The Raw Story

A non-profit news blog, focused on providing independent journalism.

Monday, 31 August 2015

How the US Can Stop ISIS Without Setting Foot in Syria

Increasingly difficult to cover-up or spin, it is becoming apparent even in Western media coverage that the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) is not sustaining its fighting capacity from within Iraq or Syria, but rather through supply lines that lead to and from adjacent nations. These nations include Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and most obviously, NATO-member Turkey. It was in Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW)'s report, " 'IS'...

China Rocked By Another Massive Chemical Explosion, People's Daily Reports

Seriously, what the f##k is going on over there? *BLAST SEEN IN CHEM. IND. ZONE IN SHANDONG, CHINA: PEOPLES DAILY This is the second explosion in Shandong, which both follow the huge and deadly explosion in Tianjin. We'll await the details which we imagine will suggest that, as was the case in Tianjin, many more tonnes of something terribly toxic were stored than is allowed under China's regulatory regime which apparently only applies to those...

Mass Protests In Tokyo As Tens of Thousands Reject Controversial Security Bills

"Sitting in front of TV and just complaining wouldn't do," said Naoko Hiramatsu, a 44-year-old professor of French. "If I don't take action and try to put a stop on this, I will not be able to explain myself to my child in the future," she added, holding a four-year-old son in her arms. While the organizers estimated that some 120,000 people took part in the Sunday protests, the police provided a far lower figure of 30,000. Against the Grain The...

Ukraine Reignites - 1 Killed, 50 Injured After Grenade Attack On Parliament

Amid the Ukraine government's vote for constitutional changes to give its eastern regions a special status (that it hopes will blunt their separatist drive) protests have turned deadly as RT reports 50 Ukrainian nation guards have been injured in a greande blast near parliament in Kiev. *1 UKRAINE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN KILLED TODAY: INTERIOR MINISTER *UKRAINE NATIONAL GUARDSMAN WAS SHOT DEAD, MINISTER AVAKOV SAYS The clashes began earlier in the...

US considered nuking Afghanistan after 9/11 – German diplomat

U.S. President George Bush (2nd R) is pictured with Vice President Dick Cheney (R) and senior staff in the President's Emergency Operations Center in Washington in the hours following the September 11, 2001. © U.S. National Archives / Reuters A nuclear strike against Afghanistan was on the table in Washington in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, a senior German diplomat told Spiegel magazine. Western pullout could...

Sunday, 30 August 2015

Illinois Pays Lottery Winners In IOUs After $30K/Month Budget "Guru" Fails To Produce Deal

Much as Brazil is the poster child for the great EM unwind unfolding across emerging economies from LatAm to AsiaPac, Illinois is in many ways the mascot for America’s state and local government fiscal crisis.  Although well documented before, the state’s financial troubles were thrown into sharp relief in May when, on the heels of a state Supreme Court ruling that struck down a pension reform bid, Moody’s downgraded the city of Chicago to...

Egypt sentences 3 Al Jazeera reporters to 3 years in prison

Baher Mohamed, a journalist with Al Jazeera English, in the court room on Saturday in Cairo. Credit Asmaa Waguih/Reuters A judge in Egypt today delivered a verdict in the trial of three news reporters from Al Jazeera English. They are sentenced to three years in prison, on charges widely believed to be politically motivated and otherwise baseless. From the New York Times account: The verdict on Saturday was especially stunning because Egyptian...

Saturday, 29 August 2015

Joe Biden's Son Blames "Russian Agents" For Ashley Madison Profile

Last night we heard the best 'excuse' yet if you are caught with an Ashley Madison account, from Dan Loeb - "due diligence." Today, not to be outdone by a married hedge fund manager, Vice-President Joe Biden's son "Hunter" has unleashed his own set of excuses for member ship of the extramarital affairs website, as Breitbart reports  - Biden thinks international agents, possibly Russian, who objected to his board membership with a Ukrainian...

VIDEO: Cop Slams Mom’s Face to the Ground as She Dropped Her Kids Off at School Over Tinted Plate Cover

Tampa, FL — As Liz Vargas was walking her daughter into school on November 5, officer Kevin Fitzpatrick heroically swooped in to protect the citizens of Tampa from Vargas’ tinted license plate cover. Not having done anything wrong, and upset that she was being harassed in front of her children, Vargas voiced her discontent. “Then  because I was in my pj’s he called me bummy, and he accused me of illegal drugs, that’s why I got argumentative,”...

The One Chart The Military-Industrial Complex Is Hoping Mean Reverts

While most of the world will be hoping the following chart never (ever) mean-reverts to its previous historically devastating highs, there is one group that is 'banking' on it... The Military-Industrial Complex... Source: @MaxCRoser Of course, as Ron Paul recently explained recently, the current enemy of choice is Russia: "The people have to have the propaganda convert them into someone they hate, so they can hate...so you had to have a Saddam...

Friday, 28 August 2015

The Police: Our Enemies in Blue?

Kristian Williams is not a big fan of the police. His book Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America, published by the ridiculously badass AK Press breaks it down like this: “Let’s begin with the basics: violence is an inherent part of policing. The police represent the most direct means by which the state imposes its will on the citizenry. They are armed, trained, and authorized to use force. Like the possibility of...

Thursday, 27 August 2015

Fake Goldman Sachs bank found in China

A Goldman Sachs (Shenzhen) Financial Leasing Company was found operating in the country without any connection to the US investment giant. “We don’t have any connection with the US Goldman Sachs, we just picked the name out, and it’s not intentionally the same,” a woman who answered the company’s listed phone number told AFP. The company uses the same Chinese characters, gao sheng, as the real Goldman Sachs, and its English font...

