only about 2.7 in 100 adults get the flu in the first place!

Flu vaccine stops influenza in only 1.5 out of 100 adults who get the shots.  Let’s start with the actual numbers from the study.

The “control group” of adults consisted of 13,095 non-vaccinated adults who were monitored to see if they caught influenza. Over 97% of them did not. Only 357 of them caught influenza, which means only 2.7% of these adults caught the flu in the first place.

The “treatment group” consisted of adults who were vaccinated with a trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine. Out of this group, according to the study, only 1.2% did not catch the flu.

The difference between these two groups is 1.5 people out of 100.

So even if you believe this study, and even if you believe all the pro-vaccine hype behind it, the truly “scientific” conclusion from this is rather astonishing:

Flu vaccines only prevent the flu in 1.5 out of every 100 adults injected with the vaccine!

Note that this is very, very close to my own analysis of the effectiveness vaccines as I wrote back in September of 2010 in an article entitled, Evidence-based vaccinations: A scientific look at the missing science behind flu season vaccines.

In that article, I proclaimed that flu vaccines “don’t work on 99 out of 100 people.” Apparently, if you believe the new study, I was off by 0.5 people out of 100 (at least in adults, see below for more discussion of effectiveness on children).

So where does the media get “60% effective?”
This is called “massaging the numbers,” and it’s an old statistical trick that the vaccine industry (and the pharmaceutical industry) uses over and over again to trick people into thinking their useless drugs actually work.

First, you take the 2.73% in the control group who got the flu, and you divide that into the 1.18% in the treatment group who got the flu. This gives you 0.43.

You can then say that 0.43 is “43% of 2.73,” and claim that the vaccine therefore results in a “57% decrease” in influenza infections. This then becomes a “57% effectiveness rate” claim.

The overall “60% effectiveness” being claimed from this study comes from adding additional data about vaccine efficacy for children, which returned higher numbers than adults (see below). There were other problems with the data for children, however, including one study that showed an increase in influenza rates in the second year after the flu shot.

So when the media (or your doctor, or pharmacist, or CDC official) says these vaccines are “60% effective,” what they really mean is that you would have to inject 100 adults to avoid the flu in just 1.5 of them.

Or, put another way, flu vaccines do nothing in 98.5% of adults.

But you’ve probably already noticed that the mainstream media won’t dare print this statistical revelation. They would much rather mislead everybody into the utterly false and ridiculous belief that flu vaccines are “60% effective,” whatever that means.

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

The Butchering Of Gaddafi Is America’s Crime

October 27, 2011

Disinformation.Org

By Glen Ford

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared like ghoulish despots at a Roman Coliseum, reveling in their Libyan gladiators’ butchery.”

Last week the whole world saw, and every decent soul recoiled, at the true face of NATO’s answer to the Arab Spring. An elderly, helpless prisoner struggled to maintain his dignity in a screaming swirl of savages, one of whom thrusts a knife up his rectum. These are Europe and America’s jihadis in the flesh. In a few minutes of joyously recorded bestiality, the rabid pack undid every carefully packaged image of NATO’s “humanitarian” project in North Africa – a horror and revelation indelibly imprinted on the global consciousness by the brutes’ own cell phones.

Nearly eight months of incessant bombing by the air forces of nations that account for 70 percent of the world’s weapons spending, all culminating in the gang-bang slaughter of Moammar Gaddafi, his son Mutassim and his military chief of staff, outside Sirte. The NATO-armed bands then displayed the battered corpses for days in Misurata – the city that had earlier made good on its vow to “purge Black skin” through the massacre and dispersal of 30,000 darker residents of nearby Tawurgha – before disposing of the bodies in an unknown location.

The saner sections of America’s psychological operations machinery – including their collaborators in the corporate media – were doubtless as horrified as anyone at the Libyan jihadis’ insistence on revealing so graphically to the entire planet the barbaric character of the “revolution.” The months of gushing, ad nauseam press reports of near-universal jubilation in Tripoli and elsewhere at rebel “victories” – always under cover of NATO bombs – now made great sense. Who but those in search of instant martyrdom would voice displeasure at the NATO-jihadi triumph, with murderous fiends such as this roaming the streets?

