Washington (CNN) — A convicted American terrorist plotter and his mother lost another legal round Wednesday in their efforts to hold accountable a former Bush administration official who issued legal memos supporting harsh interrogation techniques for suspected enemy combatants.

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit from Jose Padilla and his mother, Estela Lebron, who claimed the man’s constitutional rights were violated when he was held for years in solitary confinement at a military prison in South Carolina.

The issue was whether John Yoo, who worked in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, deserved “qualified immunity” as a government official from such suits. A federal judge earlier had said the litigation could proceed.

But a three-judge appeals panel disagreed.

“Under recent Supreme Court law, however, we are compelled to conclude that, regardless of the legality of Padilla’s detention and the wisdom of Yoo’s judgments, at the time he acted the law was not sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he was doing violated the plaintiffs’ rights,” the court said.

Padilla was originally arrested a decade ago on accusations he planned to set off radioactive “dirty bombs” in the United States.

The Chicago native had been held for 3 1/2 years as an “enemy combatant” in military confinement, without being charged in that alleged plot. It was that detention that prompted Padilla in 2008 to file a civil lawsuit, alleging the administration’s “unlawful” policies violated his constitutional rights as a U.S. citizen. He said he suffered severe physical and mental abuse during his years of isolation in military detention, and wanted to hold individual officials such as Yoo accountable.

The Supreme Court in 2004 had heard Padilla’s original appeal over his enemy combatant status, claiming he deserved a chance to contest his military detention on constitutional grounds.

read more at: http://www.cnn.com

LONDON — Giant US military-industrial company Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is in the running to win a slice of a controversial £1.5 billion (US$2.43 billion) contract to transform the West Midlands and Surrey police forces in Britain, The (London) Times reported.

Hailed as the largest police privatization scheme in the UK, it has been suggested the private companies who win the contract will be tasked to perform several police functions — including patrols, detention and criminal investigation.

KBR, a former subsidiary of the Halliburton group, has attracted its share of criticism over the large contracts it won with the US government during the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The corporation also helped to build the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

The Times reported that it was among four groups shortlisted to win the British police contract, a number whittled down from more than 200.

read more at: http://www.myfoxdfw.com

In an explosive memoir released today, former CIA counterterrorism chief Jose Rodriguez provides new evidence that Rep. Nancy Pelosi lied when she declared she had not been briefed about the use of waterboarding.

Recall that in a Capitol Hill news conference three years ago, Pelosi (D-Calif.) vehemently denied being told about the use of waterboarding at a CIA briefing in September 2002. “We were not — I repeat — were not told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used,” Pelosi said. She later changed her story, telling reporters, “We were told explicitly that waterboarding was not being used.” She claimed she learned about the use of waterboarding the following year, only after other lawmakers were told by the CIA. “I wasn’t briefed, I was informed that somebody else had been briefed about it,” she said.

read more at: http://www.washingtonpost.com

Did Monsanto actually plant genetically modified alfalfa before it was deregulated by the USDA? There is some shocking evidence that, until recently, was withheld from the public showing that Monsanto’s genetically altered alfalfa may have been set free in 2003 — a full two years or more before it was deregulated in 2005. In a letter, obtained by NaturalSociety with permission to post for public viewing, it becomes clear that the USDA may have turned a blind eye to the entire situation, allowing widespread GMO contamination of GMO-free crops.

Amazingly, the letter actually proves that the USDA was fully aware of the situation. In order to fully understand the intricate details of this event, it is first important to understand a few key factors regarding alfalfa and its connection to the entire food supply.

Alfalfa is a perennial plant that grows for more than 2 years and may not need to be replanted each year like annuals.  Because it is a perennial plant, it is exceptionally vulnerable to contamination. Interestingly, the modified alfalfa — created by Monsanto in partner with a group known as Forage Genetics — was the first perennial plant to be deregulated for open planting by the USDA. But did Monsanto unleash the plant before this occurred?

read more at: http://www.blacklistednews.com

Daniel Chong, a 24-year old student at UC San Diego, was taken into custody during a drug raid and abandoned in a holding cell for five days without food or water, according to NBC San Diego.

“They never came back, ignored all my cries and I still don’t know what happened,” he said. “I’m not sure how they could forget me.”

