May 19, 2016
By Samantha Vicent

Oklahoma City — Oklahoma Department of Corrections staff, (click here) Gov. Mary Fallin's former general coPunsel and others failed to perform their duties properly during the January 2015 execution of Charles Warner and the aborted execution of Richard Glossip last September, a multicounty grand jury that investigated the agency announced Thursday.

The 106-page report prompted the attorney general and the judge in charge of the grand jurors to use terms such as “careless,” “cavalier” and “monkey business” to describe the actions of some state officials.

The report gives a scathing evaluation of the involvement of Steve Mullins, Fallin's then-general counsel, in Glossip's September execution attempt, with the jurors finding that he should have "resoundingly recommended" an immediate stay so the state could obtain potassium chloride rather than potassium acetate....

Potassium is an important molecule to healthy body metabolism. Potassium acetate stops the heart. The heart has a sodium - potassium pump (click here).

The problem in Oklahoma is the same as the problem throughout the country, there are no licensed medical doctor or nurse that will have anything to do with executions. The medical inconsistencies are because lay people are handling it and they think potassium is potassium. They could not tell anyone why potassium acetate is a poison and potassium chloride is not. 

I am not about to discuss the issue here. 

But, then what difference does that make, Mullins can just "Google it."

...The grand jurors noted that in an exchange over whether the drugs were interchangeable, Mullins told an assistant attorney general that he could "Google it."...

Amazing. Google can be the equivalent of the icon MD.

My sincerest sympathies to the family of the late Senator Bob Bennett.

There is probably not one opinion I shared with him, but, he was dedicated to the people of Utah and was a frequent presence on the Senate floor. 

May 14, 2016

By Kathy Stephenson

While Utahns (click here) may remember Bob Bennett for his three terms as a U.S. senator, during his Salt Lake City funeral Saturday he was celebrated as a loving husband, attentive father, thoughtful friend and dutiful servant to God.

Bennett, who died May 4 at age 82 from complications of cancer and a stroke, was described as kind, honest, patient and modest. 

"That's no exaggeration, that's really the man," said attorney and business partner John Knapp Baird. "He was the genuine article. And I don't think we fully appreciate what we had."

Baird said his friend "lived a heroic life." And while Bennett was disappointed in 2010 when he lost his re-election bid, "it didn't define him. He was far more than a United States senator."...

I think everyone is astounded by Hillary Clinton's drop in approval status from her time as Secretary of State. That incredible loss of approval rating is due to the Republicans, not Bernie Sanders.

The fall in status by Secretary Clinton has been due to the chipping away of her valued reputation. It was all the Benghazi hearings and the email scandal. Thank FOX for all that.

Senator Sanders' has carried out political opinions and not personal attacks. If anything he was at her side when she was receiving regular attacks by FOX News. 

The former Secretary needs to demand equal time at FOX and make them deal with their exploitative political news. Perhaps an interview by Megan Kelly.

The jet was not blown out of the sky, but, it sure makes a great distraction to the missing documents about criminal conduct in the CIA.

Why is a mechanical problem not as serious an issue as terrorism?

It killed people and it is not an isolated incident.

It is amazing what people will say for money.

This is the jet. It was twelve years old. (click here)

November 19, 2016
By Bart Jansen

...The National Transportation Safety Board(click here) found that the plane's tail fin -- the vertical stabilizer -- tore off because the pilot put too much stress on the rudder by flipping it from side to side as he fishtailed in the wake of another plane. A half-dozen other flights have suffered problems with rudder movement causing high stress on tails, but without catastrophic results.

The board blamed the crash on the pilot's "unnecessary and excessive rudder" movement, which is controlled by foot pedals. But American pilots were trained at the time to use the rudder to deal with wake turbulence, so training changed across the industry in the years after the crash.

Now, the FAA has worked with the counterparts at the European Aviation Safety Agency and Airbus to install a flashing light and sound in the cockpit to warn against excessive rudder movement on A300 and A310 planes....

Fairwell to a familiar and trusted voice once a week.

