PSA: Stay Away From White People On Halloween - ADD! Sketch

Russia denies Italian reports it spied on G20 leaders

Source: Reuters

Russia has denied reports that its intelligence services spied on hundreds of foreign delegates at a Group of 20 summit in St Petersburg in September using gifts such as teddy bears, diaries and free USB keys.

Quoting a report from the European Council's security office to Italian intelligence services, Italy's Corriere della Sera daily has reported this week that at least 300 such devices were issued at the September 5-6 summit and were revealed to be spy gear during security debriefing sessions last month.

The report fuels controversy over international espionage after reports that U.S. intelligence services had conducted telephone surveillance of allied countries and leaders.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did not know what the source of the latest allegations was

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/30/us-russia-spying-idUSBRE99T0GY20131030

The Onion Takes No Prisoners!

Dowd: A (Cheney) Dynasty We Want to Duck

Canadians Seek Dick Cheney's Arrest For War Crimes During Upcoming Visit

Source: HuffPo

An international volunteer organization urged Canadian authorities to arrest former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney on war crimes charges when he visits the 2013 Toronto Global Forum later this week.

Lawyers Against the War argued in a letter dated Sunday that Toronto Police Chief William Blair and Ontario Attorney General John Gerretsen have a duty to arrest Cheney "as a person suspected on reasonable grounds of authorizing, counseling, aiding, abetting and failing to prevent torture.”

“Once Richard (Dick) Cheney enters Canada … Canada must ensure that Dick Cheney is either investigated and prosecuted for the indictable offence of torture in Canada or extradited to another country willing and able to do so," Lawyers Against the War's Gail Davidson wrote.

The letter contended that Toronto police are legally obligated to arrest Cheney to prevent him from “escaping to the United States.” The organization argued that Canadian law would legally allow authorities to do so:

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/dick-cheney-canada-arrest_n_4175180.html

Calif residents flee river of flame after oil rig crash

Obama didn’t know about surveillance of U.S.-allied world leaders until summer, officials say

Source: The Washington Post

In the midst of the controversy over U.S. surveillance this summer, top intelligence officials held a briefing for President Obama at the White House — one that would provide him with a broad inventory of programs being carried out by the National Security Agency.

Some of those programs, including the collection of e-mails and other communications from overseas, had already been disclosed because of leaks from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. But Obama was also informed of at least one program whose scope surprised him: “head of state collection.”

That program, whose targets included the communications of U.S. allies such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel, began in 2002, according to administration officials. Obama never knew that the program targeted American allies, officials said, adding that he was aware of collection efforts aimed at leaders of “adversarial countries.”

Officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe still-classified activities in general terms, declined to outline the scope of the “head of state” collection program. They added that although Obama ordered the curtailing of some of the program and informed Merkel that the United States was not currently monitoring her calls, he was not angered that intelligence officials had not told him sooner about the extent of the eavesdropping.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-didnt-know-about-surveillance-of-us-allied-world-leaders-until-summer-officials-say/2013/10/28/0cbacefa-4009-11e3-a751-f032898f2dbc_story.html?hpid=z1

The two most offensive "Halloween" costumes of 2013

I think Hateoween would be more apropos:

zimmerman halloween costume

A group costume features a man dressed as (Trayvon) Martin, wearing blackface and a blood-stained hoodie, and a man portraying (Zimmerman), wearing a shirt that reads "Neighborhood Watch." In a photo uploaded to the Facebook account of Caitlin Cimeno, the woman in the picture, the man portraying Zimmerman has fashioned a gun out of his right hand and has pointed it at the man dressed as Martin.

Cimeno's Facebook account has since been deleted, but the photo has gone viral and elicited widespread condemnation.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/28/trayvon-zimmerman-halloween-costume_n_4170528.html

The only thing that would have scored the Trailer Trash Trifecta would be a "Rape Me!" sign on Cimeno's costume.

PS: This pic is from Florida. Try not to die from the shock!

Dick Cheney Slams Sen. Mike Enzi on Fundraising, Says They Aren’t Fishing Buddies

Source: ABC News

This morning on “This Week,” former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney slammed the man his daughter Liz Cheney is challenging for his Wyoming Senate seat - Republican Sen. Mike Enzi - calling out the three-term senator for his political fundraising and his characterization of their relationship.

“Mike has a record, if you go back and review his finances, of getting about 84 percent of his campaign funds from Washington-based PACs. That’s more than any senator of either party. He doesn’t get much money from Wyoming,” Cheney told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday. “In the quarter just reported, Liz got 25 percent of her funds from Wyoming; he got 13 percent of his from Wyoming. She outraised him in the last quarter, over a million dollars in the first quarter out there.”

Cheney also took Enzi to task for reportedly saying that the pair are fishing buddies.

“Mike also said he and I are fishing buddies, which is simply not true. Never happened,” Cheney said.

The New York Times reported in July that Enzi recalled that the two bonded over fly-fishing, when they “were on the same team competing in a popular annual One Fly tournament – fishing with the same fly lure all day – in the Snake River.”

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/10/dick-cheney-slams-sen-mike-enzi-on-fundraising-says-they-arent-fishing-buddies/

After troops leave, U.S. to lose access to Afghan reconstruction projects worth billions

Source: The Washington Post

As coalition forces withdraw from Afghanistan, U.S.-funded reconstruction projects worth billions of dollars in far-flung regions of the country will soon be impossible for American officials to safely visit and directly inspect.

The planned removal of more than 40,000 troops and the closure of dozens of bases over the next year will shrink the protective umbrella for U.S. officials to keep tabs on construction work, training programs and other initiatives in the corruption-plagued nation. Only about 20 percent of the country will be accessible to U.S. civilian oversight personnel in 2014, according to an analysis conducted by the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction and obtained by The Washington Post.

Instead of curtailing those projects, the Pentagon, the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development plan to rely on teams of private contractors to monitor the work of other private contractors on the taxpayer-funded projects. In a document soliciting firms to help with inspections, USAID said it also intends to use satellite photos and “crowdsourcing” experiments that will solicit feedback on progress from Afghans who are supposed to benefit from U.S.-financed work.

The inability of U.S. government personnel to inspect development projects is prompting worry among lawmakers and government inspectors that millions more dollars could be squandered in what has become the costliest reconstruction of a single country in American history.

“I would be shocked if this doesn’t have an unhappy ending,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who has been critical of reconstruction programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. “They are kissing oversight goodbye.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/after-troops-leave-us-to-lose-access-to-afghan-reconstruction-projects-worth-billions/2013/10/26/5a9212a6-3d9c-11e3-b6a9-da62c264f40e_story.html?hpid=z1