“In a few minutes of joyously recorded bestiality, the rabid pack undid every carefully packaged image of NATO’s “humanitarian” project in North Africa.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office and Amnesty International found themselves compelled to ask for investigations into Gaddafi’s death – as if the immediate circumstances were not excruciatingly apparent to anyone with eyes and ears. Although the same U.S. domination of the UN that enabled NATO’s regime-change operation will ensure that the neocolonial powers escape legal liability for the results, the world still sees the executioners, correctly, as monsters in league with Washington, Paris, London and Riyadh. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who gave a snarling thumbs down to Gaddafi just days before his death, appeared like ghoulish despots at a Roman Coliseum, reveling in their Libyan gladiators’ butchery. Their hands and gums ooze blood – a lasting impression on decent world opinion.

The assault on Libya began as a desperate bid by the West and Persian Gulf royalty to bludgeon their way into the dangerous (for them) dynamic of the Arab Spring. The “rebels” (now, ludicrously, the “revolutionary” government) are their guys, just as the Afghan “mujahidin” were the foot soldiers of the Saudis and Washington from 1979 through the Eighties and (for the Saudis) beyond. Here lies the certainty of catastrophic “blowback.” As Trinity College political scientist Vijay Prashad points out, Tripoli may soon resemble 1996 Kabul, a place of mass carnage between rival warlords.

“The world still sees the executioners, correctly, as monsters in league with Washington, Paris, London and Riyadh.”

The Libyan jihadis are far more Saudi Arabia’s and Qatar’s brethren, than the West’s. The Arab Spring has both emboldened and frightened the wealthy Persian Gulf despots, who have their own agendas in the Arab world that are not necessarily consonant with the U.S. and Europe (the same applies in Pakistan and elsewhere in the region). All reactionaries are not alike. The oil-rich monarchs are fighting to preserve legitimacy in their own, Muslim milieu, not for Western-based corporate hegemony, and will cause at least as much problems for Washington as the accommodating Gaddafi they set out to depose at the beginning of the Arab Spring.

But that is secondary. As always, U.S. imperialists cannot resist the temptation to overreach. John Pilger writes, “With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.” It is by no means certain that Libya will remain “secure” or under American sway. And President Obama’s all-out offensive to the south – now centered in East and Central Africa, but soon to become generalized – takes place with the cell phone imagery of Gaddafi’s demise fresh in minds of tens of millions of Africans. Obama may believe the pictures send the message that resistance is futile, but it is likely to have the opposite effect. As Venezuelan President Caesar Chavez said, of the Americans, “The most lamentable thing is that in their determination to dominate the world…they are setting it alight.”

Click here for the full report from Disinformation.Org.

Ron Paul Surges To The Top Of The Rankings For The First Time In Iowa.

October 27, 2011

The Minnesota Independent

By Lynda Waddington

In the 15th edition of The Iowa Independent’s Power Rankings, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has fallen to the back of the GOP herd, according to the journalists, academics and political consultants surveyed.

A major disconnect is underway that makes it difficult to know exactly how the caucuses would play out if they were held tonight. That is, the candidates who are surging in polling are those who aren’t spending time in Iowa, a state that values its grassroots, retail politics.

So while the field itself became clearer with the final announcements by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin that they would not seek the nomination, the path out of the caucuses has become more muddy. Social conservatives are rumored to make up 60 percent of GOP caucus-goers in Iowa, and we’ve yet to see them coalesce around a single candidate. Republicans who focus more on fiscal issues also have yet to find a home within the current field.

The situation, according to our group of assembled panelists, has opened a door for individuals previously expected to do “just enough” in the Iowa caucuses due to assembled core support to grab the golden ring of victory.

Here’s how our panel, comprised of grassroots activists, state political reporters, consultants, academics and strategists, believe the caucuses would play out if they were held tonight:

Ron Paul — The Texas congressman surges to the top of our rankings for the first time, but not without caution.

“If the caucuses were held today, [Paul] would win because he’s the only candidate with an excited base and an excellent organization,” a panelist noted.

“However, the caucuses being held January 3 could hurt him because a lot of his young voters will still be on Christmas break.”

The panelists have given props to the Paul organization for some time, and there is no denying that the Texan has a core group of supporters that are incredibly loyal and excited. The question, at least for our panelists, has always been if there were enough supporters to compete against a candidate that drew large swaths of social conservatives (i.e., Huckabee in 2008).