May 19, 2016

Morley Safer, (click here) the CBS newsman who changed war reporting forever when he showed GIs burning the huts of Vietnamese villagers and went on to become the iconic 60 Minutes correspondent whose stylish stories on America's most-watched news program made him one of television's most enduring stars, died today in Manhattan. He was 84. He had homes in Manhattan and Chester, Conn.

Safer was in declining health when he announced his retirement last week; CBS News broadcast a long-planned special hour to honor the occasion on Sunday May 15 that he watched in his home....

I can understand one agent erasing "black sites" information, but, an entire agency?

May 17, 2016
By Rohan Smith

...America's spy agency has 6700 pages (click here) detailing exactly what went on at so-called "black sites" after 2001. At least, they did have 6700 pages.
According to a number of reports, the CIA's internal investigators inexplicably "erased" their only copies of the document.
According to Yahoo News, which first reported the news on Monday, the CIA admitted to accidentally deleting a document and destroying a disk that contained the report.
It adds to specul.ation of a cover-up and paints a picture of incompetence at the agency's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. A professor of law in New York put it best this week when he said: "It makes you wonder what was going on over there."...
...Ms Feinstein admitted the report was "highly critical of the CIA's actions, and rightfully so" but acknowledged that it was important to remember the fear that existed in the months and years after 2001.
"It is worth remembering the pervasive fear in late 2001 and how immediate the threat felt," she wrote....
...Among the executive summary's findings were that interrogators used "wallings" (slamming detainees against walls), sleep deprivation, nudity, waterboarding and rectal feeding.
"The waterboarding technique was physically harmful, inducing convulsions and vomiting," the summary found.
"Internal CIA records describe the waterboarding of (one detainee) as evolving into a 'series of near drownings'."
Other detainees were given ice water baths and placed inside a coffin-shaped box. The impacts were long-lasting....
...Yahoo reported deleting the document was "an inadvertent foul-up" that was privately disclosed to the Senate Intelligence Committee last summer but has never been made public. It comes at a time when debate about the report's release is more fervent than ever.
On Friday, a federal appeals court rejected efforts to see the full version of the report made public. The American Civil Liberties Union is suing to obtain the full version but it's not yet clear if those efforts will deliver a result....

You mean it gets worse? It is time to release the report to the public. It will end up on some internet page one day. It would be better if the report was released and Senator Feinstein open a dialogue about it's information. It don't believe it will do any more damage than already exists. It can't get worse than Abu Ghraib. I don't know how anything can be worse than this.

...Contained within the report are other "breathtaking" details, including how CIA personnel were never held accountable for violating CIA policies.

"Significant events, (including) the death and injury of CIA detainees, the detention of individuals who did not meet the legal standard to be held, the use of unauthorised interrogation techniques against CIA detainees and the provision of inaccurate information on the CIA programs did not result in appropriate, effective, or in many cases, any corrective actions," the report noted.

This is unconstitutional and Governor Fallin needs to veto the bill.

Fallin will sign the bill and why? Because of politics and no other reason. The Oklahoma legislature is playing political games with women's lives.

May 19, 2016
By Mark Berman

Lawmakers in Oklahoma (click here) approved a bill Thursday that would make performing abortions a felony and revoke the medical licenses of any physician who assists in such a procedure.

This sweeping measure, which opponents described as unconstitutional and unprecedented, now heads to Gov. Mary Fallin (R). She will have five days — not including Sunday — to decide whether to sign the bill, veto it or allow it to become law without her signature, according to a spokesman.

“The governor will withhold comment on that bill, as she does on most bills, until she and her staff have had a chance to review it,” Michael McNutt, a spokesman for Fallin, said in an email....

Thank you, Minority Speaker Pelosi. I thought the USA thrived on competition. Right?

May 19, 2016
By Mike Lillis

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (click here) on Thursday defended Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) from Democratic critics growing restless with his long-shot presidential campaign. 

