TV News LIES

Eight Senate Democrats, including Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined Republicans in a vote to block President Obama's nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

"[Adegbile's] nomination was adamantly and vocally opposed by conservatives due to his participation in an appeal filed on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal— an internationally-known prisoner convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner."

The Senate vote was 47-52 against Adegbile's nomination.

Facebook is cracking down on gun-related posts.

The social media giant is blocking minors from seeing postings of gun sales and will take down sales that don't require a background check or cross state lines.

The change is a win for groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, which have been lobbying for more restrictive gun policies at businesses like Starbucks, Staples and now Facebook.

"On the same site that people are sharing birthday parties and family reunions,there are photos of AK-47s," says John Feinblatt, chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. "This is not in the bowels of Facebook. This is upfront, center and easy to access."

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled for British company BG Group Plc in its effort to reinstate a $185.3 million arbitration award against Argentina that a U.S. appeals court threw out.

On a 7-2 vote, the court said the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., did not show sufficient deference to arbitrators in deciding the case. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the majority.

The trial of three Al Jazeera English journalists jailed in Egypt has been adjourned until March 24 and the defendants remain in jail on charges of spreading false news and belonging to a "terrorist group."

Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, who have been held for more than two months, appeared in court for the second time on Wednesday when witnesses for the prosecution were heard.

More than half of U.S. hospitalized patients get an antibiotic and health officials say a strong antibiotic stewardship program is needed for all hospitals.

Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said antibiotics save lives, but poor prescribing practices are putting patients at unnecessary risk for preventable allergic reactions, super-resistant infections and deadly diarrhea.

Errors in prescribing decisions also contribute to antibiotic resistance, making these drugs less likely to work in the future, he said.

The CIA Inspector General’s Office has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations of malfeasance at the spy agency in connection with a yet-to-be released Senate Intelligence Committee report into the CIA’s secret detention and interrogation program, McClatchy has learned.

The criminal referral may be related to what several knowledgeable people said was CIA monitoring of computers used by Senate aides to prepare the study. The monitoring may have violated an agreement between the committee and the agency.

Since World War II – and extending well into the Twenty-first Century – the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list. Just last decade, there were full-scale U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus American bombing operations from Pakistan to Yemen to Libya.

So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine – at the behest of the country’s deposed president – is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?

Kerry decried the Russian intervention as “a Nineteenth Century act in the Twenty-first Century.” However, if memory serves, Sen. Kerry in 2002 voted along with most other members of the U.S. Congress to authorize President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003, which was also part of the Twenty-first Century. And, Kerry is a member of the Obama administration, which like its Bush predecessor, has been sending drones into the national territory of other nations to blow up various “enemy combatants.”

Every once in a while, I want to write a note,  roll it up, and jam it into a old milk bottle.  The scribbling part is easy.  The tough part comes when trying to decide where to deliver it.  There are not many outlets around willing to accept delivery on such a thing, and even fewer staff people able or interested enough to pay much attention to such a note, especially for one beginning this way:

"I see by the clock on the clubhouse wall, and by the full-faced frown on the burly, white-uniformed orderly I can't seem to shake, that it's time for a nice, hot cup of Thorazine and some phosphene therapy, staring off into space, my eyes shut tight..."