But, in this 15th edition of our rankings, our panelists now see a social conservative base so fractured in the Hawkeye State as to allow Paul’s seemingly limited base — that is, a base that doesn’t appear to be drawing vast numbers of new supporters — to exit Iowa with a victory.

“Paul has been back in the state, and he is drawing good crowds. But, from what I’ve seen, these are the same people who have been showing up at Paul’s events for ages. There’s not much new blood here, which made a difference in 2008, but may not really matter in 2012.”

Paul was given an opportunity to shine in the last presidential debate in New Hampshire due to its focus on the economy. The format also, as one of the panelists noted, didn’t lend itself to Paul’s past problems where his differences with others in the field were a focus.

“He’s also started airing TV ads. The two I’ve seen focus mostly on core Republican issues as one is pro-life and the other concerns national security. These should help him with the Republican base and he might pick up some supporters who are ambivalent about the other candidates. Then again, I don’t think he’ll pick up many. Those who don’t want to go with Romney will be looking mostly at other choices. Like Romney, Paul has been through this before and is a known quantity for most likely caucusgoers. As such, it’s unlikely that we would see any surge for him.”
Mitt Romney — Speaking of the former Massachusetts governor, he and Paul are separated in this edition by less than two percent. Our panelists believe that Romney’s long-standing core support in Iowa, combined with the inability thus far of the “anti-Romney contingent” to find a suitable home with a specific candidate would allow him to exit Iowa in very good shape if the caucuses were held tonight.

“The biggest problem Romney has had in Iowa is the group of social conservatives that find him uniquely undesirable,” wrote a panelist. “Whether that is because of his religion or for other reasons, it doesn’t really matter because these are individuals who won’t simply not support him, but individuals who will actively pursue a strategy to prevent him from exiting Iowa with a victory. In the past that has meant some supporting a candidate they otherwise would not, just because they see an opportunity to elevate someone ahead of Romney.

“I think we saw that in 2008 with the Arkansas governor. Yes, Huckabee had good support, but there were some who viewed his candidacy as the anti-Romney campaign, even when they knew Huckabee was not likely to go the distance.”

And that last point of electability might be the one place where Romney bests Paul and other members of the GOP field.

“His support has been steady. He has had good debate performances and is generally well versed on the issues. He isn’t great at retail politics, but isn’t horrible either. People know his weaknesses and may be willing to look past them if they believe he has the best chance to beat Obama, which is the key factor for most Republicans. To the extent that the ‘not Romney’ candidates continue to split the support of both social conservatives and tea partiers, Romney could be the caucus winner.”

Another panelists put it even more bluntly, “Regardless of how hard Romney is working Iowa, he still looks like the candidate most likely to defeat the President due to his message discipline.”
Herman Cain — The Atlanta businessman is seeing a national surge, which didn’t go unnoticed by our panelists. But it is also difficult to see a path to a Cain victory in Iowa due to lack of organization.

“Each of the candidates have come to Iowa, stood up and presented themselves as ‘not Romney,’ but that can only take you so far — as they’ve all hopefully realized by now. Cain was one of many and found to be lacking shortly after coming on the scene. Iowans are willing to take another look, but there had better be some substance there this time around or it will be a very short look.”

Cain has another big problem in the Hawkeye State: visibility. He hasn’t returned to Iowa since the Straw Poll, which makes is rather difficult for grassroots activists to kick the tires. He does, however, plan to return to the state this weekend and those stops will likely provide a clearer picture of his caucus hopes.

“I do love to hear Cain speak. I like his passion and the energy he leaves behind in the room. But if he isn’t going to be in Iowa building that energy, building an organization that will push people to their caucus site, he isn’t going to do well in Iowa. He has got to be on the ground, and he’s got to be serious. We’ve already got the ‘teleprompter president’ and Iowans don’t want another person who can speak well but accomplish nothing. He’s got to show us more than a good speech.”