National party leaders have become increasingly concerned that Sanders's extended primary contest with Hillary Clinton will bruise the Democrats' image while distracting from the party's ultimate fight against Donald Trump....

There is no telling what candidate has a stronger chance of victory over Donald Trump as there is a movement called "Never Trump." That throws any poll into questionable integrity.

I have said from the beginning the Democrats had incredible candidates for the nomination. I still believe that and I believe the convention will be open and fair and alleviate any doubt about that fairness.

This is very unusual behavior for a jet falling out of the sky. What is the term? Dolphing?

Is that the term? When the pilots either lose control and/or sends the jet into a dive. The jet first dives and then it returns sharply to elevation only to turn down and crash.

The pilots lost control of the jet. The rudder caused a sharp turn to the left and then the rudder caused a turn to the right and the 360 degree turns were spirals when the jet continued to spiral down 18,000 feet. The jet was still intact in that spiral. The radar image ends at 10,000 feet and the jet is likely to have begun to disintegrate in that downward spiral. In that disintegration the fuel explosed and destroyed whatever was left of the jet.

Sounds right to me.

2. The plane swerved quickly and vanished at a high altitude. (click here) The plane was traveling at a height of 37,000 feet the last time the pilot spoke to air traffic controllers, as it passed through Greek airspace, according to the AP. The pilot did not report a problem at that time. Soon after, the plane made a 90-degree left turn, then a complete 360-degree turn toward the right, dropping from 38,000 to 15,000 feet. It disappeared from radar at about 10,000 feet at 2:45 a.m. Egypt time, the AP reported, citing Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos. The director of Greece’s Civil Aviation Authority, Konstantinos Lintzerakos, said controllers tried to contact the pilot 10 miles before the plane exited the Greek Flight Information Range (FIR), but the pilot did not respond. The controllers continued to attempt to make contact with the plane until it disappeared from radar. The Egyptian military said it did not receive a distress call from the plane.

It is very strange that authorities are so eager to believe a terrorist group when they claim responsibility for a global event.

The other jet, Metrojet out of Egypt was claimed by Daesh. They said they used a tin can with an explosive. Really? The IRS should trust everyone that much.

I think that is bizarre. These groups commit human rights violations and yet they are trustworthy above any reproach. I can imagine being a CEO of a company that has just experienced a 'slighting' of their company shield by some kind of global event and wiping my brow to realize some damn terrorist claims responsibility. 

Never once when a terrorist groups claims responsibility have I heard another state "That's a lie, we did it." Statistically, that should happen once out of a hundred or so claims of responsibility.

I still can't believe Airbus has a history of rudders that down jets and the ONLY change they made in the rest of their jets was to put a warning light on the pilots dashboard. What are the pilots suppose to do, say their prayers?

The Canadian fires were claimed by Daesh. That is a blatant lie. The Canadian tar sands surrounded by droughted land, no recovery of the land, but, instead the oil industry started to sink horizontal drilling platforms into the land after the tar sands were removed. That wasn't part of the deal. The lands were suppose to be restored and not further exploited. There needs to be an investigation to the operations of these companies within the Canadian tar sand. I think the fires started with methane leaks and once the oil caught on fire, the rest is history.

I was at a social gathering and most of the people were accepting the idea of Daesh's terrorist attack as the reason the jet went down in the Mediterranean Sea. The jet is not even found and already they are brainwashed to believe there are terrorists on the loose in their lives. That is sick.

This is exactly how the last spy plane was captured.

A Chinese jet fighter went to intercept an approaching USA spy plane. The jet crashed destroying it and caused the death of the pilot who was a family man leaving a wife and children behind. The USA military actually expects the public to believe it was not at fault here? It was a spy plane and China is building islands. I think the USA military is guilty as sin.

Now apologize for alarming the Chinese and don't do it again. There are satellites that can do the same thing.

May 19, 2016
By Chris Buckley

Beijing — China rejected suggestions (click here) that its fighter jets flew dangerously close to an American surveillance aircraft and instead accused the United States on Thursday of threatening its security by regularly sending such flights near the Chinese coast.

A spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made the counteraccusations after the Pentagon raised concerns about a close encounter on Tuesday with an American surveillance plane, which the United States said was approached by two Chinese military jets that flew within 50 feet of it.

“American military vessels and aircraft frequently engage in surveillance in close proximity to China’s coastal waters, and this constitutes a grave threat to China’s security on land and sea,” the spokesman for the ministry, Hong Lei, told a daily news briefing in Beijing. “China requests that the United States immediately halt this kind of close-proximity surveillance, thereby avoiding the recurrence of such incidents.”...

The tail section houses the rudder. Tell me the movements of the jet today didn't resemble the malfunction of a rudder.

It is amazing the extent Wall Street media will deceive and openly lie to the people. I betcha they even have a name of the terrorist already. It would be on the jet's passenger list. I can't believe they haven't announced it yet. There aren't that many people after all. And if it were at least one terrorist, what does it say about Paris security?

It would have benefited profits more if the information was classified and could  not be released for 20 years.

That would have been interesting, just think of all the terrorist wrongly incarcerated and unjustified wars fought.

Allow me to help the corporate media tell the truth and end it's corruption.

These Airbus jets are not safe!

There needs to be an investigation of Airbus and their testing of these jets to determine what they knew and when they knew it.

The statement, "These jet have a very good safety record, is a lie." The passengers that died because of a faulty rudder didn't experience an extensive safety record.

There are other jets to fly when making reservations. This is an outrage, REGARDLESS, of the investigation of the flight today.

The tail section was in better condition than the rest of the jet and 4 miles from the body of the jet.

A bomb never and still doesn't make sense to me. A bomb would have destroyed the tail section as well. There was also a mechanical repair on this tail section.

Anything is possible I suppose with upper winds when a jet crashes, but, the physics of this crash never said terrorist to me. This incident occurred at take off no differently than the AA 587. The rudders would be used more to achieve altitude at take off and descend to to land. 

The Air France 447 is unusual because it occurred in flight. The flight record needs to be examined for changes altitude or direction that would place stress on the rudder to bring about it's failure. 

Air Bus had noted the jets years of service. There needs to be a review of these crashes to decide if age of the jets played into the rudder failure. 

People that fly jets have to make up their own minds about these issues, the decision making of authorities is very late to bring correct conclusions.

31 October 2015

...Airbus said the A321-200(click here) that crashed was 18 years old, had made almost 21,000 flights and accrued about 56,000 flight hours. It had been operated by the Russian airline since 2012.

Kogalymavia, which owns Metrojet, said there were “no grounds” to blame the incident on human error. Russian state media reported that the crew had complained to officials earlier this week about the state of the plane, claiming it should not be flown due to technical issues.

“This aircraft appealed to the technical service in connection with engine start failure several times over the past week before this,” a source told the RIA agency....

June 19, 2009
By Henry Blodget

As soon as (click here) the photo appeared of Air France 447's vertical stabilizer floating in the Atlantic, concerns arose that the crash might have been caused by another Airbus plane tail snapping off in mid-air.

If so, this would be the latest in a long string of tail problems for Airbus.  And the problems could be extremely expensive to fix.

The crash of an Airbus 300 just after takeoff at JFK in 2001 was the result of the stabilizer snapping off.  The NTSB investigation eventually blamed the pilots for overreacting to wake turbulence and hitting the rudder pedals too hard.  Pilots have long been skeptical of this conclusion, however, especially as other Airbus rudder problems have occurred over the years (planes suddenly rolling or pitching down as the computers controlling the rudder went haywire and triggered "uncommanded" movements.)

Airbus tails are designed differently than Boeing tails (composites versus metal, etc.), and Airbuses are "fly-by-wire" aircraft that don't have direct hydraulic connections between the cockpit controls and the flaps, rudder, and other flight controls.  Some suspect that the AF 447 crash and other Airbus problems may be the result of a computer problem or other design flaw....

This was issued by the FAA within that four year limit to Airbus flights.