AP Sues FBI Over Impersonating An AP Reporter With A Fake AP Story

It later came out that the way the FBI used this was an undercover agent pretended to be an AP reporter and sent the suspect -- a 15 year old high school kid... -- a "draft" of the article to review. And when the kid opened it, the malware was deployed. In response to this, FBI director James Comey defended the practice , saying that it was legal "under Justice Department and FBI guidelines at the time" and, furthermore, that this bit of deception...

Chinese Man Jumps From 17th Floor In First Stock Market Casualty

 It appears the collapse of China's stock market has officially taken its first victim. While we have heard fromdesperate farmers who lost everything after realizing that making money in stocks is not easier than farmwork, RT reports that a 57-year-old man has allegedly committed suicide in Shenyang, the largest city in Liaoning Province, by jumping off the 17th floor of a building with a black briefcase "full of stock-related materials," local...

India just turned off mobile internet for 63 million citizens amid protests in Ahmedabad

Restricting access to internet services isn’t the answer to such issues. Indian politicians need to encourage public debate and participation in creating policies that ensure equal opportunities for everyone. Mobile internet services have been blocked in the Indian state of Gujarat (home to nearly 63 million people), following violent protests led by the Patel community after one of its leaders was detained by local police in Ahmedabad. 22-year-old...

Social Media Study Reveals Half Of Americans Hate Their Police Dept.

With the rise of digital technology, it has become easier and easier to document the transgressions of state enforcers like police – so it is no surprise that according to a social media analysis by drug treatment and awareness website drugabuse.com, almost half of Americans hate their local police department. The study found that a little over 47 percent of Americans gave their police precinct a grade of D or F with states like Arkansas,...

Total War in Yemen Totally Ignored by Western Media

With almost a whimper, the Western media reported that the US-backed regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their auxiliary fighters drawn from Al Qaeda have begun carrying out what is the ground invasion of Yemen. Along with an ongoing naval blockade and months of bombing raids, the ground invasion adds a lethal new dimension to the conflict – for both sides. Landing at the port city of Aden on Yemen’s southern tip, it is...

Wednesday, 26 August 2015

What If The "Crash" Is as Rigged as Everything Else?

Take your pick--here's three good reasons to engineer a "crash" that benefits the few at the expense of the many. There is an almost touching faith that markets are rigged when they loft higher, but unrigged when they crash. Who's to say this crash isn't rigged? A few things about this "crash" (11% decline from all time highs now qualifies as a "crash") don't pass the sniff test. Exhibit 1: VIX volatility Index soars to "the world is ending"...

Feds Go Door-To-Door To Inform Gun Owners Rights Not Absolute

Thank God criminals follow laws – otherwise we might be in trouble. This has always been the traditional attitude of government in regards to gun restrictions. It is important to note that everybody believes in gun rights. – It is just a question of who has those rights. So-called “gun-control supporters” don’t support the absence of guns in society, they support gun ownership being monopolized and centralized in the hands of the state and their...

Cops Shoot Man 'Holding Rifle,' Turns Out To Be Car Jack

 The Bakersfield Police Department said the man fatally shot last weekend by an officer appeared to have a rifle, which turned out to be a car jack. Jason Lee Alderman, 29, was shot to death by an officer at a Subway restaurant. According to the department, a two-officer patrol unit heard breaking glass during an unrelated investigation. The broken glass was from the front door of the Subway, and a white BMW was backed up to the...

What If Your Naked Eye Could See Wifi Signals?

  I was reading earlier this morning about these parents suing their child’s boarding school in Massachusetts over their use of supposedly too strong wi-fi signals which they say are harming his health, causing nausea and nosebleeds. The parents claim that their 12-year-old son suffers from Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome, a condition which is aggravated by electromagnetic radiation, even batteries. It’s what Michael McKean’s...

North Dakota Becomes First State to Legalize Drones Weaponized with Tasers, Tear Gas, Rubber Bullets & Sound Canons

It is now legal for law enforcement in North Dakota to fly drones armed with everything from Tasers to tear gas thanks to a last-minute push by a pro-police lobbyist.  With all the concern over the militarization of police in the past year, no one noticed that the state became the first in the union to allow police to equip drones with “less than lethal” weapons. House Bill 1328 wasn’t drafted that way, but then a lobbyist representing...

US Military Now Has Authority to “Capture and Punish” Journalists Who they Deem “Belligerent

  Washington, D.C. — Newly adopted Department of Defense guidelines will allow military commanders to “punish journalists” and treat them as “unprivileged belligerents.” The DoD’s 1,180 page Law of War Manual outlines provisions for military commanders to violate the rights of journalists who they disagree with in vaguely written legal speak. According to the Associated Press: The Law of War manual, updated to apply for the first...

Virginia police say they found killer using license plate reader

This morning, the nation was horrified to discover that a Virginia local news reporter was shot dead, along with her cameraman, on live television. Hours later police released the name of the man they suspected as the killer. This afternoon, apparently after a police chase, the suspected killer shot himself and died. Now one journalist is reporting that the police searching for the suspect found him by using an automated license plate reader....

Literary Magazines for Socialists Funded by the CIA, Ranked

In May of 1967, a former CIA officer named Tom Braden published a confession in theSaturday Evening Post under the headline, “I’m glad the CIA is ‘immoral.’” Braden confirmed what journalists had begun to uncover over the previous year or so: The CIA had been responsible for secretly financing a large number of “civil society” groups, such as the National Student Association and many socialist European unions, in order to counter...
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