Another panelists agrees. “Cain could argue that he’s managed to increase his popularity in Iowa despite not having been here in over two months. That’s true, but there’s a big difference between telling a pollster that you like Cain and whether you would go out to caucus for him on a January evening. Like Bachmann and Perry before him, Cain is — and I hate to use this phrase, but I suppose it fits — the flavor of the month. In other words, the candidate that many are looking to at the moment to fill the not-Romney slot. … Right now, there are probably enough supporters who would turn out for Cain that he would finish in the top five, but I think he has a lot of work to do to seal the deal, and it doesn’t seem that he’s planning on doing it.”
Rick Perry — The honeymoon has officially come to an end for the Texas governor.

There is one aspect of Perry’s candidacy in which our panelists all agree: horrible, horrible, horrible debate performances. While national debates typically aren’t enough to toss someone out of the running, especially in retail-heavy Iowa, they do make an impression.

“Perry remains on a downward slide, with no end in sight until he finds a game-changer.”

Perry has been back in Iowa and has emphasized his successes in meeting one-on-one. He has reached out to Iowa supporters and potential supporters in the wake of his dismal debate performances. But it might be too little, too late.

“There was a rocky start for Perry in Iowa to begin with because of the way his announcement seemed to step on the Ames Straw Poll. It was good that he came into the state right after that announcement and began retail politics here — something he seems to be pretty good at doing. But no matter how much I like him as a person, no matter how much I think he might be a good leader, all I have to do is imagine him on a national stage with Obama and I cringe. We can’t afford another four years of Obama, and the general election isn’t a retail contest.”
Rick Santorum — After many months of beating the Iowa bushes, it appears that the former senator from Pennsylvania is finally beginning to gain traction in Iowa.

“Santorum continues to put in the most effort in Iowa. He raised less than a million dollars for the third quarter, but he is keeping his spending low. Santorum may very well be the ‘under-the-radar’ candidate of this caucus season. Because of his lack of finances he’s been relying on grassroots campaigning. Moreover, he’s bee going to many of the smaller counties that other candidates have not. At last count Santorum has been to nearly 70 of Iowa’s 99 counties. That effort may not be showing up in the polls, but it might do well for him on caucus night.”

“We know that some Iowans have been sampling the candidates and hopping around quite frequently. First they were with Huckabee, then moved to Bachmann and then to Perry. As each of those campaigns have fallen off — at least Huckabee was by his own design — those tepid supporters are looking for a home. Some have gravitated to Cain, but others are moving toward Santorum. All Santorum needs to do is keep them, and not make any big mistakes. His base will grow.”

It’s difficult for our panelists to predict if a compressed caucus season helps or hinders Santorum, who is mostly considered a “slow burn” candidate. Obviously, he doesn’t have the support to win the caucuses if they were held tonight, but the vast majority of our panelists view him as someone who’s going to stick around and gather up the stragglers left behind when when the aforementioned ‘flavor of the month’ isn’t quite as tasty.

“Each day that Bachmann fails to go on offense, and Perry continues to implode, increases the chances he will be the surprise of these caucuses.”

For the first time in weeks, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann failed to garner enough support to be listed in our top five. She came in sixth for this edition, only a hair behind Santorum.

Bachmann appears to also be suffering from the syndrome of electability and, interestingly enough, her messaging in Iowa for caucus-goers not to “settle” seems to be somewhat backfiring.

“When [Bachmann] told us to support our values, I understood what she was saying. She wants us to support what we believe in our hearts, to vote and caucus based on our principles. But we already tried that with Huckabee and that got us McCain and we lost the White House. So if the choice is between supporting someone who is 100 percent in alignment with my values or someone who is 70 percent there, but the lesser candidate has a better chance of winning the White House, why wouldn’t I support that other candidate? When everything is said and done, I have to think that 70 percent is better than nothing.”

The panelists agree that Bachmann has a good ground organization in Iowa, but also that she has faltered in overall messaging and by making some big mistakes on the national stage. Retail politics has long been a hit-and-miss game for the Bachmann campaign in Iowa, with the team doing excellent at one event and being plagued by missteps at another. If there was a time for her to rise up, meet the challenge that she’s been presented, this is it.

“I don’t care about flowery speeches. I don’t care about what color her clothes are or if her make-up is perfect. I care about her passion, and I’ve not been seeing it lately. She was hit hard when Perry entered the race, but she has an opportunity to not only win those supporters back, but to show that titanium spine. But if she doesn’t really put herself out there over the next month, this campaign is a loss.”

