© Azhar Rahim/EPA
Or maybe it's the case of the extra legs?
The photos circulated Tuesday of the two Iranians who got on the missing Malaysia Airlines flight showed two men with different bags, different T-shirts and the same pair of legs.
The New Straits Times reports that Malaysian police said there was no purposeful doctoring of the photographs -- the photo of one man was simply placed on top of the photo of the other when they were photocopied.
"It was not done with malice or to mislead," police spokeswoman Asmawati Ahmad said.
© AP/Luis Alvarez
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas) declared the U.S. Constitution to be 400 years old Wednesday on the House floor, which would mean it was signed in 1614.
"Maybe I should offer a good thanks to the distinguished members of the majority, the Republicans, my chairman and others, for giving us an opportunity to have a deliberative constitutional discussion that reinforces the sanctity of this nation and how well it is that we have lasted some 400 years, operating under a constitution that clearly defines what is constitutional and what is not," she said.
Dan Roberts, Ian Traynor and Alec Luhn
The GuardianThu, 20 Mar 2014 09:39 UTC
© Unknown
- US suggests order might not be the end of measures
- EU leaders add 12 unnamed Russians to blacklist
President Obama has extended financial sanctions against Russia to include wealthy supporters of Vladimir Putin and a bank close to the Kremlin, in a bid to deter Russian military incursions into eastern and southern Ukraine.
Amid growing pressure for a tougher US response to the crisis, the White House also issued a new executive order authorising a co-ordinated economic blockade with the European Union against key Russian industries if the situation escalates.
EU leaders agreed to add 12 unnamed Russians to a blacklist of 21 individuals and ordered the European commission to examine the impact of broader trade and economic warfare action against Russia and also said they would implement a trade agreement with Kiev.
© Chip Somodevilla/AFP/Getty Images
For years, a small group of Senate staffers made regular commutes to a Virginia office used by the CIA, took the elevators down to the basement and tapped the keypad combination to an unmarked door.
Inside, a collection of eight or so computers were loaded with millions of CIA cables, memos and other records that documented what many regard as one of the darker chapters of the agency's history - its use of harsh interrogation measures to get terrorism suspects to talk.
The bulk of the research was completed more than a year ago, yielding a report by the Senate Intelligence Committee that amounts to a damning chronicle of that CIA program. But the struggle to shape whether and how that history is presented to the public has triggered a fight between the CIA and the committee over what happened behind that locked door.
The dispute, which spilled into public view this week, centers on whether the committee broke laws in obtaining a set of documents the agency never intended to share, or whether the CIA broke laws in its searches of committee computers to see how those files ended up in the panel's possession.
Joe Quinn
Sott.netFri, 21 Mar 2014 08:51 UTC
The USA’s unelected man in Ukraine signs a deal with the EU
I don't understand the Ukrainian 'revolution'.
Before the Ukrainian protests kicked off last October, a general election was scheduled for 2015. As the protests grew and intensified, the
elected Ukrainian president, Victor Yanukovych, agreed to bring elections forward to this year and to implement a host of measures, including reverting to the 2004 constitution, which drastically reduced Presidential power.
On paper, these changes met the vast majority of protestors' demands, and promised a new government this year, via elections. Yet just as this agreement was being signed, the violence in Kiev flared and 100 people, including policemen, were shot dead...
by someone.
RTThu, 20 Mar 2014 12:17 UTC
© RT
The recent on-air resignation by former RT news anchor Liz Wahl was just the latest stunt orchestrated by a neo-conservative think tank, according to a new investigative report shedding light on the group's role in an ongoing Cold War revival campaign.
An extensive
account of the days and minutes leading up to Wahl's remarks and public denunciation of "propaganda" tactics during her news segment on March 5 by authors Max Blumenthal and Rania Khalek via truthdig has revealed connections with the little known neoconservative think-tank Foreign Policy Initiative.
