Decision to wipe clean the conviction of air force commander will be reviewed by the Pentagon, US defense secretary says

A victim of military sexual assault whose attacker's conviction was wiped clean by his US air force commander has said she is "shocked and scared" by the decision, in her first detailed comments since the decision.

The woman, a physician's assistant, was sexually assaulted by Lt Colonel James Wilkerson, 44, the 31st Fighter Wing inspector general, as she lay sleeping, a military jury concluded in November.

But last month Lt General Craig Franklin, commander of the Third Air Force based at Ramstein in Germany, exercised his discretion under the Uniform Code on Military Justice and concluded that the entire body of evidence was insufficient to meet the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. As the "convening authority", Franklin, who did not interview the victim, was not required to provide further explanation for his ruling and his disposition is final.

The decision to dismiss charges against a fighter pilot described by officials as an "air-force superstar" has come under mounting criticism from lobby groups and lawmakers.

With an influx in federal cash from Department of Homeland Security grants, local police departments nationwide have been outfitting their officers with armored vehicles, surveillance drones, and sophisticated weaponry.

The over $34 billion in grants has given rise to a growing concern that some police officers are looking less like civil servants, and more like soldiers on the front lines in Afghanistan.

"We do know that in 2011, a half-billion dollars of surplus military equipment went to police departments," John Chasnoff, spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union, told CBS St. Louis. "We have concerns that the lines between the two [police and military] is starting to blur."

The Paper of Record's history is longstanding and unprincipled. It supports corporate and imperial interests. It deplores populist ones. It features managed news misinformation. It betrays its readers doing so.

When America goes to war or plans one, it marches in lockstep. It's comfortable with neoliberal harshness. It abhors progressive politics. It supports wrong over right.

It suppresses "All the News That's Fit to Print." It ignores America's march to tyranny. It endorses policies demanding condemnation. It's typical Times.

It vilified Chavez throughout his tenure. It did so unfairly. It shamed itself doing so. It matters what it says. It's America's leading voice. It prioritizes propaganda. It has global clout. It lies for power.

After Chavez's December 1998 election, Times Latin American correspondent, Larry Roher, called him a "populist demagogue, an authoritarian....caudillo (strongman)." He lied saying so.

Hugo Chávez

I once wrote about Chilean president Salvador Allende:

Washington knows no heresy in the Third World but genuine independence. In the case of Salvador Allende independence came clothed in an especially provocative costume - a Marxist constitutionally elected who continued to honor the constitution. This would not do. It shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower is built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that "communists" can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population. There could be only one thing worse than a Marxist in power - an elected Marxist in power.

There was no one in the entire universe that those who own and run "United States, Inc." wanted to see dead more than Hugo Chávez. He was worse than Allende. Worse than Fidel Castro. Worse than any world leader not in the American camp because he spoke out in the most forceful terms about US imperialism and its cruelty. Repeatedly. Constantly. Saying things that heads of state are not supposed to say. At the United Nations, on a shockingly personal level about George W. Bush. All over Latin America, as he organized the region into anti-US-Empire blocs.

TSA I bet this won't surprise you.

The United States is the most hated country in the world, followed closely by Israel, and then by nobody. Why? Why not Ecuador? China? Russia? East Timor? The hostility puzzles many Americans, who genuinely believe their country to be a force for good, a pillar of democracy, a defender of human rights.

To the rest of the world, none of this is even close.

If you have lived abroad, as so very few Americans have, the explanation for the hatred is obvious: Meddling. Relentless, prideful, uncomprehending meddling, frequently military, often with horrendous death tolls. Americans, adroitly managed by a controlled press, historically illiterate, incurious, decreasingly educated, either have never heard of the American behavior that angers others, or believe it to have been inspired by virtuous motives. Nobody else thinks so. Add to unfamiliarity with the wider world the constantly inculcated assertion that America is the greatest, most wonderful nation ever to exist, a light to the world, a shining city on a hill, and you get a dangerously delusional state. Especially now. In the past, American economic and military supremacy were such that the US didn't have to care what others thought. The times, they are a-changing.

It might be wise to compare briefly the view through American and foreign eyes. Consider Iraq. To most of the world, the war on Iraq was brutal, unprovoked, and murderous. More than a few, looking at the ruins of Fallujah, thought of Guernica - of which few in the States have ever heard.

Many Americans do not believe that we destroyed Iraq for oil, empire, and the Israel lobby, as was in fact the case. No. We wanted to topple an evil dictator and dispense the precious gift of democracy. It was a question of goodness. Many apparently still believe that Iraq had something to do with the attacks on New York. Again, controlled press, poor schooling, little curiosity.

A court handed former Paris mayor Jean Tiberi a suspended 10-month prison sentence Tuesday for vote rigging and declared him ineligible to contest for public office for three years.