This this aircraft fell apart in flight, that makes three aircraft known to have design flaws. If there was an explosion that simply means the fuel ignited due to lack of containment in tanks. The fuel if exposed to hot turbine engines can ignite.

The three incidents began with American Airlines 587, Air Transit 961 and now possibly Egyptian MS804.

November 19, 2012
By Bart Jensen

Airbus (click here) says it can install warning lights on the planes but says there's no way it can design and install equipment to limit movement of the rudder in four years.

The Federal Aviation Administration has ordered aircraft maker Airbus to update the rudder systems on 215 of its planes because of a fatal 2001 crash, but some industry officials question the remedy, and safety experts wonder why it took so long.

11 years is too long to conclude the cause the failure of a commercial jet crash.

The FAA rule was finalized almost exactly 11 years after the fiery crash of American Airlines flight 587 in Queens, N.Y., on Nov. 12, 2001. The crash occurred soon after take-off from New York's JFK airport New York's, when the Airbus A3000-605R's  tail came apart. All 260 on the plane were killed, as were five people on the ground.
The National Transportation Safety Board  found that the plane's tail fin -- the vertical stabilizer -- tore off because the pilot put too much stress on the rudder by flipping it from side to side as he fishtailed in the wake of another plane. A half-dozen other flights have suffered problems with rudder movement causing high stress on tails, but without catastrophic results....

12 March 2005
By David Rose

...Mercifully, (click here) the crew was able to turn the plane around, and by steering it with their wing and tail flaps managed to land at their point of departure in Varadero, Cuba, without loss of life. But as Canadian investigators try to discover what caused this near catastrophe, the specialist internet bulletin boards used by pilots, accident investigators and engineers are buzzing.

One former Airbus pilot, who now flies Boeings for a major US airline, told The Observer : 'This just isn't supposed to happen. No one I know has ever seen an airliner's rudder disintegrate like that. It raises worrying questions about the materials and build of the aircraft, and about its maintenance and inspection regime. We have to ask as things stand, would evidence of this type of deterioration ever be noticed before an incident like this in the air?'...

Egypt MS605 crash (click here) has the symptoms of terrorism, especially with the flight originating in Paris and heading to Egypt. It is a natural assumption and people want to brace for the worst. In the Transit 961 flight the pilots were able to regain control in order to land. The Transit flight experienced this rudder failure toward the end of it's flight. The black boxes are important to begin to understand what occurred with Egypt MS804. But, in realizing the real answer regarding AA587 occurred 11 years after the crash it is safe to say the black boxes are only the beginning. Airbus's answer of putting a warning light in the jet is hardly an answer. The jets have to be refitted with improved design or take the jets out of service.

Putting religious authority before the USA Constitution is a political agenda that should never exist.

The imagery of this movie trailer will call violence to bear. It is one of the most hate filled movie trailers I have ever witnessed. 

This movie trailer is not the USA, it is the manifestation of a crude man given power by propagandist media. It is horrible. The Duck Commander should have as much trouble finding a distributor as Fahrenheit 911 did with Disney. 

This film should be in the same category of the film that inspired riots at the USA embassy in Egypt. It is religious bigotry, plain and simple. It intends to create hate. It is highly inflammatory.

"Athens is very religious?" Athens was an ancient Greek city. The Greeks believed in many gods and goddesses. They were polytheistic. The Greeks are known through artifacts to have exited beginning 800 BC. 

It wasn't until the rise of the Romans that monotheism took shape. The monotheism that emerged from the Romans came after an extensive belief in polytheism. The Christians showed up later. A quick reference is when the Romans fed Christians to the Lions. Jesus was crucified on orders of a Roman governor. Monotheism had it's beginnings in Rome, but, took hold in Constantinople. The first emperor of the Roman City of Constantinople was Constantine I in 330 AD.

The quality of the information in this trailer is unclear. It is unclear because I don't at all understand where he is coming from. The analogies are bizarre. There is little to no social value to this film. It propagates hate.