Master Sgt. Toni Jaffe was known as "the M&M lady" because she decorated her office cubicle with keepsakes of the confection's advertising characters. However, the treats she dispensed were sweeter than candy and are now the subject of a criminal investigation.
From 1986 until her retirement last year, Jaffe's job with the California Army National Guard was to give away money — the federally subsidized student-loan repayments and cash bonuses — paid for by federal taxpayers nationwide — that the Guard is supposed to use to attract new recruits and encourage Guard members to reenlist.
California National Guard bonus program riddled with corruption
US to be watchful-Israel is the worst enemy of its friends
The arrest by the FBI of Elliot Doxer, a financial employee of the Cambridge-based Akamai Technologies, Inc. for trying to sell company secrets to officials of the Israeli Consulate in Boston has once again raised the profile of the firm that was also at the center of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
As is usually the case with Israeli espionage cases, the Justice Department documents filed in the case merely refer to Israel as “Country X.” The Justice Department reportedly said “Country X,” cooperated in the investigation of Doxer. However, the Justice Department does not indicate when “Country X’s” cooperation began. The US Attorney’s Office in Boston claims that Israeli consular officials cooperated with U.S. officials before accepting Doxer’s offer, but it does not indicate when the cooperation actually began — upon initital contact by Doxer or after a period of time subsequent to initial contact.
Surprise -- The Very Dark Side of U.S. History
Many Americans view their country and its soldiers as the "good guys" spreading "democracy" and "liberty" around the world. It just ain't so.
This military tradition has explicitly defended the selective use of terror, whether in suppressing Native American resistance on the frontiers in the 19th Century or in protecting U.S. interests abroad in the 20th Century or fighting the "war on terror" over the last decade.
The American people are largely oblivious to this hidden tradition because most of the literature advocating state-sponsored terror is carefully confined to national security circles and rarely spills out into the public debate, which is instead dominated by feel-good messages about well-intentioned U.S. interventions abroad.
Torture victim sues Obama administration over `Kafkaesque nightmare'
In a first for a former Guantánamo captive freed by a federal judge, a Syrian man now living in Europe is suing the U.S. government for damages from what he calls a ``Kafkaesque nightmare.''
The 44-page lawsuit by Abdul Razak al Janko, 32, described a decade-long odyssey of detention -- first in Taliban-era Afghanistan, where he was tortured as an alleged pro-American Israeli spy, and later in U.S. military prisons that ignored or misdiagnosed his history as a torture victim.
Broken Promises: Thousands of Veterans Denied Crucial Care
The Army tacked a five-month extension on Sgt. Ryan Christian Major's term of military service in 2006, and that November, just five days after his original discharge date, Ryan was critically injured when an underground bomb exploded during a foot patrol in Ramadi, Iraq.
Ryan was evacuated from Iraq and brought to a hospital in Germany, where he underwent extensive surgery. His pelvis had been broken, and doctors amputated both of his legs above the knees. He suffered from traumatic brain injury (TBI) and would go on to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). For two months after the explosion, Ryan's family was unsure of he would survive. He did.
Israel's 'loyalty oath' sets a vile precedent
It’s one of those head-in-hands, stomach churning moments, akin to when a lover finally shuts the door. You’re left in shock, beliefs awry. Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition of the extremes is about to pass into law an unprecedented loyalty oath - aimed at non-Jews only. New, non-Jewish citizens will have to swear allegiance to the “Jewish and democratic” state of Israel.
This is wrong on so many levels. Just for starters, the Jews of Europe were hounded through history and their loyalty questioned because they could not, in good faith, swear allegiance to Christian monarchies and states. Next, it corrupts all the principles of liberal democracy, tolerance and minority rights.
In Gitmo Opinion, Two Versions of Reality
When Judge Henry Kennedy Jr. ordered the release of a Guantánamo Bay detainee last spring, the case appeared to be a routine setback for an Obama administration that has lost a string of such cases.
But there turns out to be nothing ordinary about the habeas case brought by Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman [2], a Yemeni held without charges for nearly eight years. Uthman, accused by two U.S. administrations of being an al-Qaida fighter and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, is among 48 detainees [3] the Obama administration has deemed too dangerous to release but "not feasible for prosecution."
BofA Extends Freeze on Foreclosures to All 50 States
Bank of America Corp., the biggest U.S. lender, extended a freeze on foreclosures to all 50 states as concern spread among federal and local officials that homes are being seized based on false data.
“We will stop foreclosure sales until our assessment has been satisfactorily completed,” the Charlotte, North Carolina- based company said today in a statement. “Our ongoing assessment shows the basis for foreclosure decisions is accurate.”
US to fund sale of F-35 jets to Israel
Tel Aviv's Defense Ministry Director General Udi Shani signed the agreement, worth nearly $3 billion, during a ceremony in New York on Thursday, Israeli daily Haaretz reports, noting that "the entire deal will be funded by the American military."
According to the deal, Israel will receive the attack aircrafts between 2015 and 2017, at a price of $96 million per plane, together with simulators and spare parts, with a total price tag of $2.75 billion. The deal also grants the Israeli regime the option of ordering 75 more jets.
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