The appeals court also gave his wife Xaviere a nine-month suspended sentence and a 5,000-euro ($6,533) fine for her part in a scandal which dates back to local and national elections in 1995 and 1997.

The Tennessee state Senate on Monday considered a bill that would allow counselors to discriminate against LGBT students, sexually-active students or anyone else based on religious objections.

Republican state Sen. Joey Hensley encouraged fellow senators to pass SB 514 to "prevent an institution of high education from discriminating against a student in the counseling, social worker, psychology programs because of their religious beliefs."

According the The Tennessean, the bill was inspired by Julea Ward, a Christian student who was expelled from Eastern Michigan after she refused to "engage in gay-affirming counseling" by helping an LGBT student who wanted to be treated for depression in 2009. Arizona has already passed a law based on the case. Similar bills have also been proposed by lawmakers in Michigan and Georgia.

Hensley's bill would protect any student who "refuses to counsel or serve a client as to goals, outcomes, or behaviors that conflict with a sincerely held religious belief."

Ben Zygier, a dual Israeli and Australian citizen and Jewish Australian father of 2, was secretly imprisoned for 11 months in solitary confinement by the Israelis in 2010 until he was either killed by the Israelis or, as alleged by the Israelis, committed suicide in a suicide-proof cell. Solitary confinement for more than several weeks is regarded by experts as torture. Whether Australian citizen and father of 2 Ben Zygier was murdered by the Israelis or committed suicide in a suicide-proof cell, it is clear that he was secretly tortured to death by the Israelis over 11 months while the pro-Zionist Australian Labor Government did nothing.

Australians want to know what happened to their fellow Australian, but the response from the Australian Jewish community, public servants and politicians has been substantial and appalling silence. The Israelis imposed a news blackout on the matter for over 3 years but this scandal was eventually exposed in 2013 by the ABC (Australia's equivalent of the BBC) and Fairfax media (the most liberal of Australia's mainstream media).

Ben Zygier was secretly arrested by the Israelis immediately after the Dubai police revealed in February 2010 that the Israelis had murdered a Palestinian Hamas official in a terrorist operation involving 20 Israeli terrorists using forged Australian, British, Irish, French and German passports. The Dubai atrocity resulted in both the British and Australian governments expelling an Israeli diplomat (spy?), albeit with craven apologies to the Israelis, both governments declaring that the passport forgeries were very disappointing actions from such a good friend. The Israelis had forged Australian passports before, were told to desist by the slavishly pro-Zionist Howard Government (1996-2007), but evidently just kept on doing it and no doubt are still doing it (an appropriate anagram for ISRAEL is e-LIARS). .

George Bush sold the war as quick and cheap; it was long and costly. Even now, the US is paying billions to private contractors

When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration estimated that it would cost $50-60bn to overthrow Saddam Hussein and establish a functioning government. This estimate was catastrophically wrong: the war in Iraq has cost $823.2bn between 2003 and 2011. Some estimates suggesting that it may eventually cost as much as $3.7tn when factoring in the long-term costs of caring for the wounded and the families of those killed.

The most striking fact about the cost of the war in Iraq has been the extent to which it has been kept "off the books" of the government's ledgers and hidden from the American people. This was done by design. A fundamental assumption of the Bush administration's approach to the war was that it was only politically sustainable if it was portrayed as near-costless to the American public and to key constituencies in Washington. The dirty little secret of the Iraq war - one that both Bush and the war hawks in the Democratic party knew, but would never admit - was that the American people would only support a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein if they could be assured that they would pay almost nothing for it.

The most obvious way in which the true cost of this war was kept hidden was with the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the occupation. By one estimate, 70% of the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008 were funded with supplemental or emergency appropriations approved outside the Pentagon's annual budget. These appropriations allowed the Bush administration to shield the Pentagon's budget from the cuts otherwise needed to finance the war, to keep the Pentagon's pet programs intact and to escape the scrutiny that Congress gives to its normal annual regular appropriations.

The attorney for a woman who was mistakenly targeted by Los Angeles police during the manhunt for Christopher Dorner in February has accused the department of breaking its promise of a new truck for her.

"You tried to murder the woman, you put 102 bullet holes in her truck," Glen Jonas told KNBC-TV on Monday. "Now you're telling her she can't have a 4-wheel drive."

Jonas his client, 47-year-old Maggie Carranza, refused a police offer of a new Ford F-150 truck if she agreed to pay taxes on it, in part because it meant Carranza would have to pay an additional $10,000 in personal income taxes she cannot afford. He said the department's offer also barred Carranza from selling the vehicle for a year.

According to KCBS-TV the truck was offered as a donation by former police commissioner Bert Boeckmann, who currently owns a car dealership. Boeckmann also asked Carranza to take a picture with him, another item Jonas said he told current police chief Charlie Beck was a deal-breaker.