On April 21, Drug Enforcement Agents raided an apartment where Chong and his friends were smoking marijuana. Nine people were arrested and the agents reportedly seized ecstasy pills, marijuana, prescription medication, psychedelic mushrooms and weapons, according to CBS 8 News. Seven of those arrested were taken to jail and one was released.

read more at: http://www.rawstory.com

When it comes to Barack Obama, one of the most important things to understand is that he is a committed globalist.  He firmly believes that more “global governance” (the elite don’t like to use the term “global government”) will make the world a much better place.  Throughout his time in the White House, Obama has consistently sought to strengthen international institutions such as the UN, the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.  At every turn, Obama has endeavored to more fully integrate America into the “global community”.  Since he was elected, Obama has signed a whole host of new international economic agreements.  He regularly speaks of the need for “cooperation” among global religions and he has hosted a wide variety of different religious celebrations at the White House.  Obama once stated that “all nations must come together to build a stronger global regime”.  If you do not want to live in a “global regime” that is just too bad.  To globalists such as Obama, it is inevitable that the United States of America will be merged into the emerging global system.  Just this week, Obama has issued a new executive order that seeks to “harmonize” U.S. economic regulations with the rest of the world.  This new executive order is yet another incremental step that is pushing us closer to a North American Union and a one world economic system.  Unfortunately, most Americans have absolutely no idea what is happening.

The American people need to understand that Barack Obama is constantly looking for ways to integrate the United States more deeply with the rest of the world.  The globalization of the world economy has accelerated under Obama, and this latest executive order represents a fundamental change in U.S. economic policy.  Now federal regulators will be required to “harmonize” their work with the international community.  The following is how this new executive order was assessed in a recent Businessweek article….

read more at: http://endoftheamericandream.com

It is a year since the US government pulled off one of the most audacious stunts of the 21st century, when on May 2nd 2011 they claimed to have killed Osama bin Laden during a Navy SEAL operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The contemptuously sloppy story spun by the US government, parroted without question by the controlled corporate media, and obligingly swallowed by a largely gullible Western public, was dubious in the extreme.

read more at: http://www.resistradio.com

Throughout the long history of political and economic enslavement there has been many times where the average people realized that they were being taken advantage of and fought back against the established orders of the time. Unfortunately, in so many of these revolutions the justified anger of the masses was misdirected onto meaningless issues or scapegoats who were merely slaves themselves. This is why we have remained enslaved over all of these generations, because each time we have had an opportunity to achieve freedom, we were intentionally divided and misdirected by the “powers that shouldn’t be”.

Once again, the world is on the brink of both collapse and revolution, so we can be sure that there is a lot to gain, and a whole lot to lose for those who have spent their entire lives in control. With that being said there is no doubt that they will attempt to thwart any resistance movement that may gain momentum. We saw this recently with both the Republican Party hijack of the tea party and how establishment fronts such as George Soros and MoveOn have consistently attempted to funnel Occupy Wall Street into counterproductive political goals.

read more at: http://www.blacklistednews.com

Do you ever get the feeling that the mainstream media is feeding you a very watered-down and twisted version of the news?  Do you ever get the feeling that the federal government does not believe that the American people can actually be trusted with the truth?  It is exasperating to realize that the news that the public is being fed every single day is very heavily filtered and very heavily censored.  In a world where “spin” is everything, simply telling the truth is a revolutionary act.  Fortunately, the Internet has helped fuel the rise of the alternative media, and millions of Americans that are starting to wake up are turning to the alternative media for answers to their unanswered questions.  Increasingly, people are becoming willing to question the orthodoxy that is being shoved down their throats by the major news networks, and that is a very good thing.  The world is becoming an incredibly unstable place, and it is more imperative than ever that we all learn to think for ourselves.  We live during a time of great deception, and the lies are going to get even bigger and even more bold in the years to come.  If we don’t know why we believe what we believe, then we are in danger of falling for just about anything.

It is those that seek the truth that end up finding it.  If you just accept the version of reality that the system wants to feed you, then you are probably going to become what the system wants you to become.

But if you are not afraid to question everything, then you will have a chance to become everything that you were always meant to be.

So what are some things that we should be questioning right now?

The following are 21 unanswered questions that they don’t want you to look into….

read more at: http://endoftheamericandream.com

At a time when America desperately needs to come together, we are becoming more divided than ever.  The mainstream media and most of our politicians love to pit us against one another in dozens of different ways, and right now class warfare has become one of their favorite tools for getting us to hate one another.  If you are struggling in this economy, you are being told that “the wealthy” are the cause of your problems.  If you have money, you are being told that the poor hate you and want to tax you into oblivion.  Class warfare has already become a dominant theme in the 2012 race for the White House, and there will certainly be endless speeches given along these lines by politicians from both major political parties all the way up to election day.  Class warfare will be used by both sides as a way to divide America and get votes.  And the frightening thing is that it is clearly working.  There is more hatred between the poor and the wealthy in America today than at any other time that I can remember.  But hating people because of how much money they have or don’t have is not going to solve anything.  Instead, it is just going to cause more problems.

read more at: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com