Occupy Wall Street demonstrations attracted thousands of protesters on Wednesday in the largest day of protests seen yet during the two and a half week occupation of lower Manhattan. Although major media outlets were quiet on Wednesday night, the occupation boosted 15,000 people of all ages, including celebrities such as Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann.

Even though the media initially chose to ignore the growing discontent, Twitter was buzzing with firsthand accounts of the protests. Many protesters reported that police were on in full force, using their pepper spray and zip tie handcuffs on people of all ages, including a 12 year-old girl.

Demonstrators were able to shut down Broadway before the police officers placed barricades up, prohibiting people from entering the street.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich from Ohio released a statement and video on Wednesday offering his support for the movement, one of the first politicians to speak about the growing occupation.

“To the men and women, young and old who are now occupying Wall Street and Main Streets across the country you are the beginnings of a new America. You are in the streets and you are not alone. Millions support your efforts. We know the present system has taken the wealth of our nation and put it into the hands of the few.

Fourteen million Americans out of work. Fifty million without health care. Millions denied a college education because they cannot afford it. Millions losing their homes. Millions of pensions threatened. Dreams crushed by a system will be dreams rescued by your efforts, your commitment, your dedication to a new America,” Kucinich said during his statement. His speech was inspiring to many.

During a Washington Ideas Forum in Washington, D.C. reporters asked Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner if he had any sympathy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. His response was a little too middle of the road, not answering the question.

“No, I feel a lot of sympathy for what you might describe as a general sense among Americans as to whether we’ve lost the sense of possibility — and whether after a pretty bad lost decade … followed by a devastating crisis [and a] huge loss of faith in public institutions, people do wonder whether we have the ability to do things that can help the average sense of opportunity in the country. And I definitely sympathize with that,” he said.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/shankbone/

The article Occupy Wall Street’s Largest Day of Protests appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

When Wikileaks released a total of 477.000 secret US records of military incidents in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American government went into a panicked frenzy – how did this happen? Among the sensitive material was the highly controversial recorded killing of 12 people – including two journalist – by US helicopter force in Baghdad, 2007. The video went around the world and became a major political embarrassment to the American forces in the region.

On May 26, 2010, US Pte First Class Bradley Manning was arrested and later charged on July 5 under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UDMJ) for stealing classified data and leaking it to Wikileaks between November 2009 and May 2010. Manning was exposed after a chat exchange between him and former hacker Adrian Lamo where he confessed to parts of his actions and expressed his distress over the “mess” he had created. Upon his arrest, he was held at a military jail in Kuwait but in July 2010, the 23-year-old Private was moved to the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia and classified as a ‘maximum custody detainee’.

The documents believed to be leaked by Manning continued to be published after his arrest but Wikileaks denied any direct contact with the detained Private. Regardless, the US government launched an intensive investigation into its founder, Julian Assange. According to the New York Times in December 2010, federal prosecutors were seeking to build a case on the notion that the Wikileaks leader had encouraged and ‘coached’ Pte Manning to extract the classified documents. According to Lamo, Manning had claimed to be a high-profile source for Wikileaks but following his arrest, the organisation stated that they had no way of verifying if Manning was in fact the source of the military documents. Assange told msnbc TV in December 2010 that the allegations of a Wikileaks/Manning conspiracy was “absolute nonsense” and by the new year, several online sources seemed to agree that links between the army private and Assange were questionable.

This changed nothing for Manning – by March, 2011, the US Army had filed another 22 counts against him in relation with the leakage of more than 720.000 secret diplomatic and military documents, according to the BBC. The Iraq War Logs is considered the greatest data leak in US military history and from a legal point of view, Manning’s fate is sealed.

However, there are still humanitarian concerns. In June 2010, the Bradley Manning Support Network was founded to promote justice in the process and their foundation has been highly critical of the conditions of his detention. According to reports dating back to 2010, Private Manning had been subjected to harassment and ritual humiliation while being held at Quantico. Accounts of his mistreatment, delivered through his lawyer, gave rise to strong criticism – both public and political.

“The military and Administration has been shocked by the support Bradley Manning has garnered globally – specifically at the gates of Quantico, Virginia. Last month, 500 supporters rallied near the Marine brig where PFC Manning has been held since August 2010. It wasn’t a secret that we were preparing to rally one to two thousand for an upcoming DC-area pre-trial hearing,” explains Jeff Paterson, the Project Director at Courage to Resist and member of the Bradley Manning Support Network.

On April 12, Juan Mendez, the UN special rapporteur on torture, told the press that he had been blocked from an unmonitored meeting with Manning as part of his investigation into the rumoured torture. US officials were not going to let Mr Mendez speak to Manning without officials present but the UN investigator said that a monitored conversation would be counter to his mandate, according the the BBC.

On April 19, the US administration transferred Manning to Kansas – a move viewed as the result of the criticism of his mistreatment. Dennis Kucinich, a congressman from Ohio, commented on the decision that, “Any move of PFC Manning does not change the underlying fact, which has not been disputed by the Department of Defense, that he has been held under conditions which may in fact constitute ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ in violation of the 8th amendment.”

The article Whistle-Blower Bradley Manning, Crook Turned Victim? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

We are all familiar with the white lines that can be seen criss-crossing the sky on most clear days.  Air traffic has long left behind their white mark.  Conventional wisdom is that condensed and frozen airplane exhaust account for the trails, known as contrails.  But, many people believe that some of the trails are not typical airplane exhaust but something more sinister known as chemtrails.  And even if you dismiss the chemtrail argument, there has been much more lines in the sky since the 1970’s.  And that isn’t good news either.

The chemtrail conspiracy theory purports that some trails that are left by aircraft are actually chemical or biological agents deliberately sprayed at high altitudes for an unknown purpose by the government.  The existence of chemtrails has repeatedly been denied by government agencies and scientists around the world who maintain the trails are just contrails.  The United States Air Force insists that the theory is a hoax which “has been investigated and refuted by many established and accredited universities, scientific organizations, and major media publications”.

Supporters of chemtrail theory have different ideas about why the chemicals are being sprayed.  Some speculate that the purpose of the chemical release may be for solar radiation management, population control, weather control, or biological warfare/chemical warfare and claim that these trails are causing respiratory illnesses and other health problems.  Proponents of the chemtrail theory say that chemtrails can be distinguished from contrails by their long duration, asserting that the chemtrails are those trails left by aircraft that persist for as much as a half day or transform into cirrus-like clouds.  According to the U.S. Air force, contrails are the result of normal emissions of water vapor from piston engines and jet engines at high altitudes in which the water vapor condenses into a visible cloud. The rate at which contrails disperse depends on weather conditions and altitude.  In very humid conditions, the contrail may last a while.  If the air is dry, the contrail will scatter quickly.

In 2001, U.S. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced a measure that would have permanently prohibited the basing of weapons in space, and he listed chemtrails as one of a number of exotic weapons that would be banned.  The bill died in committee and no further mention of chemtrails appeared in Kucinich’s subsequent attempts to enact a Space Preservation Act.

Scientists believe that contrails have increased since the 1970s, primarily because of a change in the atmospheric pressure pattern known as the Arctic Oscillation. It influences weather in northern, middle and high latitudes.  Climatologists suggest that the change may be related to global warming.

Whether the white lines of cloud are chemtrails or contrails, the increasing number is something to be worried about.  If our own government doesn’t kill us, then our own pollution will.

The article Chemtrails-Is the Government Poisoning Us? appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.