Click here for the full report.

Occupy Oakland: Iraq Vet Critically Injured By Police Projectile

October 27, 2011

Mercury News

By Scott Johnson, Matt Krupnick and Thomas Peele

A 24-year old former Marine Corps corporal and Iraqi war veteran remained in critical condition at Highland Hospital on Wednesday night after friends said he was hit in the head with a police projectile in Tuesday’s Occupy Oakland confrontation.

Scott Thomas Olsen, 24, of Onalaska, Wis., was admitted to Highland after he was hit on the head above his right eye during clashes with police, said hospital spokesman Curt Olsen, who is not related to the veteran.

Scott Olsen appears to be the first serious injury nationwide of the Occupy Wall Street movement that has spread to virtually every major American city — and several smaller ones — as millions of people continue to express their anger and disappointment with the country’s banking, regulatory and health care systems.

“It’s absolutely unconscionable that our citizens are going overseas to protect other citizens just to come back and have our own police hurt them,” said Joshua Shepherd, a six-year Navy veteran and friend of Olsen’s, who attended a vigil late Wednesday afternoon for the injured man.

Fellow protesters brought him in after he failed to respond to basic questions. Doctors at the hospital said that Olsen had brain swelling and placed him under immediate supervision.

“He survived two tours in Iraq,” said Adele Carpenter, a friend of Olsen’s and a member of the Civilian Soldier Alliance. “This struggle has high stakes; I really respect the fact that Scott was standing up for what he believes in. He’s really passionate about social justice causes.”

Acting Chief Howard Jordan said the incident is under investigation by Internal Affairs, the Office of Investigator General, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and the federal monitor that oversees Oakland police as a part of the settlement of a police corruption lawsuit. Oakland police will also review training, policies and procedures.

Jordan called the incident “unfortunate,” adding that he wished it did not happen.

“The goal is not to cause injury,” he said.

He said Oakland police used bean bags and gas but do not use rubber bullets or wooden dowels. It is possible that other agencies did, he said. More than a dozen agencies from across Northern California assisted Oakland police under what is called a mutual aid agreement. They are, however, required to comply with Oakland policies.

The Oakland Police Department has requested use-of-force reports from the outside agencies.

Olsen, a systems analyst at a San Francisco IT firm called OPSWAT, had camped out for several nights at San Francisco’s occupation before moving to Oakland a few days ago.

Olsen was one of several hundred protesters who swarmed through Oakland’s downtown well into the morning hours on Wednesday, repeatedly clashing with riot police. In some cases, protesters threw bottles and tipped over garbage containers. Oakland police said two of its officers were injured when a protester doused them with cans of blue and pink paint.

Protesters lambasted the police response as “heavy handed” and criticized the use of projectiles such as the one that struck Olsen.

“He was shot by the people who were supposed to protect him,” said Keith Shannon, 24, Olsen’s Daly City roommate and former Marine Corps colleague. “It shows what lengths the government will go to to suppress opposing points of view.”

Olsen served two tours of duty in Iraq, once to the Iraqi-Syrian border city of Al Qaim from August 2006 to May 2007, and once to Haditha, in 2008. Both cities were hotbeds of al-Qaida and insurgent activity.

In 2010, the Marines issued Olsen an “administrative discharge.” Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marines spokesman based in Quantico, Va., declined to discuss Olsen’s discharge, but said his departure could have been for anything from a medical condition to a punitive measure.

Another young man, a 30-year-old Irish national named Seamus, lay writhing on the ground sobbing Wednesday afternoon clutching a grapefruit-sized bruise above his left hip. He said he and Olsen had been together when Olsen was shot. Seamus said his bruise was the result of a police projectile. Other protesters gathered around Seamus and showed off small rubber buckshot pellets they said police had fired at them.

Olsen’s parents planned to fly to Oakland on Thursday to see their son. Highland Hospital administrators said Olsen remained in critical condition, with no change in his status since his admission Tuesday night. But friends and acquaintances said hospital officials told them Olsen had suffered a skull fracture and was at risk of brain damage.

Click here for the full report and video from Mercury News.

