The Whole Delivery

The top international news today has clearly been the little old dictator getting ready to give his son that same position : North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has apparently named his third son, Kim Jong-un, believed to be 27, as a four-star general in the military ahead of the country's biggest political convention in three decades, making his hereditary succession plan official for the first time, Yonhap news reported. The announcement was made in the dispatch of Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the state news agency of North Korea, on the opening day of the biggest Workers' Party convention since 1980. The announcement is the first mention by name in the state's official media of Kim Jong-il's third son. Picture President Obama firing Mike Bloomberg in NYC, Menino in Boston, or Daley in Chicago. Well, that's what has transpired today in Moscow, as President Medvedev has fired the city's long time mayor Yury Luzhkov . And he appears to do it without P...

There wasn't much news in today's Wikileak leak of the CIA Red Cell document . And that was the main point, as Marcy Wheeler indicates . Besides the obvious fact that the US has its own exported terrorists operating throughout the world for definite terror organizations from Al Qaeda to even an Irish outfit looking to take back Northern Ireland from Britain (go figure), the Wikileaks leak basically showed nothing except, well, everything. How the US intelligence community over-classifies items is essential to seeing how they want to virtually keep everything they do or think secret nowadays, even the non-scattering juicy stuff. But in this ever growing online world, they sure do look silly trying to do so.

Spanish Journalists are freed from Al Qaeda's captivity. (Photo from AFP) His weird media tour continues : The commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan says the momentum built up by the Taliban has been reversed in the south of the country and capital Kabul. General David Petraeus said it was important to destroy the safe havens of Taliban. He also said he would offer President Obama his best professional advice on the wisdom of handing control to Afghan forces next July. $815.58 million given to Pakistan is still not enough for its epic disaster. But with NATO forces focusing on silly wars, I guess that isn't a surprise indeed. Julian Assange seems to be in the midst of fighting a smear campaign against him, especially after the charges of him raping someone was dropped in Sweden . Sudan, an ally of Iran, is looking to start its own nuclear programme : The Sudanese government is planning to build a nuclear reactor which is first of its kind purposely for peaceful e...

In the midst of Wikileaks massive latest revelations yesterday , most have declared what they brought to The Guardian, del Spigel, and the New York Times as " not much" or "things we kind of know already." To be frank, that is just more driven by a disgust and negative viewpoint towards the whistleblowing organization. The fact that information was damaging to not only the United States, but also all of NATO should not be discounted and dismissed as run of the mill. Moreover, further evidence (or correctly to be safe, the possible of further evidence) of how Pakistan and their intelligence are basically undermining all the money and aid we give them still is always essential for the tax playing public to be cognizant of. Unless of course you are the folks in the Obama Administration and the Pentagon, incensed once again by Wikileaks messing up any positive PR mojo from insane wars. It's no wonder why Julian Assange continues to be the most wanted man by...

One of the biggest war leaks in the history of the United States military. Digest that massive statement : A huge cache of secret US military files today provides a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency. The disclosures come from more than 90,000 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the conflict obtained by the whistleblowers' website Wikileaks in one of the biggest leaks in US military history. The files, which were made available to the Guardian, the New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel , give a blow-by-blow account of the fighting over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 320 British and more than 1,000 US troops. With how they hate whistleblowers revealing information on how the government makes itse...

Yesterday, as most many know, Bradley Manning, the leaker to Wikileaks of the infamous US soldiers shouting Iraqi civilians, received criminal charges. The attack on whistleblowers from the Obama Administration is just as intense and reckless as if they were the Cheney/Bush Administration. And the brilliant and intrepid Jesselyn Radack has another massive post over at the Kos, talking about and reminding people how President Obama has clearly changed his stance on protecting whistleblowers like Manning and Tom Drake. Damaging : Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in performance. Barack Obama will stren...

As some of you may have heard last night, Wired.com's reporters Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter broke the story last night of the arrest of the man who provided Wikileaks video of the Collateral Damage 2007 Iraq video that made headlines a few months ago and embarrassed the US Military . SPC Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, was stationed at Forward Operating Base Hammer, 40 miles east of Baghdad, where he was arrested nearly two weeks ago by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. A family member says he’s being held in custody in Kuwait, and has not been formally charged. Manning was getting comparisons in the lines of the legendary Daniel Ellsburg. And quotes like this one highlight the pure element of "humanity" and the "human soul" in its most maximum effect: “If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?” Manning asked. The man that turned him in also has a telling persp...

After talking about this yesterday , Wikileaks broke the news on their Twitter page that Facebook will return their "fan page" with 30,000 fans back on the social protocol. As stated yesterday, Wikileaks "official page on Facebook" has never been tampered with. Meanwhile, King Mike is at it again , with his love of : Politico reported today that Mayor Mike trashed his longtime buddy Chuck Schumer at an April 12 meeting in Mitch McConnell's Senate office in Washington. The attack on Schumer, who supports the financial reform bill now before the Senate, is part of the oddest Bloomberg campaign yet -- his self-proclaimed crusade to protect Wall Street from even lackluster Obama regulation so they'll keep picking up the tab for our cops and firefighters. If you turned on Morning Joe Monday and Tuesday around 8, you were treated the first day to a somber but impenetrable lecture from Bloomberg about Washington's overreaching efforts to cook the city...

In the last development between tension between Wikileaks and Facebook (as well as Facebook's latest possible disturbing actions), the social protocol giant took down the "fan-generated" Wikileaks page that had 30,000 people on board and had been operating for a few years. For the moment however, the Wikileaks "Official Fan Page" on Facebook is still up. So unsurprisingly, Wikileaks tweeted about that 30,000 fan-generated page being taken down out of nowhere. In its usual snarky tone that can either make you love them or hate them, Gawker and their writer for this story in Adrian Chen points out the Facebook and Wikileaks acrimony from the past, highlighting the following episode in 2008. In short as you will see from the link , a Swiss bank named Julius Baer wanted to sue someone at Wikileaks for posting stolen documents of one of its clients. Since Wikileaks owners are basically specialist in being incognito and anonymous (up until the recent intervie...

The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Julian Assange www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News Last night produced a truly eye-popping moment in news television last night. Unsurprisingly, it came from "The Colbert Report", because no one outside of Olbermann, Maddow, and Stewart would do the interview that transpired last night in the corporate media. Surprisingly though, that eye popping moment had to deal with the usually euphoric host having an uncommon moment of not acting his humorous parodic way. Instead, his interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange brought out a serious side of him, trying to understand his interviewee in this standout secession. For the beginning of the interview, the usual snark and classic sarcasm was evident, especially when Colbert had his producers blurr his face instead of Assange. The fun times then suddenly came to a halt. I have to say that I agree with Greg Mitchell on t...

Looks like Centcom can't respond to Wikileaks with their own video The military’s footage of the slaying of two Reuters employees in Iraq may no longer be retrievable, a Centcom spokesperson confirms to me — which may generate further criticism of the handling of the whole affair. As you know, Wikileaks sparked a huge controversy by posting on YouTube a leaked video that shows the Reuters employees being gunned down by Army choppers in a 2007 attack. The video appeared to contradict the military’s earlier claim that the incident had happened during combat operations, and debate has been raging about the vid ever since. Subsequently, a military spokesman told the AP that it has been unable to locate its own copy of this footage. But in an interview with me, a spokesperson for Centcom went considerably farther, acknowledging it may no longer be accessible at all. This is important, because Centcom had hoped to match up its own footage with the leaked video before commenting ...

Because this ... ...Is more important than this :