President-elect Barack Obama's right-hand man reportedly gave the disgraced Blagojevich administration a list of four women Obama considered acceptable to fill his U.S. Senate seat.
Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who will serve as Obama's White House chief of staff, was heard discussing the issue on court-approved wiretaps with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's chief of staff, the Chicago Tribune said.
The candidates "acceptable" to Obama on the list Emanuel provided included a trio of female Democrats: longtime Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett, Illinois Veterans Affairs chief Tammy Duckworth and U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Chicago.
No taint seen on Prez-elect, but Rahm Emanuel gave a wishlist for Senate
German Government has lost files so secret their contents are unknown
The interior ministry confessed the loss in an answer to a parliamentary question submitted by the Free Democrats (FDP), according to newsmagazine Der Spiegel.
The 332 files were considered top secret, but have been lost over the last ten years, with no clue as to where they have ended up. They were of ‘considerable significance,’ the Interior Ministry has admitted.
It was also revealed that nearly 3,200 secret files have been destroyed in this legislature period alone – rather than stored in the federal archive.
Dubai The New Switzerland For The Elite
The word amongst the real estate locals is that low level Russian Oligarchs have been laundering money in the Dubai property market. Russian prostitutes are all over the town. Lord Rothschild was here last month with Gordon Brown for meetings with banking authorities under the cover of global crisis financial talks.
The World Bank has pumped $250 billion in loans into the Dubai. Why? The main gold and silver trading exchange is soon tipped to move from the COMEX to the local Dubai exchange currently being set up.
The Emire of Dubai has said he doesn't want a middle class. They can all leave. He only wants monied elites. He made this statement in a BBC interview. They locals are fully aware of his plan.
Fed regulators shut 2 banks in Georgia, Texas
Regulators on Friday closed Haven Trust Bank in Georgia and Sanderson State Bank in Texas, bringing to 25 the number of U.S. bank failures this year.
The 25 U.S. bank failures so far this year compare with three for all of 2007 and are far more than in the previous five years combined. It's expected that many more banks won't survive the next year of economic turmoil. The pressures of tumbling home prices, rising foreclosures and tighter credit have been battering financial firms nationwide.
TVNL Comment: The privately owned Federal Reserve is taking back all their money. They are going to proceed with their plan of owning everything in this nation.
Zimbabwe: Britain, U.S. Caused Cholera, Says Govt
A Zimbabwean cabinet minister has accused Britain, helped by the United States, of masterminding the country's cholera outbreak in a "biological chemical war, a genocidal onslaught" against the country.
The accusation was published in the government-controlled Herald newspaper by Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the information minister in President Robert Mugabe's government
DoJ blocking Obama team from docs on torture, wiretapping
The Justice Department has evaded a request from President-elect Barack Obama's transition team for documents about the secret programs of U.S. intelligence agencies.
The team asked to "review classified legal opinions related to secret CIA and National Security Agency programs," but the inquiry has been denied.
Among the information requested are official documents about the "legal rationale" for the secret wiretapping and torture programs conducted by the two agencies.
Pentagon Pro-Troop Group Misspent Millions, Report Says
While the Pentagon preps for a new administration, a scandal from an earlier era is rearing its head.
A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief. The "America Supports You," or ASY, program was led in a "questionable and unregulated manner," according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was "inappropriately transferred" by the project's managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.
Administration Loosens Species Protections
The Interior Department yesterday finalized rules changing the way it administers the Endangered Species Act, enabling other government agencies to decide on their own whether a project would harm an imperiled species without an independent scientific review.
The agency received nearly 235,000 comments on the endangered species proposal, at least 208,000 of which were form letters decrying the rule.
"As the Bush administration fades off into the sunset, it continues to take brazen pot shots at everything in sight, including America's landmark conservation law, the Endangered Species Act," said House Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), who said he would introduce legislation seeking to overturn the rule next year.
TVNL Comment: The Bush administration's legacy of death and destruction will continue to have a negative impact on this planet for a long, long time.
Russia scraps right to jury trial
The country's parliament voted to back a bill backed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's dominant United Russia party giving three judges the right to rule on cases involving terrorism, hostage-taking, armed insurrection, sabotage and civil disturbances.
The bill will go before Russia's upper house, the Federation Council where approval is expected to be a formality, before it becomes law.
The move came 15 years to the day since the adoption of Russia's first post-Soviet Constitution which reintroduced jury trials abolished by the Bolsheviks in 1917.
Critics said the move raised the spectre of a return to Soviet-style trials controlled solely by judges.
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