Amnesty International Says U.S. Drone Officials Should Be Tried for War Crimes

By Joshua Keating

Read this on Slate.com

This article covers the group, Amnetsy International talks of two new reports out today cast a disturbing light on America’s drone war. One by the Amnesty International focuses on recent strikes in Pakistan and one in Yemen where the story of Mamana Bibi,

a 68-year-old grandmother killed by hellfire missiles while tending her garden on Oct. 24, 2012:

 

“She was standing in our family fields gathering okra to cook that evening,” recalled Zubair Rehman, one of Mamana Bibi’s grandsons, who was about 119ft away also working in the fields at the time. Mamana Bibi’s three granddaughters: Nabeela (aged eight), Asma (aged seven) and Naeema (aged five) were also in the field, around 115 and 92ft away from their grandmother to the north and south respectively. Around 92ft to the south, another of Mamana Bibi’s grandsons, 15-yearold Rehman Saeed, was walking home from school with his friend, Shahidullah, also aged 15.

                         

Accustomed to seeing drones overhead, Mamana Bibi and her grandchildren continued their daily routine. “The drone planes were flying over our village all day and night, flying in pairs sometimes three together. We had grown used to them flying over our village all the time,” Zubair Rehman continued. “I was watering our animals and my brother was harvesting maize crop,” said Nabeela.

 

Then, before her family’s eyes, Mamana Bibi was blown into pieces by at least two

Hellfire missiles fired concurrently from a US drone aircraft.

A second strike hit the field nearby a few minutes later, badly injuring one of Mamana Bibi’s grandsons who had run to the scene of the first explosion.

The report notes that “it is not possible for Amnesty International to fully assess the reasons behind the killing of Mamana Bibi without further information from the US authorities,” though a Pakistani intelligence source suggested that a local Taliban fighter may have used a satellite phone nearby several minutes before the strike. However, the nearest roads are almost 1,000 feet away from where she was hit. The strike came a year after now-CIA Director John Brennan.

I think that there are some crazy people out there who know that this is crazy, and maybe unconstitutional, or even not enough.  I think that we need to continue to use and re-learn with our drones for the better safety and peace of our people.  There being a long time that people have argued against that is expected but I believe that it is in the best interest of my personal view because I do feel safer that we are conducting tests and getting better.

Contractor behind HealthCare.gov to testify extra testing could not have saved site

Published October 23, 2013

Read this on Foxnews.com Politics


This story talks about how A top executive with CGI Federal, one of the contractors paid millions to create the ObamaCare website, says “no amount of testing” could have prevented the site’s problem-plagued start.

Senior Vice President Cheryl Campbell’s remarks are part of prepared testimony she will give before a Republican-led House hearing Thursday on the insurance-marketplace site. They also appear to challenge new claims by the administration that a lack of adequate testing was part of the problem.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing is the first since the site’s disastrous Oct. 1  launch -- marked by crashes, slow response times and its inability to let customers make purchases.
Several contractors are set to testify Thursday, and will likely face tough questioning from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, though prepared testimony indicates the witnesses may try to spread the blame around -- including to government officials overseeing the project.
Prepared testimony from contractor Optum/QSSI blamed in part a "late decision" to require customers to register before browsing for insurance, which could have helped overwhelm the registration system.

In the prepared testimony, Campbell argues that with a system “this complex with so many concurrent users, it is not unusual to discover problems that need to be addressed once the software goes into a live production environment.”

“No amount of testing within reasonable time limits can adequately replicate a live environment of this nature,” she adds.

Campbell said issues with HealthCare.gov have continued to improve over the past two weeks, but additional challenges are occurring as more users get past the registration screen and buy insurance -- including “data assurance issues.”

She said such problems can be fixed through “tuning, optimization and application improvements.”
The testimony comes as the Obama administration offered new details and explanations on Wednesday. The administration said the system didn't get enough testing, especially at a high user volume. It blamed a compressed time frame for meeting the Oct. 1 deadline to open the insurance markets. Basic "alpha and user testing" are now completed, but that's supposed to happen before a launch, not after.

This website problem is not a good problem to be in.  I have heard a fair amount of negative information and I believe that the government should be more careful and precise as to what they are going to be putting out there.

I know how frustrating it is and nearly everyone else understands how hard it is when a website does not save your information or allow you to make purchases and such.  Its a terrible process to have to go back and start over.  They just need to be more careful when launching something that peoples lives depend on.

Ireland considers closing tax loopholes used by Apple and other tech companies

By Nathan Ingraham on October 15, 2013 03:37 pm Email @NateIngraham

Read this on the Verge.com

Huge companies like Apple, Amazon, and Google have been under pressure for their practice of keeping large portions of their profits overseas in countries that are more tax-friendly — Apple alone has $100 billion that isn't subject to US taxes.

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Ireland's Department of Finance just released a report detailing the country's international tax strategy, and within it was a note about a potential change as part of Ireland's 2014 Finance Bill. The country says that it will consider a "change to our company residence rules aimed at eliminating mismatches — that can exist between tax treaty partners in certain circumstances — being used to allow companies to be ‘stateless' in terms of their place of tax residence." 