FPI was founded in 2009 by a group of high-profile neo-conservative figures, including Robert Kagan and William Kristol, founder of the
Weekly Standard, who themselves were cofounders of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) -- an organization that played a key role in advocating for the US invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks by Al-Qaeda.
According to the authors, as well as evidence readily available online via the group's Twitter feed, FPI was privy to what would take place at RT on-air that day.
Comment: Protocol 12 - Control of the Press:
"9. In the front rank will stand organs of an official character. They will always stand guard over our interests, and therefore their influence will be comparatively insignificant.
10. In the second rank will be the semi-official organs, whose part it will be to attack the tepid and indifferent.
11. In the third rank we shall set up our own, to all appearance, opposition, which, in at least one of its organs, will present what looks like the very antipodes to us. Our real opponents at heart will accept this simulated opposition as their own and will show us their cards.
12. All our newspapers will be of all possible complexions -- aristocratic, republican, revolutionary, even anarchical - for so long, of course, as the constitution exists .... Like the Indian idol "Vishnu" they will have a hundred hands, and every one of them will have a finger on any one of the public opinions as required. When a pulse quickens these hands will lead opinion in the direction of our aims, for an excited patient loses all power of judgment and easily yields to suggestion. Those fools who will think they are repeating the opinion of a newspaper of their own camp will be repeating our opinion or any opinion that seems desirable for us. In the vain belief that they are following the organ of their party they will, in fact, follow the flag which we hang out for them."
The Protocols of the Pathocrats
Kerry Picket
BreitbartWed, 12 Mar 2014 21:46 UTC
© AP
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa
House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa said he is incensed about allegations the CIA spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee, calling it "treason."
"I think Senator Feinstein is as outraged as anyone and I share her outrage. I think the violation of the Constitutional separation of powers should be an offense of the highest level - virtually treason," Issa told Breitbart News on Tuesday.
"Spying on the executive branch - spying on Congress or violating the separation of powers as to the Supreme Court or as to Congress is effectively treason. Treason - it's written up in the Constitution," Issa said of Feinstein's revelations, adding, "I don't know who gave the orders, but to spy on other branches is in fact a constitutional violation at the level of high crimes and misdemeanors and certainly should cause the removal of anyone involved."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, Tuesday accused the spy agency of secretly examining her committee's computers and taking documents relating to the CIA's interrogation methods on terror suspects who were held overseas after the 9/11 attacks.
© Getty Images
U.S. Navy officials have issued an apology for their response to a News4 reporter's request for materials related to the September 2013
Navy Yard shooting rampage.
In an email to News4's I-Team reporter Scott MacFarlane, Navy administrator Steve Muck asked MacFarlane to "accept [his] apologies" for an internal memo sent to MacFarlane by a Navy Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) officer.
In the memo, a Navy FOIA officer details a strategy to reject and stymie MacFarlane's requests for emails, photos and memoranda related to the Navy Yard shooting, in which 12 people died.
Another Navy official acknowledges the memo was sent to MacFarlane by mistake.
The Associated Press
revealed Monday that the U.S. government is considering a drone strike to kill an American citizen with alleged terrorist ties.
Several anonymous officials made the case for killing the American without due process and despite restrictions
called for last year to carry out drone strikes through the Pentagon, rather than the CIA. The American, the officials claimed, is a member of al Qaeda actively plotting to kill U.S. citizens who is currently in a remote location and has been involved in previous terrorist attacks - - all arguments that bolster the case that a strike should be authorized against an imminent threat.
© GAIL DAMAN
Like the annual return of pinkletinks and crocuses, inns and hotels around the Island are getting familiar calls this week from White House officials planning a vacation on Martha's Vineyard for President Obama and his family.
Three reliable sources, who asked not to be named because they are not authorized to release information, told
The Times that Mr. Obama will return to the Island in August. Two sources said the vacation is scheduled on or about August 9, a week earlier than the first family visited in previous years.
The president brings a large entourage of Secret Service agents, White House staffers, and support personnel, and the White House began arranging for lodging this week, according to the sources.
Comment: Was it Photoshopped?