Federal government Wants To Jab Healthy Children With Untested Anthrax Vaccine Just To See If It Works

October 27, 2011

Natural News

By Ethan A. Huff

There is currently no known threat of a bioterrorism attack, let alone any sort of tangible threat of widespread anthrax poisoning. And yet a group of advisers to the federal government’s National Biodefense Science Board (NBSB) are now suggesting that healthy children be injected with an untested anthrax vaccine just to see if it offers any sort of protection from anthrax poisoning.

This outlandish proposal marks a new low in the federal government’s public display of respect for human life, and is one that many are decrying as completely unethical and just plain dangerous. And yet the Obama administration’s NBSB is very seriously considering approving it, and will vote on it this upcoming Friday.

Daniel B. Fagbuyiof from the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, recently tried to defend the proposal to the Washington Post (WP) by generating fear about a potential future biological attack. He alleges that if children do not get the vaccine now for research purposes, they will end up getting an untested version of it later.

But not everyone is buying into the fear-mongering, including Joel Frader, a pediatrician and bioethicist from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He and others suggest that any proposal to use healthy children as vaccine guinea pigs is absurd, and that “it would be difficult to justify testing [the vaccine] on kids simply on the hypothetical possibility that there might be an attack.”

The other issue is that the same vaccine, which has already been tested on adults and administered to military servicemen, leaves much to be desired in the effectiveness department. It is also linked to causing serious health conditions such as hearing loss, neurological problems, and Guillain-Barre syndrome.

“Unlike measles, mumps and other diseases, the chance that children will be exposed to anthrax is theoretical, making the risk-benefit calculus of testing a vaccine on them much more questionable,” wrote Rob Stein from WP concerning the vaccine.

“[T]here are serious questions about the vaccine’s effectiveness in adults as well as concerns about sometimes serious complications among those vaccinated in the military. A variety of complications have been reported, including nervous system and autoimmune disorders.”

Click here for the full report from Natural News.

Police Fire Tear Gas at Protesters in Oakland, California

October 27, 2011

Truthour

By Malia Wollan and J. David Goodman

Riot police in Oakland dispersed hundreds of protesters with tear gas on Tuesday night as crowds tried to re-enter a plaza outside of City Hall that the authorities had cleared of an encampment earlier in the day.

The forceful response by the police to protesters in Oakland came as the police in Atlanta moved in early Wednesday morning to clear an encampment from the city’s central Woodruff Park. At least 53 people connected to the protest group Occupy Atlanta were arrested, and the park was cleared by 2 a.m. Eastern time, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

By Wednesday morning in downtown Oakland, a dim cloud of gas still hung in the air over Frank Ogawa Plaza, according to images broadcast on CNN. A small number of police in riot gear stood by barricades around the plaza and a handful of protesters held signs nearby.

“It sounded like bombs,” said Joaquin Jutt, 24, a digital animator who was among the protesters on Tuesday night. “There was a stinging and burning in my throat, eyes and nostrils. My eyes burned like there was hot sauce in them.”

Protesters, many affiliated with the group Occupy Oakland, can be seen scurrying away from billowing clouds of gas and what appear to be flash grenades in video recorded from a high vantage point in a nearby office building.

The clashes on Tuesday night occurred after the police removed about 170 demonstrators who had been staying in the area after being warned that such a camp was illegal and that they faced arrest if they remained, the police said in a statement. City officials said 97 people were arrested in the morning raid.

In the video below, included in a report by the Oakland Tribune, the police can be seen dismantling the camp and making arrests early Tuesday morning, using small amounts of tear gas.

The first scuffle broke out later in the day after hundreds marched back to City Hall in an effort to re-establish a presence in the area of the dispersed camp. The police put the number of protesters at more than 1,000, in a statement released Tuesday night.

The A.P. posted edited video of the scene from the evening until after dusk as the police moved in and crowds thinned.

The crowds dispersed after the first round of tear gas but soon returned in similar numbers, according to protesters on the scene.

At around 9:30 p.m., there was a tense faceoff between protesters and police officers on Broadway at 14th Street. About 100 officers, some appearing to be sheriff’s deputies, stood behind a metal barricade in full riot gear and wearing gas masks, while on the other side people pressed against the barricade, waving peace signs and chanting slogans. A few protesters hurled objects — what looked like water bottles — at the police, while over a loud speaker, officers instructed people to disperse or risk “chemical agents.”

Click here for the full report.

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