Of course, we're a long way away from such a change going into effect.  These rules won't apply until January 2015. And that's assuming that this proposal does indeed stay part of the 2014 Finance Bill. However, the company's finance minister says the country will be trying to be part of the solution to the overseas tax issues that have cropped up recently. "Let me be crystal clear. Ireland wants to be part of the solution to this global tax challenge, not part of the problem," Ireland Finance Minister Michael Noonan said.

My view on this is that it is good that the Finance Minister of Ireland wants to be a part of the solution, but with taxes it is such a hard and multiple way approach problem that they will need much longer than anticipated to change any regulation aspect of this.

On another view, this would have ramifications of a global scale for companies all over the world.  There are so many problems and loopholes with the tax system in the U.S. there are just as many in other countries alike and there are always going to be ways that people can get around from not paying taxes. 

Government doors closed, but workers may still get paid

Read this on boston.com

By Andrew Taylor | Associated Press | October 5, 2013

The government has failed to keep the doors open and has told federal workers to stay off the job as the political parties fight over spending and health care in austere times.

Now Congress and President Barack Obama are sending this message to the 800,000 sidelined government employees: We don’t know when the impasses will end but you will get reimbursed for lost pay once the government reopens.

 

With the partial shutdown entering its fifth day, the GOP-run House passed a bill Saturday that would make sure the furloughed workers get paid for not working. The White House backs the bill and the Senate was expected to OK it, too, but the timing was unclear.

 

But even as Congress and the White House rallied around the bill, one outside group said it ‘‘demonstrates the stupidity of the shutdown.’’

Making the shutdown less painful for 800,000 federal employees will encourage Congress and the White House to extend it even longer, driving up the cost, said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

 

Ellis said ‘‘essential’’ federal workers who stayed on the job ‘‘will feel like suckers because they've been working while the others essentially are getting paid vacations.’’

The White House has opposed other piecemeal efforts by House Republicans to restore money to some functions of government during the partial shutdown. White House officials have said the House should reopen the entire government and not pick agencies and programs over others.

In the 1995-96 government shutdowns, furloughed workers were retroactively given full pay.

 

Despite the White House’s declared appreciation of the essential the role of federal workers, there appeared no sign of a breakthrough in getting them back to work.

Lawmakers keep replaying the same script on Capitol Hill: House Republicans pass piecemeal bills to reopen popular and politically sensitive programs — on Friday, disaster relief and food aid for the poor — while Democrats insist that the House vote on a straightforward Senate-passed measure to reopen all of government.

My personal view on this is becoming more of observing the arguments and stalemates of our government leaders while sitting back in a bit of fear for my investments not knowing what to do.  I really wish that we as the people too, could compromise more, with more respect to minority views and better communications.  I know that too many people are upset, and irritated with the performance as of late, especially congress.  Playing the blame game really doesn't show any power one political party has over the other to me. 

I am pleased with the idea that those furloughed may get paid, but am also upset that as Ellis said  ‘‘essential’’ federal workers who stayed on the job ‘‘will feel like suckers because they've been working while the others essentially are getting paid vacations.’’  How to we explain that to those who work and those who can't work?

Stocks Shrug off Government Shutdown, boosted by Apple

Read this on CNN Money.com

By Hibah Yousuf @CNNMoneyInvest October 1, 2013: 4:26 PM ET

Late this past Monday night, Congress failed to pass a budget and triggered a government shutdown for the first time in nearly two decades Tuesday. But Wall Street took Washington's act and swept it under the rug.  In the days leading up to the shutdown, the market had sold off with many investors cashing out to save what they could.  The Dow and S&P 500 declined for seven of the last eight trading days, including the Dow's triple-digit loss on Monday.  According to Joe Rundle, Head of trading at ETX, many investors are expecting the shutdown to be resolved quickly, risking little damage to the overall economy. 

Plus, the market is far more concerned about the looming debt limit deadline. If the government hits its debt ceiling in mid-October, it will not be able to pay all of its bills.

Waking up Tuesday morning has been a surprise to many as well as the markets opened up in the green, and continued to rise throughout the day, not dropping off the edge as others feared.

Activist investor Carl Icahn has given Apple shares quite a lift these last few weeks.
Shares of Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) rallied after Icahn tweeted that he met with Apple CEO Tim Cook Monday and "pushed hard" for a $150 billion stock buyback. Icahn added that the two plan to continue the conversation in three weeks, which will be around the time Apple releases its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings. The activist investor also revealed that he now owns a nearly $2 billion stake in Apple.

My personal opinion on both these articles is positive for now, but I expect to turn negative in the near future as these are only temporary floaters for the stock markets in America as a whole and as Apple stock especially.  I believe that the stocks will shave their gains made from today, or maybe over this next week once our government and people start to get desperate over what the plan is.

When I was combing through the news late Monday night, waiting for the verdict on our future economy basically, I was extremely fearful once news broke out bringing many services to a grinding halt.  I fear next to the worse for my personal investments and immediately started drafting plans for unloading shares in multiple companies I believed to be in danger of a shutdown.  I understand the shutdown process well, and am very disappointed and irritated but mostly flummoxed on how the Senate and House cannot compromise on what seems to be everything, and are acting in "either" and "or" ways.  Although I'm not pleased with our governments performance, I believe highly that this shutdown result is a mammoth reflection of the people in America too. 

I'm worried about the next month especially with the Debt Ceiling in mid-October, which wiped much value from my investments across the board the last time we argued about what we want and don't want.